A Revolutionary City...

Leon, Nicaragua is the city where the Nicaraguan Revolution of the late 1970s was born. It is a city of poets and political activists, birthplace of the legendary Ruben Diario, and of another poet (whose name escapes me at the moment), who dressed up as a waiter and assasinated the first dictator Samoza as he dined in a garden restaurant. Visitors to Leon can still sit and drink in that restaurant, now a nightclub open until dawn. Leon is an artistic and intellectual center, full of murals that act as history books and political statements. For example, next to the wall documenting the revolution is a painting of Sandino standing on the head of uncle sam who has the body of a dog. Interesting place to be a US citizen. Not once have I felt any animosity towards myself as an individual, but people will freely express their dislike for the US involvement in Nicaragua, then and now.

Today I took a tour from my hotel, which was quite unorthodox. Titled 'History and Revolution', it is lead by a Dutch guy who came to live in Nicaragua via the most dangerous and violent slums of Guatemala City. He lived for a year and a half working with street children there, and says thanks to that experience and the fact that he listened to the sounds of street war every night for all of those months, he can now distinguish what kind of a gun a gunshot comes from. He can also tell stories of finding limbs of dismembered people lying on his doorstep, among other horrors. In short, he is a person who has seen a lot of pain, violence and suffering firsthand and cares a lot about people knowing the truth about how history has unfolded here, and the state in which people live as a result.

We began at a church in Soraiva, once an indigenous village, now a part of the city of Leon. This church is one of the oldest buildings in Latin America, built by the Spanish, who installed a huge glowing sun, the centerpiece of indigenous worship, above the alter to woo the indigenous people into the church. We then visited a sacred tamarind tree in the middle of that section of the city where the great chief was hanged by the Spanish. Apparently a deal was struck initially where the land under the city of Leon was rented from the Indians. This was followed for 4 years, until the Spansh violated the agreement and hanged the chief. Today that contract is still used for political leverage, although soraiva is technically a part of the city members of the tribe do not pay city taxes and there is a commossion of 18 chiefs that take decisions on behalf of the community. These chiefs also command quite a bit of land and members of the community can request plots of land, which remain in their family for as long as family members actively work the land. If the land is left fallow, the chiefs can reclaim it, or redistribute it.

From this section of the city we traveled to the hills outside where El Fortin, the former fortress and then prison/torture center of the Somoza regime is located, right beside the cities dump. We looked at the dump first. People could be seen climbing, digging and sorting through the mountains of garbage. These people literally live in the dump, finding pieces of scrap metal that can be sold, and scraps of still edible food. It is a tragic site. Moving onto the fort things didn't get much better. He showed us the rooms where hundreds of people were imprisoned together in very small cells, without food. He described the most common torture methods used at this site. He himself has met three of the survivors liberated during the revolution, who shared some of their stories with him.

The revolution began on July, 5 with the storming of the prison in Leon. The prisoners there were released, and then the Guerillas moved up into the hills to free the prisoners at El Fortin. The uprising lasted 14 days. Of course much was to come after, including the US involvement. Our guide felt strongly that in many ways the US is responsible for the fact that Nicaragua has fallen from being the richest Central American country to the poorest. Needless to say, he is no friend of Ronald Reagan. He described the Iran-Contra affair, how the US was supporting Iraq against Iran and also supplying Iran with the weapons they used to fight Iraq. He also said that money for the war was earned by recieving payments from druglords to turn a blind eye to the importation of cocaine into the United States. The war waged on Nicaragua was an illegal war, against a democratically elected government, that has contributed greatly to the present state of the country. This is of course a very different history from what we learn at home. He says commonly people from the United States take issue with the version of history presented on the tour. According to him, history is very rarely pretty, polite or flattering.

One interesting piece of information about the revolutionaries, is that many women were involved and fought on the front lines. Even now in Nicaragua, women hold jobs most commonly held by men. Today the head of police in the country is a woman, as well as the second in command of the army. Interesting since the 'machista' attitude is also still alive and thriving.

market in chichicastenango

With the Quetzaltenango dance troupe at the festival Rabin Ajau

Rabin Ajau contestants

On my own again...

This morning I am waking up in Granada again. From here I will be contacting the teachers in Jalapa and Elena´s family in Managua and perhaps finding a place to spend a little time. It will feel good to cool my heels and get back into operating mostly in Spanish. The last couple of weeks have been fun, but constantly on the run. I was reminded though of how lovely it can be to make new friends while traveling because a closeness can be developed within a very short time. Yesterday I said goodbye to my friends Lyndsay and Megan. They went on to Costa Rica before heading home and I went in the opposite direction. We knew each other for a grand total of 2 weeks, I think almost exactly, and yet we now have loads of exciting shared experiences in many different countries.

Last week we left Granada and headed for Isla de Ometepe in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. This is a place that all travelers who have already visited will recommend. It is beautiful and wild. We took a bus, boat and taxi to get to Finca Zopilote, a jungle, eco-friendly, mostly organic farm. The goal of this place is to create as little waste as possible, and grow as much of their own food as possible. In their tiny store they had homemade jams and nutella, canned in recycled glass. Mango jam in a coke bottle anyone? The place is owned by a couple of Italians and three times a week they fire up a wood oven and make pizzas. We were there on one of those nights, and the pizza didn't disappoint.

On the farm we stayed in a little thatched shack, with an upstairs loft, hammocks, and many holes in the mosquito screens. My dear friends, who have lived their entire lives in the far from tropical climate of England and Northern Ireland, had a hard time getting used to the idea of living so intimately with the `creatures`. The bathrooms were all compost toilets, outside peeing required. While sitting on the pot one could read abou'Mierda Sagrada', literally sacred shit, and how rather than polluting the earth with our waste we could actually use it to grow our own food. Good idea, although difficult to convince many that they want to have anything more to do with their waste than the simple flush. The showers were completely open air, essentially raised water spickets in a banana grove. I personally loved showering in the jungle.

The first morning we woke up at 6 with plans to climb the closest volcano. A local guide arrived with his machete and we started off walking through people's fields to the volcano. The hike was meant to take 8 hours. An hour in it started to rain, harder, and HARDER, until 2.5 hours in we were completely soaked and standing in the middle of a rushing stream that had one been our trail. Aborting our mission to summit the volcano was a hard decision to make. We must have stood there in one place for 10 minutes praying for a change in the weather. Our guide agreed to do whatever we wanted, continue or go back, but said higher up the climb is more difficult. Someone else has since told me that the top involves rope climbing in spote, so I think turning around was the right decision. We made it back down hot, starving and disappointed. At that moment the other girls decided that they wanted to spend their last few days here at the beach, so we packed up and went back across the water.

We spent 4 days in San Juan del Sur, one highlight being a nightime epedition to a nesting beach of sea turtles. We saw two turtles come out of the water, dig their nests, lay about 100 eggs apiece, cover the nest and return to the water. Apparently of those 100 eggs, only one of them is likely to become a mature turtle. Not very good odds. Sadly we were asked to leave a little early because some people could NOT follow the rules and took several pictures, with flash, of the turtles faces. They had repeatedly told us that light disorients the turtles, making them temporarily blind and more vulnerable to predators in the water. ALthouh they allowed photography, they preferred that each person only take one picture. It is in situations like this that people's greedy and selfish tendencies reveal themselves. As we were leaving, the mother of a family from the US pitched a fit about how much money they had paid to go on this expedition, and that they were being shortchanged. The poor girl who was our guide barely spoke English, and I felt really bad for her. It was a memorable experience, but I actually felt bad for the turtle being surrounded by 30 people taking pictures of her as she gave birth. It seems quite stressful. During certain times of the year and moon cycle thousands of turtles will come to nest in the same night. That would be an incredible sight to see.

to the moon and back...

So I have obviously been really bad about keeping up the blog in the last few weeks. Forgive me if this is shorter than usual. I am in a hostel and the inernet is free, but all of the letters have been rubbed off the keys so I have to erase a lot of mistakes. Luckily I am one step up from a hunt and peck typer, so it isn´t a complete lost cause. I can also claim a handicap for the Latin American keyboard.

Anyway, I am here in Granada, a beautiful place of which I have fond memories, despite having gone to the hospital the last time. As beautiful and clean a place as that was, I am hoping to avoid a visit this time around. I am traveling at the moment with two lovely new friends, Lyndsay from Belfast, and Meg from England. I met them on the boat from Guatemala to Honduras, and they were also planning ro head toward Nicaragua, so we decided to all travel together. I hadn´t even been planning to take that boat to Honduras, but some Belgians that I met along the way convinced me that I should go with them. I am very easily persuaded at 3 in the morning! That sounds terrible, but I don´t mean it in that way. They were a very lovely couple. I had actually met the Belgians and two of their English friends three separate and random times in Guatemala, and figured ,aybe that was a sign that I was supposed to travel with them. We all ended up in a mini van, and the 8 of us went to the San Blas Islands in Honduras. After the boat ride from hell across the ocean, where we wavered between feeling incredibly ill, and feeling incredible fear that the boat was going to capsize we were all truly bonded. We spent the next few days doing island things: eating fish, lying on the beach, snorkeling, and making up our own olympics of who could write the best with their toes. I was the biggest loser, who knew it was so difficult?

The day before yesterday, which now feels like a year ago, Lyndsay, Meg and I crossed back to the mainland, and took a bus to Tegucigalpa the capital of Honduras. Honduras is odd. I have not seen so many US corporations since I left the States. On the highway we passed mile after mile of McDonald´s, Wendy´s, Texaco stations and strip malls. Sometimes I felt like I was driving down I70, with more tropical vegetation. I also noticed there were more obese people around, could there be a correlation?

We arrived in Tegus after dark, I was thankful to have some traveling buddies. We took a taxi to a hotel we had chosen out of the book. The driver took us out of the way, even though we had a map and could see that it was very close. He wanted us to stay in a friend´s hotel, so he made sure to drive past a few corners where there were prostitutes and then told us it was a very dangerous neighborhood. He emphasized the fact that the prostitutes were males, and homosexuals. After repeating this a few times I responded that if they were homosexuals than the three of us girls should have no problem. He gave me a disgusted look and finally brought us where we wanted to go. Our travel the next day was fairly smooth. We even arrived in Managua EARLY, a first for this trip.

Before this leg of the journey I spent a week at Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, invluding 5 days at Las Pyramides a yoga/meditation/metaphysical srudy center. That now feels like it happened so long ago. Perhaps I will add a little more about that experience in the future.