Second Mass Email

I've been very busy lately, and I haven't been able to post on my blog. So, here's the recap email I just sent out.

Thank you so much for the warm responses to my first email. It was great to hear from everyone who wrote back, and I'm sorry that I wasn't able to respond to many of you. I've now been in Nicaragua for over six weeks, and I'm not sure how to communicate all of my experiences over the medium of email, but I'll certainly try. (Edit: the email is quite long. Sorry. :) )

In the last six weeks, we've had crash courses in Spanish, Nicaraguan political, social, and cultural history, Nicaraguan social movements, and field study methods, we've spent a week each in the countryside in Matagalpa and on the Carribien coast, and we've gotten acclimated to the social life here. It's been a lot! Spanish is a struggle, but I've improved a lot. I think I got placed a level above where I belong, but I've gotten through it ok. My two Spanish professors are great. Our Spanish classes have only 4-5 students each, so we get a lot of personal attention and get to know the teachers pretty well. Both of my professors were officers in the Sandinista army, one during the 70s before and during the insurrection and one during the contra war in the 80s. We learn a lot from them about what the historical trends and events we're learning about actually meant to people's lives and the different feelings the public has about them now. It's a great set up, and though my grammer is still attrocious, I am much more able to discuss things I care about as a result of the class.

Our Revolution, Transformation, and Civil Society seminar is incredible. It's almost entirely guest lecturers, with Aynn and Guillermo providing recaps, interpretation, and filling in the gaps. I'm not sure how, but we're getting lectures from many major political and social figures here, from Dora Maria Tellez, who was the woman who led the insurrection in Leon in 1979 and is now one of the leading critics of the current FSLN, to Maria Teresa Blandon, the incredible feminist leader who is an incredible activist and civil society scholar, to Antonio Locayo, the minister of the Presidency from 1990-1996 who ran the country with Violeta Chamorro as a figure head, to other major party figures, activists, and scholars. It's painting an amazing picture of Nicaragua, past and present. With each lecture, conversation and day that passes, my understanding of the country grows deeper and more complicated. It's a tremendously messed up place that is heartbreaking, eye-opening, outrageous, hope filled, oppressed, and more complex than I can possibly comminicate in an email.

I went to a talk to coincide with the re-release of "Nicaragua," a book by US photographer Susan Meiselas of photos of the insurrection in 1978 and 1979 (for some of the pictures, check here: http://www.susanmeiselas.com/nicaragua/). There was a talk/discussion with Susan, Dora Maria Tellez, and numberous people who were protagonists in the photographs. If I had been to the event two months ago, it would have been a fascinating piece of journalism and some incredible pictures, but after living with multiple Nicaraguan families and having traveled to many of the locations where the photographs were taken, the event felt much more powerful and grounded in experience. Susan also made a movie ten years after the insurrection entitled "Pictures of a Revolution" that shows the country in the depths of the contra war and is also very recognizable. I can't wait to share the book and movie with y'all when I get back so I that I can share some of the visuals of my experience (of course with my own pictures as well!).

The Field Study Seminar, my other class besides the RTCS seminar and Spanish, is also very interesting. Aynn teaches it, and it's preparing us for our independent study project that is our only assigned activity for the month of November. I have never done field work before, so I find the content of the class really helpful and interesting, but it's a discussion class as well. Most of the other 17 students have focuses and priorities that are quite different than my own, and it's very interesting to discuss things like Ivan Illich's "To Hell with Good Intentions" (which is amazing, short, and definitely worth the thought-provoking read) with them. One of our assignments is also to collaborate with two other students and take an hour to present something we feel is pertinent and useful from our own respective studies. I collaborated with two other students to facilitate a short anti-oppression discussion with interesting, and mixed, results. What the other students have chosen to present is quite interesting as well. The group of students is mostly white, mostly female, and all students at US colleges and universities. As my friend Hannah would say, we're "interesting."

In mid-September, we spent a week in the Nicaraguan countryside, in a small community a few hours outside Matagalpa called "Horno Dos" (literally: Oven Two). It wasn't very hot, but it was intense. About half of the population of Nicaragua are rural campesinos and campesinas. Because of the reversal of land reform after 1990, the exploitation of resources and labor by transnational corporations, and the draconian provisions of Free Trade, most campesinos and campesinas live on less than a dollar a day, do not own their own land, and work 10-12 hours a day six days a week. (The national numbers are that about 80% of the population lives on less than US$2/day and about 45% lives on less than US$1/day.) I stayed with a family of bean pickers with five other students living in the same community. The community leaders set up activities for us to do during the days and we'd spend time with our families at night. We learned that the community was well organized against transgenics and pesticides and were parts of networks of communites dedicated to organic and sustainable farming. The community was also organized against domestic violence and stressed education, though most kids dropped out to start work or get married by the time they were 15 or so. One of my host brothers was 15 and had been working as a bean picker since he was 12. It was a lifestyle quite different from the one I am used to.

Last week, we took another excursion, this time out to the Carribean Coast. The coast is technically two autonomous regions that suffered a different colonial history than the rest of Nicaragua. The the Pacific region was colonized from the west by Spanish conquistadors coming up from Peru, and they didn't make it to the east coast before the British had come down from the carribean and turned it into a protectorate. The region has only been a part of Nicaragua since the late 1800s when it was conquered by a Nicaraguan dictator named Zelaya (who was later deposed by the US Marines and replaced with someone worse). The region has languished in under-development with the colonial powers stripping its resources and providing nothing in return. The region is multiethnic, with Miskitos, Mestizos, Suma, Rama, Creoles, and Garifuna making up the population. The struggle for autonomy is fascinating and something I could write pages and pages about, so I'll just say that if you're interested, you should ask me when I get back.

I stayed, with 8 other students in Orinoco, the only major Garifuna community in Nicaragua. The Garifuna are an ethnic group that are a mix of escaped Ghanaian slaves and the Arawak native people who originated on St. Vincent Island, but were forcably relocated by the British all of the carribean coast of Central America, including Hondurus, Belieze, Guatamala, and Nicaragua. The Garifuna in Nicaragua have lost their language, and are now partnering with Garifuna communities in other countries to try and rescue their language and culture. Orinoco is a farming and fishing community two hours by motor boat from the nearest significant infrastructure (which means much longer for the majority who don't have access to a motor boat) and who's local infrastructure is supported almost entirely by international NGOs rather than the government. The people are very proud of their Garifuna culture, and were very excited to share their food, music, medicina popular and dances with us. They spoke Creole English, and only a few in the community who were formally educated spoke Spanish. Again, there's too much to right about here, but I'd love to tell you more later. The week was affecting and showed a completely different side of Nicaragua one wouldn't know existed if they only spent time on the Pacific coast.

Amidst all of this, I've been living with my host family in Managua, learning more about them and their local community. My dad was one of the leaders of the literacy brigades in 1980 which raised literacy from around 40% to nearly 90%. My grandma has been hosting guests since the revolution through various programs (hence all of the amazing folks I mentioned last time) and is the leader of the local catholic prayer group. My siblings are nice, and my 2 year old brother is a hand full. We've gone to see murals in the community and around Managua, including the Third World Nativity with Carlos Fonseca, Sandino, Che, and Oscar Romero as the Magi that was on the cover of my Liberation Theology syllabus last semester (I'll send you the picture, Charlie!).

I'm now preparing to finish our Spanish unit, turn in my proposal for my ISP and go on another excursion to El Salvador for 9 days. I'm busy, exhausted, but excited and learning more than I though possible. Though I could easily write about my experiences for the rest of the day, I have other things to do, as I'm sure y'all do, too, and this email is too long as is. I miss all of you terribly. Though I'm enjoying meeting new people here, I've realized how much of myself I'm missing when I'm not with people I love. So, know that I'm thinking of all of you, I love you, and that I expect a full recap of the madness that's been going on in the US when I return, as well!

Be well, do good work, and stay in touch,
Sam

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.

The Campo

I returned today from a week living in the Campo (Nicaraguan Countryside) in a community named Horno Dos (literally, Oven Two). I stayed with a family of bean pickers who walk over an hour to and from work every day and often leave the house by 5am.

Five other students from my program were also living in Horno Dos and we spent the days with a few of the leaders of the community learning about rural life in Nicaragua. The community is in the municipality of San Ramon which is a center of organic and sustainable activism in Nicaragua. The entire community practiced organic farming and had banned transgenic seeds from their farms. Many community members are also involved with municipal, national, and international organizations engaged in environmentalist struggle. Most people in the community did not own their own land and were employed as wage laborers working on large farms. Many families were not able to make ends meet through campesino work and had men working in El Salvador, Costa Rica, or the United States and sending back remittances. For the most part, women ran the community. The community is strongly political and mostly FSLN, with lots of ties to Environmentalist NGOs, as mentioned above.

Some of the work we did over the course of the week was plant beans, tend plantain plants, make pineapple preserves, sorting and construction work at the seed bank (which was constructed to preserve/spread biodiversity in the area), and pick up trash. Rarely were we actually doing hard physical labor or really even lending a significant hand to the work being done. Our schedule was clearly set by community leaders to give us an overview of work and activities common in the community. We also spent a lot of time playing with the kids in the community.

The week was physically and psycologically challenging for me. I slept in a room with the kids in my host family on what was basically a wooden table with a sheet. The food was very oily rice and beans, with the odd plantain, hunk of cheese, or piece of fruit thrown in for good measure. They had a latreen and the bathing area was a bucket of water with a bowl. Everything with either caked with dust or mud, depending on when in the day it had rained. Surprisingly there was some limited running water and electricity, but it was clearly limited and not very strong or always present. The spanish was very thick and fast, and I was not able to understand very much of it or communicate very well. I was often treated like a child because of my limited language skills.

Despite the fact that the level of material comfort was far different than I was accustomed and my limited ability to communicate with members of the community, I learned a lot about myself, life in Nicaragua, and rural poverty. It was a positive experience.

The community was strongly organized and well informed poltically. They were anti-transgenics, pro-organics, did work around patriarchal violence and gender equity, and did considerable anti-poverty and development work as well. It was great to be in such an active community.

And the plot thickens . . .

As I finished my second week here (and first week of classes) the political landscape, my place in Nicaragua, and the limitations of my language became clearer.

My class schedule is that I have Spanish every morning for three hours and then Revolution, Transformation, and Civil Society (RTCS) Seminar every afternoon except Monday, when I have Field Study Seminar (FSS). The RTCS classes are normally run by guest lecturers, but also by Aynn and Gullermo from time to time. The guest lecturers they bring in are pretty intense, and this being the first week, we got a few days of intro from Aynn and Guillermo, followed by two guest lecturers. The first was Dora Maria Tellez, one of the military commanders during the Revolution and former FSLN (Frente Sandanista de la Liberacion Nacional) leader, now one of the major members of the MRS (Movimiento de Renovación Sandanista). She lectured on Augusto Sandino, the military leader responsible for ending the 25-year US occupation of Nicaragua in 1934 and the histroical figure whom inspired the Sandanistas. As you can imagine, the lecture was really intense, and I felt bad that my Spanish isn't better than it is so I could have understood more of it. The second lecturer was Enrique Seinz, who is a former World Bank (I think) economist and current politico who gave us an overview of Nicaraguan economic history. As you can imagine, I got even less of that lecture, but it was equally impressive in recap.


It´s been interesting just walking around Managua, too, outside of classes. Managua is not much of a tourist destination, and it´s clear that people here are not used to seeing "cheles" (white folks. 14 of the 18 students are white and we really stick out when we walk in groups. ) We have all been welcomed into Maximo Jerez, and everyone in the colonia is very friendly and helpful to us. Our host families are great, and I´ll write about more about my host family after I return from the campo next week (more on that in a second.)

Last night I had a bit of a surreal experience. A young boy in Maximo is ill and his family didn´t have the money for the very expensive medical treatment he required. A few folks in the neighborhood organized a benefit concert to raise the money necessary for his medication and a few of the other students volunteered me to play at said concert. It was a little uncomfortable because of the language barrier, but I played two songs in front of a crowd of several hundred people, all cheering in Spanish. One of the stranger experiences of my life.

Well, I have to go do my homework, and I won´t be posting for at least a week because we´re going to do another homestay in the campo for a week and I won´t have electricity, so definitely no internet. But when I get back, I´ll talk about my host family, Spanish class, helping to facilitate a 90 minute discussion on anti-oppression work in my Feild Study Seminar (which was rough), and more about living, learning, and growing in a revolutionary country!

Greetings from Managua! (From Sept 2 email)

Buenas!

I arrived last week in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua for my semester studying abroad. I´m in a program called "Revolution, Transformation, and Civil Society" through the School for International Training, and so far it has been amazing.

We (that is, the 18 US American students who are in the program) arrived last week in muggy Managua, greeted in the airport by our enthusiastic program director, Aynn Setright. Right away, she began speaking to us in rapid Spanish with frequent assurences in English that everything would be ok. She is a truly amazing woman who I am excited to get to know better and to work with. We spent our first five days in orientation in Managua and León, going over ground rules, meeting the staff and faculty, getting placed into Spanish classes, and getting to know our classmates. The staff and faculty are all amazing, wonderful people, US American and Nicaragüence alike. Probably the coolest person, along with Aynn, is Aynn´s husband Guillermo who was an officer in the Sandanistan army for 20 years, and is a revolutionary poet (literally). Really, all the folks are amazing, and I can´t wait to know them better. The program is grounded in popular education (read: Frierian! :) ), anti-colonial and anti-oppresive philosophy, and cultural immersion, and though it is uncomfortable and completely terrifying, I´m loving it.

Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, and as you can imagine, the scale of wealth is quite a bit different than any place I have ever lived. Just walking around and seeing a half-kilometer long fence with posts that are clearly hand carved gives you a very different sense of who does the labor and and how things occur here.

I am living with a family in Colonia Máximo Jerez, a neighborhood in Managua, which is the capital of Nicaragua. (If you want to know what this is like, take a look at the book "Life is Hard" by Roger Lancaster. It´s about my neighborhood.) My family has been hosting US Americans since the revolution in 1979, and has hosted some amazing folks like Noam Chomsky, Pete Seeger, and is even where Salmon Rushdie was living when he wrote "The Jaguar´s Smile." As you can guess, the family is wonderful, with my host mom, host dad, abuelita, and four siblings providing lots of love and a great home. It is a very different life style than I am used to, though. The water is only on in Máximo from 2am-7am, and the Nicaraguan accent is very difficult for me to understand, especially on top of my limited Spanish.

The first few days have been very exciting. One of the days in orientation was an "drop-off" where pairs of students are dropped somewhere in León with the name of a location and a field study question and told to meet at the location in 5 hours. That was the day where I got to find out how bad my Spanish truly was. Luckily, most people here are very patient and my partner and I fulfilled the task (finding out local legends of León) and made it safely to the pick up point. The legends were great and I got to talk to a lot of locals about how they are echoed in current international politics.

We had our first day of class yesterday, too. The rapid discussions of politics, history, and culture in Spanish are difficult, but I´m adjusting. The teachers are all great: very patient and concise in their explanations. I love it, even though it´s incredibly difficult and sometimes frustrating.

I miss all of the people in my life in the States and I can´t wait to talk to each and every one of them upon my return. Be well, do good work and stay in touch!

And away we go . . . (From Aug. 25)

I am so tired right now, it's difficult for me to express. I'm sitting in my parent's house in Claremont, CA having just listened to Michelle Obama speak at the DNC, trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'm leaving the country tomorrow for nearly 4 months after having spent the previous 3 months in Washington DC.

First, the DNC. I'll just say that rhetoric about the "American Dream" frustrates me. That´s all I can say without getting angry.

Next, I leave for Nicaragua tomorrow, and I'm freaking out. More than a little bit. My Spanish is sub-par, I know very little about the country/culture/region/etc., and I haven't reviewed the required materials for the program. I'm a total mess, but also an extremely excited one, so mostly I'm just a jittery disaster. I'll be sure to post as soon as I can when I get there.

Next, DC. My summer was wonderful and fulfilling, and I will be returning to DC. I was a New Leader with the Center for Progressive Leadership (which was wonderful) and an intern with the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund and Leadership Institute (which was a good learning experience) and I'll probably post more about both of these things later, too.

The fatigue has set in. I had a long and packed summer without much downtime and my brain space has been overflowing the past few weeks attempting to process my experiences and prepare for my time abroad. In fact, I'm so muddled right now, I may have to cut this first post short.