Skillz

I did it! I have picture uploading, website creating, direction following skilllzzz. If you click on the link to the right, I believe you will find a few pics. Now that I know how to do it, I hope to have some more up soon. Love you all!
Bree

Little House in the Barrio

Greetings again after a couple of weeks off from blog writing. I’ve been thinking about what I might include in this entry because for now at least, the travel adventures have slowed down and I’m getting more of a taste of the day to day Nica life (that’s what Nicaraguans called themselves…Nicas). For those of you in the states, I envy your ability to walk outside and enjoy the fall-time. There are two seasons here, rainy and dry. Right now we are entering the thickest part of the rainy season and I miss the changing leaf colors and beauty of the fall. You’ll have to share your fall-time stories with me.

Probably the biggest change for me over the past 2 weeks is that I moved off of the CDCA property and into a home with a nearby Nica family. I am living with a 50-something woman named Gloria, and her 2 twenty-something daughters. This has surely been the best part yet of being in Nicaragua because I feel so much closer to the people and the culture. The house is about a 10 minute walk away and I moved in about 2 weeks ago. My room is in the back of their house….I have to walk through the chicken yard to get to my room and I have an outdoor bathroom that is also back there. I couldn’t really be more pleased because the room is just separated enough to give me some privacy but I still get to eat and hang out and watch soap operas and political shows with the family. Gloria is super chatty and actually has been very involved in the community and in politics in Nicaragua. She only graduated from elementary school but she is a fireball and I love to just sit and have her talk my head off about politics. When I walked in the first day, I had to smile at the three pictures that made up the decorations on one livingroom wall…a portrait of Fidel Castro, A portrait of Che Guevarra, and a precious moments poster of the Lord’s Prayer…so Nicaragua. The first couple of nights in the house were rough. With all the cats fighting on the tin roof, I almost never fell asleep. Then, around 3 am the roosters started cockadoodle-doodling, and then I had to pee so bad but couldn’t because the evil dog Natasha was growling at me when I tried to walk across the yard to the bathroom. So, although an empy Gatorade bottle I found in my bag did help with the peeing thing…there was little sleep to be had. Let me just mention that Natasha always has a broken rope about 2 feet long around her neck that just drags behind her…eeks. Also, whoever made up the terribly inaccurate rumor that the rooster crows at dawn, has obviously never slept anywhere near a rooster. The truth is that the rooster starts crowing whenever the hell it wants (but usually around 3 am)…and will not shut up until it wants…or someone makes it into a soup. I recently got some earplugs which have worked like a charm but now the new challenge is finding an alarm strong enough to penetrate them at 7am.

Being in the homestay also has brought me much closer to some of the real issues that Nicaraguans are facing now, issues that are important to them in the upcoming presidential elections. Right now electricity and water are big issues…basically there is hardly ever any of either. The electricity is usually out for most of the day, and often comes on around 6pm, goes back out around 7pm, comes back on around 9pm, and may stick around for some of the night. The water on the other had…generally comes only about 11pm and stays for a few hours. So, that directly translates to a lot of water conservation, lots of filling up buckets in the night, and also limited toilet flushing (if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down). I’m taking bucket showers and reading by candle light…I’m kind of like Laura Ingles Wilder….starring in Little House in the Barrio. Speaking of candlelight…it’s amazing how much a candle actually does light up a room…we only use them for smelly reasons in the US but here, when it’s completely black for miles…you light one little candle and the whole house is visible again…it’s pretty cool.

Nicaragua is truly a fascinating place, while there have been a lot of personal hard times already, times when I doubt that I am doing anyhting here but getting in the way, I think I can say with moderate conviction that I am indeed learning (something) and becoming a better person. Perhaps the overarching, overwhelming “slap you in the face” reality of my time here so far has been how different “national sovereignty” looks and feels from the point of view of a developing country. Nicaragua is the 2^nd poorest nation in the western hemisphere, and although in their past they have seen brutal dictators, socialist revolutionary government, US marine occupation, and neo-liberal democratic governments…things haven’t changed all that much for the people who make up this country. Something like 78% of the people are still living on $2 or less a day. The US is heavily heavily involved here, although we may pass a whole year in the US without ever seeing a snippet on the news about Nicaragua. With Nicaraguan presidential elections coming up in November, the US is putting the pressure on the Nicaraguan people to vote for a candidate that will be acceptible to the US. The US ambassador is in the news daily threatening (or “giving advice to”) the people about the way to vote. Two US senators visited last week, Donald Rumsfeld is here right now (for a meeting of regional Secretaries of Defense). Some of the threats have been that if Nicaraguans don’t vote the way the US wants, the US will cut aid to this country. Also, the US will have to “reconsider” the immigration status of millions of Nicaraguans living in the US (and sending home millions of dollars to their families). All this under the guise of “democracy promotion.” Think about that irony…promoting democracy is not done by threatening people how to vote...that’s democracy manipulation. Also, I’m no expert…but in my international law class I’m pretty sure that it’s clearly stated that foreign diplomats are not allowed to interfere in local elections…but we all know international law is a joke for the US. Just in case you want a breakdown on candidates for the election in November, here it is.

Daniel Ortega: FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front). Leader of the 1980’s revolution. The US is real scared of this guy…he’s in the boat with Chavez, Evo Morales (Bolivia) and Lulu (Brazil). US threats are almost entirely toward him. He is the front-runner in the poles right now. He has changed and sold out quite a bit since the revolution which has lost him a lot of traditional Sandinista supporters but has also gained him some more moderate votes.

Edmundo Jarquin: MRS (Movement for the Renovation of Sandinismo) This party is made up of former Sandinista’s and other break-off groups that think the FSLN is corrupt and sold out. I like this guy….so does my Nica family. He goes by the name “el feo” (the ugly) because he is kind of ugly.

Rizo and Montealegre: PLC and ALN: Two similar neo-liberal candidates with similar platforms and promises to bring jobs bla bla bla…more of the same shit as now….but the US like them.

One other dude with 1% of the vote…not a real issue.

So there…sorry if you didn’t want that…but I was talking to my brother lastnight and he gave me hope that people might actually like to know. Just in case you wanna dig in more, a really good engligh website is http://www.enviomag.com.ni/

What else….still trotting along around here. I have recently found so much joy in a Barbara Kingsolver book I’m reading called Prodigal Summer. It’s set in Kentucky and has so many references to places so close to home for me…the Hunt Morgan House, Euclid Street, Franklin County etc. Besides it being a beautiful book, it has been so good for me to get my head out of fiery Nicaraguan politics for a while. I also finished a book called Confessions of an Economic Hitman, which was really awesome and tuched on a lot of development issues…if you read it be prepared to be depressed though (unless you’re a jerk).

Lastnight I mentioned to my host family that I really missed riding my bike but that the Americans here told me it was dangerous to ride one here. They told me that was hogwash…and as long as I stick to good roads and daylight, I’ll be fine. So they let me borrow an old beat-up cruiser bike they had in the garage. Today I brought it to work and asked one of the construction dudes if he could fix it up. I should have paid attention to Ben and Shane’s bicycle tinkering a little more...they tried plenty of times to teach me. Oh well, now I’m paying for it.

So, this ends the blog entry that is so far the longest, least perky, most opinionated, and most unlikely to be read in its entirety. I am working on adding pictures in that shutterfly link to the right. Check back periodically and see if I’ve had any success. Thanks for keeping up with me. Love you all,

Bree