We're back, had a heck of an interesting vacation.
If anyone is interested here are the snaps:
http://flickr.com/ph...57594574198188/
=======================
Here's the texts of various e-postcards we sent while there to family and friends...
==========================
Since several of you wanted to know re. Nicaragua how it compares with
Cuba...the first thing you notice when you get off the plane in Managua
is that Cubans have fee dental care. Nicas don’t.
The second thing you notice is that even in town, most people under the age of 15 or so don’t have or don’t wear shoes.
Next you notice that the bellhop at your hotel is wearing a holster
with a largish revolver in it. So does the pool guy and at least one of
the waiters (the room service guy I think, his job is riskier than
working tables).
Not far from where I am sitting right now is Mercado Oriental (Eastern Market). Anyone for a live hand grenade as a souvenir?
Perhaps an AKM or an Uzi¿ No joke. Live and not a paperweight.
Our hotel out on the Pacific coast was quite nice, wonderful view right on the beach. Very nice food, though no hot water etc.
Poverty here reminds me of India. Immense wealth right next to people
who clearly have one set of clothes and no more. Geri and I spent a
pleasant afternoon in the shade with beer a few days ago looking at a
house that would not be out of place in Forest Hill in Toronto,
surrounded by a wall topped with 3-4 rows of razor wire, a sentry in a
concrete box with an assault rifle, and dozens of houses made from
sticks and plastic sheeting, sharing an outhouse that was four sticks
wrapped with one garbage bags for privacy and a broken pipe and concrete
bowl for water.
¨Pleasant¨ in that we were imagining living below the ´big house´ plotting robbery, arson, and murder.
:-) sort of, but after three beers and watching life there...
Big chunks of even Managua like that too. Only corrugated iron and zinc rather than plastic.
Lots and lots of guns. Our hotel here in Managua has a law firm next door.
It has a guardbox at the entrance. A nice man with a general-purpose
machine gun in it. This on a main street in a fairly ritzy district.
I’d like to think it’s the result of Nicas sharing my attitude towards the
legal profession, but I suspect it’s more generalized than that. :-)
On the up side, though they have clearly made huge compromises to get
back in office, the Sandinistas just announced that they are making
schooling mandatory and free again. Something it hasn’t been since they
lost the 1990 election. So the hordes of kids on the street may have a
place to go, though the opposition Liberal Constitutional Party is
saying this can’t be afforded and that after 16 years of fees and the
´freedom’ not to send your kids to school there aren’t enough school
places.
Oh, and the really cheery bit on the kid front, other than the appalling
mortality rate and the fact that abortion for any reason was made
illegal just before the elections, about 20 % of the under-5 population
suffers from rickets or some other nutritional condition.
One last downer before I sign off and come back in a few days with some
of the positive things that sink in after you meet and talk with
people...this place seems to be for US boys in their twenties what
Prague is for the Brits of the same gender and age: a place to go for
the hookers, the cheap beer and the surfing (OK, the surfing in Prague
isn’t what it used to be since they built the floodways...).
J
Quite irritating, loud and rude. Still, the grenades work out to about
$35CAD each so... :-)
Gotta go. This ain’t Cobourg it’s true, but for all the firearms walking
around (signs outside restaurants ask people t leave them outside. Top
end spots will check them), they have a fine beer in Victoria (victory).
I think I will sit outside, have one or two and count the number of
sales the dozens of street vendors at the corner lights make. Not many I
suspect.
Despite the fact that you can buy just about anything from them. One
tried to sell me a parrot (or something similar) and a bag full of water
and turtles on the way into town.
Just a bit different from Cuba, for those who were asking for a comparison.
Just a bit.
It is safe, or at least as safe as it gets in Central America, though
there’s some debate about whether a lot of crime gets reported given
what people think of the police, the kind of service the poor would get
from them or any other public officials.
If you stayed in Managua where we are you could be in Spain, it’s just
that no one wants you to walk in certain parts of town and they get very
excited about it when you leave the hotel.
But in this neighbourhood there are great, dirt cheap bars and
restaurants, and while the city water isn’t always drinkable, most of
the (very nice) houses in this area have their own water and generator
systems. Pretending there’s nothing else out there, the worst you could
say about this part of the city is that it is clear that the
European-looking folks are the owners and patrons of the bars etc., the
ones who live in the houses. The aboriginal-looking folks are
the servers and the gardeners.
It’s when you leave the touristy bits that things change fast. Fast,
fast, fast. A big part of the city was never restored after the
earthquake in 1972 and while a few government buildings went in, much
is open space, much is a slum of homes built of corrugated metal
(remember how hot and sunny it is here), plastic and scrap wood and
cement blocks.
All about a 5-minute walk from one of the ritzier hotels in town, this
huge neo-Wright pyramid, that in turn is in the shadow of the giant
metal silhouette of Sandino that sits at the edge of the volcano crater
right in the centre of the city.
Folks all friendly enough, but not like Cuba. Not the same energy. I
keep thinking they’re like the people in Belfast: after so many years of
civil war, following on 50 years of military rule, nobody’s left
feeling real outgoing.
Oh, and the mine thing (which I referred to in my last and which Risa
and Daria got concerned about) happened a few years ago. The southern
and western parts of the country and pretty much de-mined. The north is
closed to tourists because of bandits (love that word “I met a buncha
bandits yesterday and they were saying…”), but we’re not going there, or
to the Caribbean coast where mines are still a problem in some areas.
Losing your livestock to them can still be a major problem for small
farmers.
In fact later today we’re off to the Best Western Aeropuerto where we
meet the rest of our group tonight. We’re taking it easy as Geri has a
cold. So an afternoon by the pool and much beer while Geri naps.
Anyway, I am fine, having a GREAT time and wish you were both here.
Current hotel has 13 rooms, great food, a colonial mansion with a
central courtyard with a garden and fountain...all protected by a nice
man with a pistol and a shotgun and a doorman’s uniform at the front
door.
It wouldn’t be Managua if he didn’t have at least two weapons.
:-)
====================================================
I spent an exciting morning today talking about sorghum storage and sales.
Geri spoke the words "I could have done with just two tops, two shorts and two pair of shoes".
No lie, on either count!
Details to follow. We (finally) get to the factory inspections in the
Managua maquila zone tomorrow. I need to get back into a city or I will
start chewing hay and talking about planting time and whether it will
rain tomorrow (eating into the Weather Network’s gig).
===============================================
I’m in a small town called Rivas in southern Nicaragua, not far from the Costa Rican border.
Church here has this wonderfully goofy mural around the inside of its
dome/cupola.
Four ships. Three sinking and burning and such, one sailing victorious back into harbour.
The three; communism, Protestantism, secularism.
The fourth¿ Catholicism, of course.
Wonderfully, wonderfully cheesie.
And, of course, I could not get a photo. Will try again, but standing
behind the priest as he works his gig, snapping photos of the ceiling
may not go down all that well.
Darn.
===============================================
Well, this is my second attempt at this. The first, about three pages
(so perhaps not a bad thing) got lost when the computer I am at seized
when I hit SEND.
This hotel is a training centre for a variety of skills, including tourism
and basic computer skills, but some of their donated equipment is a
little wonky. Included in that are the keyboards. So you’ll have to
excuse some of the characters that don’t really work, but the keyboard
I’m at is a standard English board that has been re-mapped to Spanish.
So to use it properly I would have to remember where everything is on a
Spanish board: something a bit beyond me today.
I’ve got today off as my cold is worse and today was to have been a very long one for me.
Let’s see if I can reconstruct things and mobbed pare it down a bit too...
We’ve really been have a fine time. The groups we’ve met with have been
amazing. The ´sorghum´comment I made in my last was typical of the
groups we have met.
A peasants co-op that is doing a whole bunch of things, but which got
started with about $2000 from Horizons, the group we’re here with.
They used the two grand to build a brick kiln and buy some tin storage
silos. Used bricks first to build a storage shed into which they put
the silos. Then started selling bricks, paying co-op members in bricks
for their work at the kiln (so they have the nicest houses in the
district, some even have floors, though no electricity or water in the
region).
The silos were combined with a micro credit programme. The peasants
deposit their grain in the silos (these things are mebbe 2m tall and
mebbe one around) and get the going harvest price for the stuff. They
are charged 6% interested when the going rate is over 25%.
When, after a while when the harvest glut ends, the price goes up, they
then sell their grain at a much higher price, they repay the advance
plus interest and make much, much more profit than they used to.
Sounds a simple thing, but it has meant a huge improvement in people
lives. Kids now going to school etc. Plus the grain merchants now have
to deal with the co-op rather than with individual peasants, so there’s
a sense of gaining some control there.
They’re also into soil conservation measures, building a small herd of
pigs, family violence education, etc., etc. All funded by the 6%.
There were 25 of them at the meeting. All spoke of the differences
this had made in their lives, some with tears. Quite moving.
They had decorated the shed with banners and balloons and little samples
of their crops. Every once in a while the wind would push a balloon up
against the tin roof and it would explode. Can’t believe people live
in homes made of the stuff in this heat and sun.
Lots of stuff like that. Probably just as well the original message got lost as it was probably too hokey. SMILE.
I’ll do a separate message on the maquila sweatshops. Not good.
Especially amazing when you consider that the ones we can get into are
the ones the owners WANT us to see and test etc. so they can market
their products as ‘approved´.
Some little detours to touristy things here and there. Our group
leaders didn’t plan anything really, but Geri and I have our Lonely
Planet (what else¿) and we’ve been able to do some stuff as a result.
Puts things in context, historical and otherwise. Yesterday we had a
meeting in a small village. PowerPoint presentation in a bamboo and
thatch hut in a town with no paved roads in the sticks…bizarre...buts
that’s another story.
Afterwards we visited a monument the village put up when they shot down a
Somoza Air Force plane in 1979. It had been bombing them for months.
Huge morale booster up here in the highlands when it happened. The
villagers hauled the thing up the hill themselves and it’s quite the
point of pride for the area.
The plane is on a concrete slab on a small hill overlooking the village.
You look down and wonder why anyone would think there was anything
needing bombing in the village, why it was bombed a few times a month
for several years...nothing there, but people.
People.
Big Sandinista area. Since the revolution they’ve nearly unanimously elected FSLN folks at every level.
If what happened during the revolution wasn’t bad enough, this area was
also the favourite target of the Contras as it is close to the Honduran
border.
Another little anecdote. Spent some time with a NGO of ´radical social
workers’ in a town of 45,000. 65% unemployment. No water system, no
sewers. The town hospital I walked through and would have assumed was a
decrepit prison ready for demolition if I hadn’t known.
Few houses are more than shacks with dirt floors.
The NGO has a clinic with a tech, a MD and two nurses. The MD makes
$180 per month, compared to $800 for hospital (Ministry of Health) MDs,
and much more for private MDs.
The hospital abides by the Nicaraguan constitution which says that
healthcare is free (drafted by the Sandinistas after the revolution) in
that it doesn’t charge for anything, but then like all public hospitals
it can’t actually do much either. And what it does do is usually funded
or supplied by WHO. There’s little or nothing of what we would
consider the state or government here, outside the police and the
military. And the police are definitely self-funding (i.e. they are
paid little on the understanding that they will use their authority to
extract cash from people, but will be around for the state when the shit
hits the fan).
So it sends all its patients it can’t deal with and who can’t afford to go
private to the clinic.
One MD et al for 45,000 people.
Medicins sans frontiers used to run a dental clinic there, but it lost its
funding. No dentist around except for the very rich.
The NGO also runs a radio station and some other fun stuff. But most
interesting was that everyone involved except one is 25 or younger. The
idea was to bring kids from the youth programmes they run into admin
positions. Really quite interesting.
There’s also a really interesting art therapy programme for kids who are
the victims of family violence. The art gallery is quite frightening,
angering, depressing.
The one over-25 is the priest from Quebec who started the thing (now
grown into something quite impressive). A liberation theologist, he got
the boot by the church, but still lives and works in the community.
The only other hospital I have seen is the ´Panadol Maternity Hospital’
in Managua. All ultra modern, hellishly expensive and sponsored by a
drug company, run by a US ´health corporation.
Had a whole touristy day last week. Went to one of Nicaragua’s several
active volcanoes. Lots of fartish-smelling smoke and lava roiling
around. Reminds me of how I felt when I realized that while they don’t
mention it on the nature programmes on TV, whales have REALLY bad
breath.
Great signs telling you to hide under your car if lava bombs start up (I
mean ACTIVE when I say active volcanoes) so you can be crushed to
death under a really hot car. J
Odds and ends:
´Skull of the cat’ is a local corn-based moonshine. Avoid it.
Dioridiom is a village that prides itself on having a witch tradition
that has survived hundreds of years of repression. Fun-looking spot.
We just drove through, I am thinking we should have given ourselves free
days at the end rather than at the beginning. That way we’d know where
to spend our time.
Lots of US fundies around. If anything more conservative politically
than the RC church, some here think there’s been an extra surge since
the Sandinistas were elected. There’s so many of them that the forms
you have to fill out at immigration and when checking into a hotel make
on a mission´ an option under ´Reason for visit to Nicaragua´.
Clothes seemed amazingly cheap until we realized that almost all stores
are selling second-hand stuff. Merchants buy at thrift shops in North
America and then ship them down by the tonne.
We travel in a bus with the luggage on the roof. Got to watch it when
in towns after dark and moving slowly. Last night some kids got up on
the roof and were minutes away from untying the luggage and tossing it
down as we moved along.
People here beg for food, not just money. And it’s not unusual for
somebody to ask for your plate if you’re done but have food left.
53 universities, only two public, the rest private and most of them run
by churches. Tuition runs about equal to unis in the US we were told.
An engineering degree is worth about $14,000USD per year.
Despite the Sandinistas making schooling mandatory and free again, there
are problems. School have shut down or been consolidated in the
cities, folks outsides can’t afford transportation or materials. And
there are way fewer spaces than needed.
Illiteracy has an odd demographic here. The Sandinistas copied the
Cuban approach, got literacy well up there, but it has dropped since
they lost the election in the early 1990´s. So illiteracy is getting
close to 30%, but is concentrated in the 10-30 age group.
The biggest, nicest, cleanest and newest buildings are maquila factories. From the outside. Hellholes on the inside.
No public transportation systems (sold in the 90´s). Lots of ex-US
school buses that barely slow down before a conductor jumps off and
pushes people into place. They compete with each other to reach a stop
with a lot of people and sometimes fights break out between conductors.
Buses are covered with prayers to Mary and Jesus re. getting them safely
to their destination. Personally I think they could pay more attention
to decent brakes and some driver training, easeup on the supernatural.
Cuba is shipping doctors and teachers here by the truckload. Venezuela
is offering cheap oil, but the national oil company doesn’t own any
refineries (sold in the 90´s) and the multinationals appear to be
threatening some sort of boycott the subsidized oil.
Even up here in the highlands where support for the Sandinistas is very
high, there’s a lot of anxiety about what the US will do. Their
ambassador quite openly interferes in their elections, in a way Canada
probably hasn’t ever seen, though mebbe the 1963 election that got
Pearson elected would be closest.
At the moment the ambassador is trying to broker a merger of all the
right-wing parties so that the Sandinistas will face a united opposition
next time. Plus there are always rumours of the US re-imposing the
Cuba-like blockade it had in place in the 1980´s and 90´s.
People are just keeping their fingers crossed that the US is too busy in
Iraq and Afghanistan to make Nicaragua a priority. A lot of the people
we have spoken to say they voted Sandanista, but seem very surprised
they were elected. It makes them nervous as for years Sandanista
supporters would work on FSLN projects, but wouldn’t vote for them as a
FSLN win would have meant the US starting the war again. Liberal
governments were wildly unpopular, but people voted for them out of fear
for the concequences of NOT voting for them.
If that makes any sense.
Armadillo and iguana crossing signs on the astoundingly bad (with the
exception of the Pan-American Highway, the south end of the NAFTA-CAFTA
highway system) roads.
Roads so bad sometimes cars will pass each other going in opposite
directions, each on the wrong side of the road as they try to avoid the worst potholes, all going 20kph.
Food good, people great. I’d come back to do this again (though less of
the everybody do everything and more you go there and do your thing,
I’ll go here and do mine would be good), or as a tourist.
Gotta go. Believe it or not, the first version was longer.
====================================================
Forgot...
Social safety net or whatever term you want to use has been privatized here. Just like health, it´s two-tiered.
The Sandinistas introduced fairly comprehensive if not too terribly
Generous (though given the state of the country in 1979...) programme.
The governments which followed privatized it, but couldn’t eliminate it
completely because of its popularity, and, I suspect, because those
governments weren’t popular themselves, but elected because it meant the
US wouldn’t start the war
again.
In any case, what happens now is that for anything vaguely a ´social
benefit´ in Canadian terms, you have a small amount of money from the
government each month which can be directed to the commercial insurance
company of your choice.
To that you add you own cash and that allows you to buy a package covering such things as EI, CPP, extended medical etc.
Of course in a country where the average wage is something like 200CAD a
month not many can add much to what the government pays.
The insurance companies rely on the low incomes of so many of their
clients whose premiums are paid by the government to act as a
disincentive to legal action then a claim is filed and denied.
We had a chance to speak with some women who are trying to collect 3
months maternity leave they were denied by their (¿¿¿) insurance
company.
They can’t afford a lawyer, the government’s responsibility begins and
ends with the forwarding of the premiums, NGOs and women’s orgs and
legal clinics are reluctant to take their cases because there’s no way
to ensure a precedent is set that apply in future and each case will be
fought tooth and nail by the insurance companies...
We were told there’s a growing tendency by a majority of Nicas to just
ignore the social insurance system entirely as filing claims is a waste
of time. The government simply keeps the money in such cases. The
insurance companies are lobbying to make coverage (i.e. payments)
mandatory.
===================================================
Geri asked me to add to our postcards the following. My words, but she
provided the info and checked over a draft. This was a meeting she
attended when I was sick.
-----------------------
The group was the leadership of a women’s coffee co-op.
It was founded by former Sandinista fighters after the Contra War.
It’s more than slightly unusual in two respects.
While there were a great many co-ops formed as the guerrillas were
disbanded and land reform made small plots of land available (to men for
the most part) this one is open only to women and is also one which
eventually included women veterans of both sides in the Contra
War(essentially a civil war, though with one side funded by the US.
Remember Ollie North¿).
The goals are to buy up enough land to make a model farm and to lobby
the government to add to whatever they are eventually able to buy; to
provide an example of practical reconciliation in the aftermath of the
war, and to provide steady and reliable incomes for women and children
(there were 3200 orphans in the region at the end of the Contra War)in
an area where men are prone to substance abuse, selling land to large
plantation owners at bargain basement
prices, buggering off with the land sale money to Costa Rica, and other stupid things.
Some women within the co-op hold plots of land ranging from one to eight
hectares but many own no land directly. They contribute labour to the
co-op instead. Currently about 70% of the land in the co-op is owned
jointly with men, the remainder is owned by the members.
Men have a tendency to sell land in a bad year to get drunk or to do
something equally unproductive with the money. And almost all the land
redistributed to landless agricultural labourers after the revolution
went to men. Which meant over time much of it was concentrated back in
the hands of large plantation owners.
The co-op is trying to find a niche where it can compete with the large
plantations or just avoid them completely by going into certified
organic coffee production. Though it’s expensive to get certified.
They provide assistance in getting loans to women who want to join in
order for them to acquire some land or to get certified. But the banks
are reluctant to loan money to women without spouses, or without a
spouse’s signature, and the assumption always is that title will go to a
man of some sort. And the co-op is far from the point where it has the
resources to loan money directly.
There was a funny bit when they talked about how much success they have
had in transferring title from a male spouse to a female spouse when he
is drunk.
In many ways it’s not funny as male partners almost always will their
land to their oldest son, leaving their widow and other children
dependent (if there’s enough land and if the oldest son feels like it)
or destitute. So if the deed doesn’t get signed over when hubby is
loaded...
There is also a long-standing tradition, with legal effect, which make a
female spouse’s property the property of the male spouse on marriage.
The co-op works to get around this. They have gone from 120 former
guerrilla veterans to over 600 clusters of growers/members. Geri
doesn’t know how many, but likely in the 1000-2000 range.
They are still dirt poor for the most part, but significantly better off
than they were and than the women in the region who are not members of
the co-op.
While in a bad year the whole co-op might not see a Cordoba in profit
(Hurricane Mitch actually rolled things back a bit), there are some permanent improvements that everyone can see and use.
They built (with their own hands) a largish facility which they use as
everything from a dorm for members who have to travel a long way to
attend meetings or training sessions (folks at Geri’s meeting had
travelled most of the day prior to their meeting to attend, this is
rough country), to a meeting space, to a training centre.
They also offer a literacy programme to members and encourage them to
use it as a way to ensure that all members are able to participate fully
in the co-op.
Geri was incredibly impressed by their confidence (they must have had a
fair bit to start with given what they were) and their determination.
Problems still remain. The plantation owners, usually Nicas, aren’t
happy with this development. Geri didn’t say but in this country if you
are rich and unhappy about something it normally isn’t difficult to
find a way of making the people you are unhappy with know about it.
There may or may not(I would think there is) be a connection between the above and the other two problems.
The co-op can grow, dry and deliver coffee beans, but it can’t roast
them. For that they need much larger capital inputs then they currently
are capable of. This is a problem because they need to pay the
multinationals who own the roasting facilities to do it for them.
This, in turn, is a large part of the cost of production.
There are also bandits. Coffee beans are relatively valuable on a per
kilo basis. Their carts/trucks are often robbed when the beans are
being transferred to the roasting facilities. Neither the
multinationals nor the plantation owners ever seem to be too concerned
about where beans are from when someone they have never seen before
shows up at their door looking to sell a couple of tonnes.
Geri had a great time overall, was really, really impressed and inspired. I’m really sorry I missed it.
======================
Maquila factories today and then we’re spending tomorrow travelling home via Houston.
Odd, in the highlands, to see cowboys heading home in the evening
through town on their ponies, making cell phone calls. Should always
keep the camera at the ready...
All the hotels we’ve stayed at have been great except for the one the
group folks picked (not the one we chose for before they arrived) for
Managua.
On the other hand, this morning I got to see a bunch of US christian bikers show up on their Harleys and check in.
Actually, mebbe that’s just another down side.
Unless something really interesting happens today, that’s it from me...
========================
The hotel was recommended by Lonely Planet (our bible), but as we left
it with our Nica translator (he found stuff in it he wasn't aware of!), I
can't get you the name right now. Mebbe after another cup of coffee.
It was on a stretch of beach that is mnostly vacation homes for the
wealthy between the villages of Masachapa and Pochomill on the Pacific
coast. About a 2 hour (safe) drive from the airport in Managua.
Small (40 rooms), family-owned. Beach great, though the sand is
volcanic (as you'd expect in Nicaragua) and so hotter than heck on a
sunny day. Shoes needed.
Undertow metioned by staff at hotel, but so shallow a walkout into the
water that I don't think we ever got far enough out to see.
Geri may have more.
==========================
Indeed. We tend to compare Cuban 'lifestyles' to our own, ignoring the
historical differences (which argeuably boil down to 'they are 'poor'
because we are rich').
I don't think this was mentioned in the e-postcards I remembered to copy
to myself and which have been posted here, but we had a number of
conversations about Cuba whilst in Nicaragua. It's, both politically
and economically, seen as an example or model. Mentioning that you have
been there will make your some instant friends in a crowd.
In many regions there are more Cuban doctors and literacy
workers/teachers than there are Nicaraguan staff. This is a new
development for the most part, the result of the recent elections, so
much commented upon.
=========================
To add to Derek's comments. The poverty we saw was heartbreaking and
left you feeling humble and helpless. When they spoke of Cuba and how
rich the Cuban people were it surprised some of the people with whom we
were travelling. Cuba was nirvana and North America was a hollywood
movie, it was so far off their radar. They were not concerned about the
"things" we have but about education, health care and a safe place to
live and the ability to feed their children. They know Cubans have jobs
and pride and can provide for their kids and they would be happy to be
able to have that and they do not aspire to be us.
The sunset on the Pacific Ocean was beautiful. I took several pictures
as it went down one night and they were all in the 1 minute time frame.
It is a very fast sunset and our ocean front patio with the hammock was
a great place to watch the sun go down. I even got to watch it come up
once.
==========================
