Nicaragua Day 3: And then the chicken walked In

A chicken decided to crash our briefing from the Masaya women’s co-op.

MASAYA – It shouldn’t have come as any surprise when the large chicken joined the meeting, striding around as if waiting for her turn to talk. After all the dog had already done his inspection, and the cat made a brief cameo prior to the chicks deciding they were going to make a crossing. Nobody seemed to mind.We had travelled from the capital to Masaya to visit a former Horizons of Friendship partnership project that no longer needed Horizons. In the development world, that’s an outstanding success. Goal achieved.

Fifty-five women belong to the Masaya-based co-op that is involved with everything from mixed farming to embroidered clothes, artwork and producing dolls. The farm was just one site where we could see the co-op at work. Gathered in a circle in an open shelter, several co-op members introduced themselves and talked about what the co-op meant to them.

While women fought side by side in combat with the men during the revolution, it was the men that migrated into positions of authority and power when civil society resumed in the country. The co-op was intended to address the fact that the struggle of women in Nicaraguan society was not a priority to those in power.

Angela, the co-op president, said they faced skepticism over the organizations survival. The local men did not believe that a group of women could become successful at business. She said they were expected to last no more than two years, which only fueled their desire to get it right.

While the trend in Nicaragua is for large corporations to run large mono-culture farms, the women wanted to address the question of food security by diversifying what they were to grow. While bananas were evident on the farm, there was much more — including livestock and even a cacao tree. At one point we had to stop the meeting when a client showed up looking to grind seven pounds of corn using equipment in the shelter. The charge: 40 cents.

Laguna de Apoyo

The co-op works on many levels, from linking with Horizons to provide needed equipment and materials to educating their members on good farming technique. Gloria, one of the co-op members present, said they have put in much time and effort recently to learn about organic processes. They have also begun a bee keeping project. Angela says that not only are they learning to be good business people, but they were also in the process of changing themselves and their society. That includes breaking the cycle of family violence. It also means getting the men in their lives to take on non-traditional roles, including looking after the kids when the women go off to their meetings.

As President of the co-op, she spoke about gaining experience through exchanges facilitated by organizations like Horizons. That included visiting with women’s groups in Canada.

The women are also relying on another Horizons Partner in Nicaragua, Maria Elena Cuadra, to learn more about how to be effective in the political process.

The co-op is presently frustrated by a new law intended to make it easier for Nicaraguan women to own land. More women in the co-op rent rather than own their farms, limiting their choices of what to grow. Banana trees, for example, while lucrative, take a long time to grow. The result is the women are forced to grow more corn and beans, crops that produce a quick yield. While the law is well intended, the Sandinista government has put no money behind the initiative, rendering it ineffective. Later, back at the co-op’s offices in Masaya, we were shown a poster produced by the co-op urging the Ortega government to put money behind the law.

Angela says that they have shown the government what they can do renting the land. “Imagine what we could do if we owned the land.”Self-sustaining, the co-op is now looking at expanding. They are concerned that new co-op members embrace the responsibility that comes with the benefits. The co-op had been through this before. Twenty years ago there were 155 members, few really involved in meaningful participation. The situation became unmanageable. Now a new member is expected to undergo 40 hours of training in what it means to be a member of an economic co-op like this.

It’s difficult, particularly for those who must still work in the factories. The Free Trade zones have meant degraded labour laws that give these workers little free time to participate in the life of the co-op.

The previous night Dr. Harold Campos highlighted the Sandinista’s vision for economic development. It is a government that is looking for partnerships, not dependency, development not charity.The kind of partnership projects Horizons takes on does fit this model, the Masaya women’s co-op serving as proof that this can be done in an environment of mutual respect.

After leaving the co-op we visited the Laguna de Apoyo – a volcanic crater lake and nature reserve — and bought local handcrafts from artisans in Los Pueblos Blancos.

Statue of Sandino outside his home near Masaya.

On the way back we visited the original home of revolutionary hero Augusto Sandino, the building now a library and museum. Again we were reminded that while the party in power may call itself Sandinista, many believe they have taken a divergent path from Sandino’s original vision.

Nicaragua Day 2: A sense of persistence against tremendous odds

MANAGUA — The entire Managua tour bus erupted with laughter when the guide suggested that Canada was a "balanced country." The young Nicaraguan was trying to describe how Nicaragua had skittered from the “dictatorship” of Anastasio Somoza to the “dictatorship” of the Sandinistas. Canada was supposed to be a model of what his country truly needed – balance.Yet he describes Daniel Ortega, recently re-elected in 2011 as Nicaragua’s President, as a champagne socialist who portrays himself as a “practical socialist.”

That practical side is raising eyebrows as the Sandinistas have a new slogan – Christianity, Socialism and Solidarity – a sign that the political party is finding new accommodation with the conservative Catholic Church. There is even a faith park near the National Palace with an obelisk commemorating the visit of Pope John Paul II.

Managua is an odd city. Scarred and scared by the 1972 earthquake that devastated the Nicaraguan capital, there are few high-rise buildings despite a population of 1.4 million people. The low-rise capital is spread out overlooking Lake Managua and a distant landscape of volcanos. The guide tells us that earthquakes are a regular part of life here, the ground under their feet rattling at least once a month.

The capital Managua.

It is also a young city.

While the setting is dramatic, the city is far from attractive, much of the historic architecture that most cities exploit for tourism purposes lost to either natural disaster or revolution. While Nicaragua is a beautiful country, Managua is not.

In a city of monuments, some are missing pieces as one upheaval seeks to eradicate symbols of the previous regime. One large eagle monument was reduced to two oversized wings after the torso was removed in one anti-American moment. Other statues have been decapitated. Everywhere there are images of their current heroes, including Sandino with his large floppy cowboy hat. He even overlooks the city — a large Sandino silhouette has been erected up on a mountain that divides the older city from the newer one.

The Presidential Palace.

Augusto Sandino is a hero throughout Latin America for standing up to the Americans during a rebellion between 1927-1933. Dependent on the U.S., it is a complicated relationship similar to the one Americans themselves faced when they conducted their own revolution in 1776.

The guide tells us that his father was a doctor who specialized in AIDS research. That work took him to Florida, where the family lived and was educated before taking a vote to return to their native Nicaragua. His flawless spoken English and American education made him a logical candidate for conducting tours.

As poverty-stricken hawkers stood amongst the vehicle traffic on the heavily travelled Trans-American highway, our guide spoke about his faith in social mobility – that the most persistent and hard-working would triumph – even if that meant leaving to live in another country for a time. Nicaraguans have an idea that to survive in their country they need to leave it to make enough money to eventually return.

The result is that families are torn apart, particularly as men have left to seek work in neighbouring countries as well as illegally in the United States. Sometimes they pick up a totally new family along the way. About half a million Nicaraguan migrants – both men and women — have crossed over the border into Costa Rica in search of employment, creating fresh chaos for their Central American neighbour. According to Dr. Harold Campos, a former public health doctor working for UNICEF, 15 per cent of Nicaragua’s economy comes from money departed migrants are sending back to their families.

Complaints about the current Nicaraguan government sound very familiar to Canadians. Like Canada, the government is lengthening the age of retirement and increasing pension contributions. Like Canada the minimum wage is not enough to take workers out of poverty. Like Canada, the government works secretively and civil society is beginning to challenge its constitutional legitimacy. Like Canada, the unemployment rate is too high.

Yet in the same breath Nicaraguans will also tell you about the achievements of the Sandinistas. They have dramatically reduced the infant mortality rate through public health programs. They have wiped out illiteracy. Malaria is almost gone from the country. Border conflicts are being resolved. Conditions are improving for children. The Sandinistas have introduced successful programs to develop small business. Last fall a landmark bill of rights was passed to protect women from violence.

While people are complaining about the direct cost of implementing green energy projects, Nicaragua is one of the most susceptible countries on the planet when it comes to climate change. The guide told us dry weather has ruined two sets of crops on his farm. A fungus is seriously challenging one of Nicaragua’s main exports – coffee. Forecasts of growth in the Nicaraguan economy are shrinking as a result, a bitter pill to swallow given high rates of inflation.

Yet for all the problems, everybody seems to take it in their stride. Dr. Harold Compos told us “when there’s no conflicts, there’s a problem.” Despite the apparent love/hate relationship with the Sandinistas, he prefers to say they are “necessary partners.”

One of our first stops on the tour was to look at fossils of 6,000 year-old footprints uncovered during a building project in the capital.

6,000 year-old footprint.

People have been here a very long time. While social mobility may be an illusion for most Nicaraguans not born to professional parents, there is always a sense of persistence.

Nicaragua Day 1: In the flash of this moment

“In the flash of this moment / you’re the best of what we are / don’t let them stop you now / Nicaragua.” – Bruce Cockburn (1984)

MANAGUA – Nearly 30 years ago I had lunch with Bruce Cockburn as preparation for a feature I was to write about the singer-songwriter’s tour of Guatemala and Nicaragua. Having lunch in the old Hotel Nova Scotian, I asked Bruce about his trip, and it was more than an hour before I got to ask the second question, not that I needed to ask any more.

While I did my best to tell his story of witnessing the early days of the Sandinista revolution and the horrors he learned of in Guatemala, he said it best himself with the album Stealing Fire. One minute he’s angrily pounding out “If I Had A Rocket Launcher,” the next stirring hope with “Nicaragua” or “Dust and Diesel.”

Cockburn was not the only pop culture artist to get swept up the aftermath of the Sandinista revolution. Rolling Stone magazine still considers the Clash’s Sandinista to be among the top 500 albums of all time. It seemed everyone was watching Nicaragua.

Thirty years on you don’t hear as much about this Central American nation wedged between Costa Rica to the south, El Salvador and Honduras to the north, bordered east and west by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. As part of my preparations to come here I spoke with someone at my bank, who wanted to know how one spelled ‘Nicaragua’ and where it was.

Where to begin, the devastating 1972 earthquake? The revolution? The Contras? The Somoza dynasty? Or do you go back to the 1930s, the U.S. occupation and Sandino himself?

Nicaragua today is the second poorest country in the hemisphere after Haiti. Almost 80 per cent of Nicaragua’s population lives on less than U.S. $2 per day. It is among the most likely locations in the world to experience a natural disaster. Is it any wonder that the volcano appears to be a stand-in for the country’s national emblem?

Myself and OPSEU Board Member Jeff Arbus are here to tour the country over the coming nine days – and we’re planning on bringing you along. Don’t worry about the travel shots – we got them for you already.

We’re here with a delegation from Horizons of Friendship, a unique non-governmental organization committed to promoting social justice and sustainable development in Central America and Mexico. While Canada has produced many hard-working NGO’s that do incredible work on the international stage, Horizons is unusual in that it is based in rural Cobourg, Ontario.

 

The contingent from Horizons of Friendship outside the Managua airport.

Day one started at Pearson International Airport at 3 am, a Tim’s in hand. It’s ending in a hotel a few hundred metres from the Managua airport. There’s been time for a dip in the pool, a quick cerveza and dinner. Tomorrow the real fun begins.

We hope you’ll follow the adventures of the two of us in the coming days. Travel has an odd way of not only shedding light on the destination, but also on adding perspective about the places we come from. Please come along!