Nicaragua

*written June 24, 2008 - copied from www.maggienicaragua.blogspot.com

My past week has been spent revamping the Quinchos library, which included about 200 books enclosed in wooden bookcases, within a small, well lit room. The books were completely disorganized when I arrived, lacking labeled sections or easy access. I saw great potential in“La Biblioteca” and realized so much more could be accomplished beyond buying new books (what it was before we reorganized can be seen to the left).

The librarian, DonaIvana (also my host mother), has been laid back yet excited about my ideas. She has allowed Rose (another Haverford Student) and I to completely reorganize and structure her space. The three of us ventured to Managua to buy posters for the walls, school supplies, and of course, books! (Thank you so much to those who helped me raise the funding for this project. It made all the difference!) We bought an insurmountable number of books, most of which have been read/or looked at by the children as of now.

Rose and I spent two full days, a total of about 16 work hours, sorting, piling, and categorizing the books, the old along with the new. We created categories such as History, Social Sciences, Geography, How to do Things Section, Sports, Math, Science (with sub-sections of Geology, Astronomy, Chemistry, Biology, etc). An entire book case was devoted to children´s books, organized by level of difficulty.

Amongst our organizing were curious children mixing up our piles and occasionally asking for advice on what to read, or “what is this?” (To the left are many of the new books we bought and below is a photo of the organizing process.)

The final result was better than I could have ever imagined. We hung up the posters, put the finishing touches on the library (cleaning, straightening etc), and watched as the kids walked in after school, all of whom marveled at the posters and newfound brightness the room. It is now easy to seek out books from the various sections and the children are more engaged by the light atmosphere. A success!

About 1/3 of the money I raised remains, and now that we have reorganized the library into sections, and have a better idea of the contents, we can spend the rest of the money on the three or four sections that are lacking. It is interesting, in Nicaragua the children do not have their own copies of text books. They travel to school every day, listen to their teachers lecture from the selected textbooks, and are expected to complete their homework without any references.

Many of the Quinchos are fresh off the streets, so they are unable to read or write proficiently. Luckily, the library has taken notice of this issue and has proceeded to buy some of the books that the children use in school for their access during library hours. The library funding from my family and friends has provided about half of the textbooks the library holds, and we are planning to purchase more in the following week.

*copied from www.maggienicaragua.blogspot.com

It’s hard to imagine life outside the United Statets, and I was far from imagining my current situation before I left the country. I share my small bedroom with DonaIvania, my homestay mother, and her daughter Leonela. In the living room is another bed where two of DonaIvana’s sons sleep, and in the other bedroom sleeps her oldest son. I find it hard to believe that her fourth son and his wife recently lived here (they recently moved West Virginia).

Water is only available from 8 p.m.- 6 a.m. so my family fills large vats with water to use the next day. The toilet is also un-flushable, so one needs to pour a small bucket of water rather swiftly into the front of the toilet, and down go the contents. We forget how lucky we are to have running water at all hours, and it rarely crosses our minds how much water we waste by showering with running water. I usually take bucket showers, because it is too cold to shower past eight at night.

I have grown very accustomed to all these differences, and feel it will be hard to readjust to the ways of the United States. Food is another topic I find very different here. Many Nicaraguans eat rice and beans for breakfast, or a mix of the two called Gallopinto. It is great the first few times, but after a few weeks one becomes very tired of this delicacy (but I should try not eating for a few days, as many people here do not, and then see how great Gallopinto seems). Chicken and white rice are the signature lunch and dinner items, and a mango from the tree in the back yard serves for dessert.

Peanut butter, jam, butter, etc are all too expensive for the normal Nicaraguan family to afford. The only reason I eat toast and peanut butter for breakfast is because I buy it myself to share with my family. Refrigerators are also hard to come by. My family has one that currently doesn’t work, so they buy the food they need daily, including milk. Fruit is also very expensive, although Nicaragua produces a lot of such things.

Snacking doesn’t really exist here, so one is always good and hungry for the next meal. For this reason, I find rice and beans very tasty!

*This is all copied from www.maggienicaragua.blogspot.com 

I arrived in Masaya on Monday evening, and have since been working on a website for the Consumers Defense Association of Masaya (ACODEMA). You can read about their work in earlier entries: Consumer Rights & Their Violation, and Miceofinance: Why it (Sometimes) Just Doesn´t Work.

Roger Lecayo, the President of ACODEMA, met me at the bus and showed me around Masaya. Everyone knew him and greeted him cordially as we passed. When we went to dinner and tried to pay the check, the owner refused to charge him. I got a discount at my hostel for being affiliated with the organization.

Masaya is a lovely city, and has an aesthetic character somewhat like that of Estelí: small and charming, but still a city. It´s charming, friendly, and colorful. However, it isn´t otherwise much like Estelí. In two days here, I´ve met more anti-Sandinistas than I ever could have imagined existed in the whole country, and have seen more street children sniffing glue than there were shoeless kids in all of Estelí.

On Tuesday I arrived at the ACODEMA office preceeded by about twenty citizens seeking help to present their claims against Unión Fenosa, the Spanish company that is the sole distributor of electricity in Nicatagua.

One woman had been billed in June for three times as much electricity as she had used in the preceeding months of this year. She had apparently not acquired any new appliances, nor had she used her existing appliances more than usual.

Another women had arranged a payment schedule with Unión Fenosa previously, but the payment schedule that the company had agreed upon was not honored, and her electricity had been cut. There were as many other complaints as there were poeple in the ACODEMA office, and we all went to Unión Fenosa to get it straightened out.

We waited for 30 minutes before anyone saw us. Roger went into the office with each of the distressed customers individually to give them support and representation in presenting their claim. All were resolved.

¨That seemed easy enough,¨ I said.

¨They respond to ACODEMA representatives,¨ he explained. ¨They know we know our rights and we won´t allow them to be violated. When people contact Unión Fenosa they simply don´t respond. So we go with them and demand a response. And nine out of ten times we win, because their claims are well-founded.¨

I understood, suddenly, why Roger and other ACODEMA staff are so popular in Masaya.

It is my last day in Estelí. It is also the day of nationwide liberation of Nicaragua. Most of my family is in Managua celebrating the holiday’s 29^th anniversary, but I stayed behind to pack and say good-bye to the city that, if I weren’t already a ride-or-die New Yorker, would have stolen my heart completely.

Estelí had its liberation day last Wednesday, July 16^th. After Matagalpa, Estelí was the first city to overcome the National Guard in 1979 and be liberated by the Sandinista Army. The Dictator Somoza held on to the capital, Managua, until the 19^th, when he fled to Miami, where he was granted asylum by the United States government, which had funded the terrorism of Somoza’s National Guard.

Apparently, the Somoza government’s plan was to stay in power until 1980, when the U.S. would have a presidential election and, they suspected, a new U.S. government would grant even more military and other aid to the Somoza dictatorship. They were right. Reagan won, but it was too late for Somoza and his cronies. The Sandinistas triumphed that July.

It was a short-lived triumph. Reagan cut off all aid to the newly liberated, people-led Nicaragua, and funded the Contra army to devastate any democracy or social services the Sandinistas had established in Nicaragua after 1979. For more post-1979 history, see blog entries from June, “A Brief History of Nicaragua” and especially “An Amended and Extended Nicaraguan History.”

I went to get my sandals and workbag repaired today. The repairman I met is deaf, but through my slow, bad, desperate efforts to sign (alphabet and makeshift gestures only) I managed to explain what I needed. He asked me where I was from, and I spelled out U-N-I-T-E-D S-T-A-T-E-S until I realized that those letters do not create words in Spanish. So then I spelled out A-M-E-R-I-C-A and he understood. It was only later that I realized I used the sign for “X” instead of “R” so I effectively spelled out A-M-E-X-I-C-A. I was worried he thought I was Mexican until he charged me an unmistakably gringa price. He signed, “hungry,” so I didn’t negotiate. Well, at least I have a pair of shoes with soles.

Tomorrow I’m going to Masaya to work with the consumer-rights organization ACODEMA for my last two weeks in Nicaragua. Their work, and why it’s so important, is described in June’s blog entries: “Consumer Rights and their Violation,” and “Microfinance: Why It (Sometimes) Just Doesn’t Work.”

I called Roger Lecayo, the director of ACODEMA, to tell him I would be in Masaya to start work on Monday. He said to just go to the ACODEMA office from the bus stop. I don’t know where it is, of course.

“Well, just ask someone,” he said. “It’s not far from the bus station.”

“OK, no problem, Señor Lecayo. Thanks so much and see you Monday!”

“Wait!” he exclaimed. “Make sure you don’t ask a police officer.”

“OK.” In two months in Nicaragua, I can count the number of police officers I’ve seen on one hand. Using two fingers.

“But don’t ask anyone who might work for Union Fenosa either, or anyone who… actually, just call me when your bus arrives, and I’ll come and get you.”

Of course. This is, after all, the man who said he has to look over his shoulder and go home by a different route every day due to the nature of his work.

Corporations are even scarier in Nicaragua than they are in the U.S. Unless you’ve seen “The Insider.”

I woke up a few nights ago to a gunshot, and another one, in quick succession. I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a car backfiring, since that’s what I try to convince myself it is at night in New York. But the hour, and the screaming that followed it, assured me that I wasn’t mistaken, and assured that I wouldn’t fall back asleep for quite a while.

The shots and screaming masses were right outside our front door. Twenty minutes later, there was another shot, and the screaming masses dispersed.

The next day I asked my Nica grandmother what had gone on the previous night.

“I heard shots,” I said.

“Oh, well there is a member of one gang on the right side corner of our street, one from another on the left corner, and then the member of the third gang is just across the street. They’re a bunch of troublemakers.”

“With guns?”

“No the police came and shot into the air one time to break up the fight.”

“I heard three shots.”

“Oh. Well… the police fired three shots then.” And the conversation was over.

Later my fourteen year-old sister said, “The big fight is tonight.”

Oh God.

My work at the Estelí Library, Acción Ya, and Radio Cumiches ended today. I´m headed to Masaya this weekend to work for my final two weeks with Roger Lecayo and the consumer rights organization ACODEMA, which I wrote about in a previous entry. If you´re interested, look up the entry about Consumer Rights & Microfinance.

The theater workshop ended up being more of a general after school program for the neighborhood kids, but we had a wonderful time! Here are some pictures of our work, and our last day together… we made certificates of accomplishment, and piñatas!

Yesterday (July 16th) was the 29th anniversary of the liberation of Estelí. I didn´t have work so I went out Tuesday night to a vigil to remember the revolutionaries who died in the war to get Somoza out in the 70´s.

As it turns out, ¨vigília,¨ which I thought meant ¨vigil,¨ actually means block party. The whole city was there, and there was live music and dancing and a lot of fun. It was fun because I knew some of the songs and sang along and that felt good, because I really felt it being American this week. It wasn´t because people treated me badly at all, but because a lot of their struggle and the deaths and suffering they´re remembering today would have been avoided if the United States had cared more about the Nicaraguan people and less about money and control. I couldn´t help remembering that, and wishing things had been different.

On Wednesday I went to a parade and the rally, where Daniel Ortega spoke. He says a lot of stuff that sounds very ideal, and he seems really passionate. It´s really too bad that he doesnt put his policies or the government´s money where his mouth and his ¨heart¨ allegedly is.
At the celebration, there was no recognition that Nicaragua still has any problems and a lot of poverty… it was all, ¨We suffered for years and years of war, first against Somoza, then against the Contras and the yankee imperialists, until 1990 when all of our problems went away forever!¨

But Violeta Chamorro was President in the 1990s and she only won because Nicaraguans couldnt keep fighting theUS so they elected the US-backed candidate who was not a very good leader or person… so it was kind of bizarre, but super fun to be there anyway. I guess on the 4th of July (before Bush was President at least) we didn´t spend our evening lamenting our country´s problems, but remembering how much worse it was, and how we overcame.

The rally was so lively! People are crazy in Nicaragua: they were yelling and dancing and drinking and jumping around and singing and cheering and waving flags and generally going nuts. It was the kind of crowd I´ve never experienced anywhere else, and it was really fun to be there!

AUGUSTO CÉSAR SANDINO - Father of the Nicaraguan Revolution

Assassinated by Dictator Anastasio Somoza on February 21, 1934

So I am now in my eighth week here in Nicaragua and am just posting for the first time.  To be honest, Dina has done such a wonderful job keeping you all updated, that it has been easy to defer to her.  Despite that, this post is overdue, and I apologize.  I have been having such an amazing time here at Mama Licha´s Clinic in Estelí that I find it hard to put my life here on pause to write everything down.

Looking back on the weeks I have been here, it is hard to imagine that I have been here for so long, yet in the grand scheme of things, so little time.  When I first arrived here in Nicaragua I was really unsure what my place was here, where I could see myself fitting in.  How could I justify coming in for just two and a half months–a bit longer than a vacation, but by no means a life.  I experienced all the questions I had been told that I would experience, yet they still felt unbearably pressing.  They seemed to dominate the work I did and the interactions I had with Nicaraguans.  I felt as if I had to answer them in order to make my summer productive and worthwhile.

The weeks have gone by and while I am still unsure exactly the answer to my questions (and the million others that have come since), I do know my favorite bakery here in Estelí, the woman down the street says “adios” as I walk by, and little Miguel my host sibling has stopped hitting me (which is apparently an accomplishment for him) and now draws me a new picture daily.

And I have also found a place for myself with my work.  I am creating newsletters for Juntos Adelante–the umbrella organization that helps to fund Mama´s–scraping up new donors, and whenever something interesting is happening, I tag along in the clinic.  Over the past weeks that has meant assisting a doc from Chicago as she performed 60+ colposcopies (cervical biopsies) in three days, writing up patient histories, and going on a Sandanista medical brigade to the outlying community of Condega.  Also, on the 7th of this month a group of Yale Nursing students and their preceptors (Angie and Bethany, the founders of Juntos Adelante and Family Nurse Practitioner and Certified Nurse Midwife, respectively) arrived for their community health rotation here in Estelí.  It has been great to sit in on their conversations and hear their medical stories!  Furthermore, having Angie and Bethany around has helped me to focus my work and to determine what will best serve the clinic and their mission of sustainable healthcare for all Nicaraguans.  (To read more about Mama´s Clinic and Juntos Adelante, check out www.mamasclinic.org and www.juntosadelante.org!)

So, I still haven´t answered my own questions about what my work “means” or even what my role is, but as I have tried to answer these questions, I have found a space for myself and am falling in love with this country, faults and all.  Like every worthwhile experience, it´s hard and sometimes exasperating; sometimes I hate it, sometimes I love it; sometimes I just want some homemade macaroni and cheese.  But then there´s those days where I feel productive, I have a conversation in which I feel my Spanish is intelligible, I make someone smile, or Nora, my host mom/sister, brings me arroz con leche (my Nicaraguan comfort food) and everything fits.  And it´s in those moments that I realize that the questions may not be answered and that may be alright, because I am making small changes and Nicaragua has transformed my life.

On the way back from León on Sunday we sat in the last row of the bus, behind what looked like a couple - or rather, they sat in front of us. The man, who was remarkably unattractive, was stroking the woman´s hair. He put his face right up to hers, which was turned away from him towards the window. She kept turning even farther away from him, putting her head down to escape him, and then he gravved her by the back of her head and kissed her. She was shaking. He grabbed the rest of her and forced her into his arms, and he grabbed her breasts, and other lower parts of her body. She grabbed the back of her headrest with one hand, and the seatback in front of her with the other, and pulled herself away from him and his violating hands.

¨You know, we´re in public,¨I finally said in Spanish. He ignored me, though I´m sure he heard, and forced her hands lower on his body.

If this is how he acts in public, I can´t imagine what he does to her in private. The men sitting infront of them realized what was going on, and did nothing.

I wanted to give her a hundred dollars and tell her to run. But I didn´t.

What could her situation be, that she is with this horrible man? Is he her fiancée? What could her families´situation be, that they would allow her to stay in such an abusive relationship?

Two hours after we got off the bus, as I wrote this, I was still shaking.

What is this world we live in? What can we do?

Go to pronica.org/donate and earmark your donation for the Acahualinca Women´s Center

It all started when I got lost, walking to the library where I work every day. Directions were never my fortê, but luckily a wise bearded man once told me that you´re not lost unless you think you´re lost. So I kept walking in what I knew was probably the wrong direction, and then I suddenly came upon a sign:

ACTION ALREADY!
Investigative Center for Women´s Assistance
Hostel for victims of domestic violence

I walked past it alhamdulallahing, and then stopped in my tracks, wondering why I was passing by. I turned around, took a deep breath, and walked in.

¨Hi I´m Dina I come from the United States and I go to a university for just women and I am interested in women´s rights I saw something on the bus yesterday that upset me because a woman was being maltreated by her fiancèe and I want to work with you since I´m here in Esteli as a volunteer I work at the library but you know they have a lot of resources so I´m looking for other organizations to work with I can make you a website or a publication and try to raise some money or do anything maybe talk with the women I don´t know but you do can you tell me about what you do?¨

And then I was out of breath. And I did present myself that clumsily, in that single run-on paragraph (my creative writing classmates won´t be surprised) because I knew if I shut up for one second I would forget my Spanish and begin stumbling about while standing still and they would think I was a mess and wouldn´t want me to work with them.

I kind of was a mess, I was so excited, so desperate for someone to explain to me that there is help for abused women here.

When I had said my piece, I held my breath. I had to work with them. I had to do whatever I could to make them money, to reach out to more women, like that woman on the bus, who I should have … should have done something for.

The woman I spoke with, a brilliant and compassionate Lawyer named Rosa, invited me to sit down beside her.

¨We are a women´s help center, working with women who have experienced domestic physical and psychological abuse. We encourage women to leave their abusers and come here to our safe house to get help. We have psychologists, social workers, doctors, lawyers, security personnel, and teachers here for the women. We have group and individual therapy, and a solidarity group made up of former victims of domestic abuse who we have worked with. The women who were formerly abused, and had no self-esteem are now leaders. They aren´t afraid anymore; they go out in teams to the barrios and encourage maltreated women to come here and get help.¨

The office I walked into was the safehouse for the women who had just taken the step to leave their abusers. Rosa explained, ¨They stay there and attend therapy, get medical attention, human warmth and care, the feeling that they aren´t alone in this. And…¨she paused. ¨We keep them on suicide watch. It´s really hard to take this step in Nicaragua. Women often think it´s normal to be abused. They think they deserve it, that it´s their fault. We´re open 24/7 to deal with emergencies at any time. We always have a security team. We don´t hide here, we´re into outreach. I can´t tell you how many drunk abusers have shown up on our doorstep. But their wives don´t even know when they´re here. That´s how protected they are in our safehouse.¨

Acción Ya lawyers have helped many women win divorce cases and custody of their children, so they can begin a new life without abuse.

When a woman is ready to leave the womens center, Acción Ya staff visit the woman and her children in their new home at regular intervals to ensure they are doing well. Acción Ya provides each woman with a micro-credit loan and qualitative support to begin her new, independent life.

ALHAMDULALLAH.

They enthusiastically agrees to let me do their website and work on publications for them. They also invited me to go and talk with the women, and I´d like to take them to the library to show them how to use computers and internet. This is all moving at Nica pace, so we haven´t a schedule yet, but I have faith.

After all, just when I thought I was lost, I found what I was looking for.