And now back to the show . . .

I'll start by saying that I thought this whole blog thing would be a lot easier. When I'm in the states, I'm on the computer for several hours everyday; reading blogs, emailing, messing with my music, etc. Here, my lifestyle is pretty different and that is not the way I'm conducting my days. So it seemlys the weekly posts are the most likely occurance at this point. And so much happens each week that the prospect of talking about my experiences here in that sort of time frame seems inadequate, especially after my short and poorly written post about my week in the country. But I shall try.

Last week, we had the opportunity to go see the new US ambassador, Robert Callahan, at the Embassy for a "town hall meeting." Callahan is one of John Negroponte's friends from the days when U.S. Imperialism was focused on creating/maintaining military dictatorships in Latin America. It was an interesting experience filled with code words, lots of mention of the word "terrorism," and a demonstration of ignorance about current affairs in Nicaragua. As you may or may not know, Evo Morales recently expelled the US Ambassador to Bolivia for his hawkish support of right-wing treasonous oligarchs and Chavez followed suit in Solidarity. Daniel Ortega, President of Nicaragua, has been making noise about making some sort of gesture as well, which puts Callahan in a precarious position. When one of my friends asked him about this, he seemed completely unaware that Ortega had said anything at all. :/ It'll be interesting to see how that situation continues to develop.

This weekend I spent a lot of time with my host family, teaching my little brothers how to play guitar, playing frisbee (which was a homestay gift from an SIT alumni) with my little sister, and talking politics with my parents and grandmother. I also went to church with them on Sunday at the local Catholic church, which I'll talk more about in a minute. I also got to spend some time hanging out with the folks from the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. 6 of them are serving in Managua and live in a house about 6 blocks from mine. It was nice to hang with some conscious folks for a few hours, and we played some great music, too. It was a good, relaxing break.

This week, we've been pretty busy. Sadly, I don't have too much more time, so I'll have to give the condensed version.

We visited the American Nicaraguan School to talk about college with the seniors there. They are the children of the Nicaraguan elite, and it was a pretty weird experience. A different group of folks than we've had contact with so far. It was just like talking with rich US American teenagers about college. Except that we're in the second poorest country in the western hemisphere . . .

I've been playing guitar with a few of the local teenagers. It's fun, and a good way to make friends outside the program and practice Spanish.

I went to an amazing photography exhibit last night. It was by a woman named Susan Meiselas and was photos from the Popular Insurrection from June 1978 to the Triumph in 1979. Amazing, moving, and great art. Dora Maria Tellez gave the introduction. I went on the invitation of a few students fromthe UCA (Universidad Centroamericana) and it was cool to get the Nicaraguan students' take on it.

This morning, we toured a few churches in Managua to see murals. We started at the local Catholic church (my family's church), Maria de Los Angeles. It has a bunch of amazing revolutionary murals. It's apparently a pretty famous site of Nicaraguan revolutionary art, and it's pretty weird to see a big mural of Carlos Fonseca and Sandino behind the baby Jesus. The other mural was a revoltionary nativity with Fonseca, Sandino, and Che Guevara as the three wise men, along with another longer mural representing the history of Nicaragua. Amazing and beautiful.

This afternoon, we had a lecture from Antonio Lecayo, who was the Minister of the Presidency (like Chief of Staff) from 1990 to 1996. Since Doña Violeta wasn't really a politician, he seemed to have most of the responsibility, and it was interesting to hear his take on the period. After hearing a lecture from one of the Comandantes of the Contra last week and Lacayo this week, there hasn't been a lot of FSLN love lately.

Speaking of which, there was a riot in León (a major city and FSLN base) last weekend. There was going to be a peaceful protest of the government (who prevented two of the political parties here from participating in midterm elections and have not necessarily been so popular recently) and a bunch of FSLN militants showed up and violently blocked the streets. They even burned a few cars and threatened a few opposition leaders, some of whom I've met. I'm not sure how much I can talk about it here, as one of the terms of my stay is not to weigh in publicly on politics. People are talking about it like it may have serious implications for the political direction of the country, with large groups of people preventing others from expressing themselves freely. If you'd like to learn more about it, read La Prensa and El Nuevo Diario, the two major Nicaraguan newspapers (both in the blog side bar), and check out the CPC and some of Ortega's current policies.

Well, I'm out of time for now, but I'll try and write more this weekend, maybe expanding a little more on some of things I've written about here.