[Vision2020] Letters from Nicaragua from Dave Barber; sorry for the interruption, but the "editor" was out of town . .

[Louise Barber]

Letter 11 (March 5, or week five)

Adios a todos --

 

Some of what follows may be of interest only to Moscow Sister City
Association folks, and some may be of interest only to animals.  Pick and
choose.  I am surrounded by third-graders and may have trouble focusing.

            Sharing the house with the people and the lagartijas (little
lizards) are tiny ants, not 1-16 inch long.  They live in harmony with the
rest, helping clear off the counter and get the garbage ready to take out.
They mind their own business and nobody much bothers them.  Sometimes a few
ants fall victim to the sweep of a dishcloth.  No chemical action is taken
against them.  In fact, the only time I have seen chemical activity is once
when Mario sprayed a cockroach with Windex.  Cockroaches are infrequent,
perhaps because of the Windex: one gorgeous golden-brown and fast moving one
did appear in my travel bag once, but it immediately saw the error of its
ways.  Mario suggested I might take more care to keep my bedroom door shut
so they won´t explore.

            Last Thursday night (This is Monday March 5) Mario, Auro, and I
were eating supper when Aura gasped and pointed with alarm at the wall where
swarms of the tiny ants were climbing it and out onto the ceiling, forming
colonies and building roads.  Another large group advanced across the floor
under the dinner table, and since my feet were in the way Mario suggested
that I rest them on the table´s leg supports.  To Aura´s expressions of
alarm Mario simply said the ants weren´t doing anything.  HACEN NADA, no
problema [They don’t do anything.  Not a problem!].  He said this with the
gentle scorn of adult experience to Aura, girl of 13 and ignorant of ants.

            For my part I was busy being calm while the ants marched under
my sandals, but I was thinking RAID!  Where are you, Dow Chemical, when we
need you?  I was sure that Mario would find implements of destruction after
we finished our slow-moving meal.  But no, after we finished, we picked up
and washed the dishes while the ants developed their suburbs and highways.
Then Mario went outside and began watering his plants.  I kept vigil to see
if the ants would want to head for my bedroom.

            They did not.  After an hour of so of maneuvers they gradually
reversed course and began to stream back home, which I imagine is a nest
under the house.  As Mario said, they did nothing to bother anybody.  They
lifted a few rice grains, perhaps.

            SCHOOL NOTES.  Friday (mar 2) I visited the fifth of the seven
schools:  Instituto Santa Rica.  It is on the highway to Managua, on the
main bus route, and we took the bus both ways.  There was another welcoming
ceremony for me, complete with dancers and a student reciting a Ruben Dario
poem (he is the great national poet), and most of all, a really sparkling
drum band.  If there is a girl´s gimnasia group with cheerleader outfits,
they were not in evidence.  This was a group of about 20 boys -- and one
girl -- wielding drums, two vertical-vibes-type instruments called LIRAS,
for the tunes, and metal cylinders called GUIRROS that you stroke with some
kind of pick (Ana showed me later using her kitchen grater).  They were
doing really complex rhythms, and they were marching all the time, and doing
dance moves that might have been taken from a chorus line.  It was a great
show, full of bounce and beat.  Chris [my son] would have LOVED it.

            Santa Rita totals over 500 students, primary and secondary.  It
has a water tank paid for by the Moscow Sister Cities Association, as well
as a special classroom with a removable center wall for large meetings, also
funded in part by MSCA.  I talked with all the secondary classes, which are
at manageable sizes of 25-35.  The English teacher, Helio Anfaro, who is
also the PE teacher, runs a tight ship.  The students are very well behaved
and there is no outside noise of students running around.

            Helio also works for Gran Pacifico, the company which is
building the huge hotel and condominium complex, with two golf courses, on
VIlla El Carmen´s Pacific shore.  He is a liaison with the public in some
way, and he offered to get me in to see the development, which is not
generally open to the public.  I hope this happens.

            The school library, though small, is the only one I´ve seen that
looks like somebody is taking care of it.  Helio says they could really use
some chairs and desks for students to use.  And the school has no computers
for students.  (The computer room in which I am sitting seems to me the ONLY
advantage, though a huge one, that Gustavo Carrion Zamora [GCZ] has over the
other schools.)

            That night Mario and Ana and discussed equipment needs.  It
seems the immediate school crisis is one of an expanding population, which
has created a shortage of various things (at bottom, of course, is the
shortage of teachers), including CHAIRS.  At GCZ in any given classroom
there are normally not quite enough chairs: this is why students press to
get into school -- there is only one entrance, always guarded by a
doorkeeper -- so they can get good seats.  Since one class group (like 8th
grade, 9th grade) may be much larger than another (my senior class sets the
record at 65), the schools are forced to assign classrooms to STUDENT
CLASSES rather than to SUBJECTS.  This means that a given class of students
is always in the same room, with just, or almost, enough chairs for that
group.  So it´s the teachers who move from aula to aula [classroom], not the
students.  Which of course means teachers cannot store materials in an
English or a science room, and the use of materials is severely limited.

            The schools can afford only plastic chairs, and the students are
for the most part writing without benefit of desks.  And plastic chairs
break easily.  Ana says there is a broad cultural failure to care for
equipment:  not only the students but parents also, even teachers, even some
principals, don´t care enough to keep the equipment in good shape.  (The
computer room here is a clear exception, but it is maintained by people
hired specifically to maintain it.)

            CHANCHOS [pigs] have dug into and eaten the roots on one side of
a platano tree, one of several lining the edge of Mario and Ana´s yard.  The
tree is leaning and wilting -- looks like it´s going to die.  This is the
second strike against pigs.  The first is the way they talk.  Otherwise I
like them.

            (This was Saturday night)  I have just helped a neighbor boy
chase a chicken out of our yard back into his.  It´s just after sunset.  It
is amazing to a northerner how quickly the light drains out of the sky at
this latitude when the sun goes down.

            Saturday morning Ana, Mario, Aura, and I went shopping at the
largest mercado, Mario says, in Central America, Mercado Oriental.
Fortunately we didn´t tour much of it, just enough to get the staples,
arroz, aceite, vegetales [rice, oil, vegetables], etc., and pants and
pajamas for Ana and Aura.  They wouldn´t let me take my camera in -- too
much danger of it getting stolen.  Later we went to a mall where Mario
exchanged $100 for me into 1800 cordobas, and Ana bought shoes.  Finally we
went to their favorite food market, where I bought materials for my next
supper:  bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches.  (Had them Sunday night --
not a great success, partly because I used olive oil instead of mayonesa:
Ana seemed to like them but Aura is down on lettuce and Mario doesn´t eat
naked tomatoes.)

            Shopping here, as you can imagine, is a big process requiring
careful planning.  A shopping trip is for a week, and for two households,
Ana & Mario´s and Doña Amanda´s.  It´s almost an hour´s drive to Managua,
where the good food stores are.  Mario and Ana buy little in Villa El Carmen
except quick items like newly baked nacatamales and an occasional cajeta (a
fudge) and packaged ice cream cones.  They will sometimes stop along the
road if someone is selling something interesting.  On our sightseeing trip
with the principals two weeks ago, they discovered platanos at 1 cordoba per
fruit, as opposed to 3C in Managua, and they filled up all the free space in
our mini-bus with platanos.

            PERROS [dogs].  I´ve been getting bad vibes across the miles
from Lucy about my treatment of the dogs here so I´ve tried to make friends
with a couple who often visit the yard.  One is a puppy, maybe half a year
old, white and brown, shorthair.  (All the dogs here are shorthair -- wonder
why?)  He lives next door, and is the only dog around with a collar.  The
other is a middle-sized black-brown dog named Sacha who often stands just
outside the door, not pleading or begging, just looking in. She lives across
the street, but she gets scraps from here, and that´s why she checks us out
often.  To both dogs I offered my hand, to lick or sniff or bite.  Petting
dogs is not what people do, so I haven´t messed with dog´s heads.  Both dogs
responded in the same way:  a quick sniff, then a very gentle bite on the
fingers, so as to be totally sure, I figure, that they weren´t being offered
food.  One soft nip, a quick taste, and off they went.  Guess that´ll have
to do, LucyBelle.

            I´ve stopped wondering what is wrong with the dogs here, because
clearly they´ve been trained by the heat to move as little as possible.  All
days are dog days here.  There is also a mindset here which seems not
anti-dog but just not very affectionate toward them.  Maybe inside the
houses it is different.  Actually, Doña Amanda is somewhat affectionate with
her two foot-long yappers, who are treated with the same benign neglect but
occasional affection as her turkeys, parokeets, and the skinny black cat
named Jacinto, who is retired.  (He gets respect for having given up chasing
mice and relying on people´s food.)  I´m pretty indifferent to these dogs
myself since I don´t like foot-long yappers.  But what I miss, overall, is
the sight of a happy, or at least a passionately yearning dog.  I think of
that lovely description of a dog´s mind – “Ah, a toast crust -- my favorite!
Ah, a walk in the park -- my favorite!  Ah, a pat on the head -- my
favorite!  Ah, a nap, my favorite!”  etc.  Do the dogs here have favorites?

            THE FUTURE OF VILLA EL CARMEN.  I used to think our home south
of Moscow, surrounded by farm fields, was dusty.  Well, it is, but it don´t
hold a candle to the dust here.  Still, I can hardly imagine negotiating the
mud during the rainy season.  I asked Mario is there are plans to gravel or
pave the dirt roads in the town.  He said that money has been budgeted for
next year to pave the long street that the buses travel, from the end of
this little street around the corner past the bridge all the way to the
central paved road.  That in itself would be a major improvement, and he
said there is more money budgeted for paving in the year following.

            So if you consider the roads, the improving water supply, the
move toward indoor toilets, and such, it looks like life here is moving at
an accelerating pace toward what we would recognize as a modern lifestyle.
Computers and Internet access may become affordable in a few years.  There
are almost none here except in the school and the alcaldia.  And it follows
that there are almost no digital cameras here.  One movement of modern
technology that has bypassed VEC entirely is that of landline telephones.
So guess what?  The placed is loaded, at least among the employed, with cell
phones.  Very few of the children have them, but that'll probably change
shortly.

 

            Love to all,

 

            Dave

 

 

[Letter from early March]

 

Dear Everbody --

            I´m going to be accustomed to the heat by the time I leave.
Already it´s less an event and more the norm.  I´ve long since gotten used
to going to bed sticky, and a wet shirt goes without saying, except when I
walk into this air-conditioned room.  Recently I´ve discovered I can survive
without Gaterade every day.

            Nica presidential politics:  A few days ago Mario gave me the
scoop on Nica presidential politics.  Skip a couple of paragraphs if you´re
not interested.  Mario is quite pleased with the elections, not because he
likes Daniel Ortega much, but because the results could have been worse and
the election (Nov 06) was so interesting and surprising.  The central figure
was not so much Ortega, who was not even his party´s original candidate but
slid into that slot when the party´s chosen candidate died a few months
before the election.  The central figure is Arnoldo Aleman, a sleazebag
politician of some 290 pounds who was president from 1996 to 2001 and stole
extensively from the country´s coffers.  The president who succeeded him in
2001, Henrique Bolaños, had Aleman put in prison for stealing from the
state, but such is Arnoldo´s influence that his lawyer was able to get house
arrest for him on grounds of bad health -- and Arnoldo has quite a house in
the only cool section of Nica´s Pacific coast.  Bolaños, by this act of what
I assume was courage -- he was of the same party as Aleman -- lost so much
clout within his own party that he was largely ineffective as president.

            Nicaragua had developed -- or deteriorated, possibly -- into a
two-party system dominated by the Sandinistas, FSLN (Frente Sandanista de
Liberacion Nacional) and the PLC (Partido Liberal Constitutionista).  But a
member of PLC, Eduardo Montealegre, seeing that his party´s candidate was
going to be controlled by Arnoldo, split off and formed his own party, the
ALN (Alianza Liberal Nicaraguense).  Montealegre is an appealing,
intelligent-seeming young politician who can be seen every day on Nica TV.
Perhaps he will be Nica´s Barak Obama.

            So it began a three-way race (with two other marginal candidates
making five in all), and Eduardo drew away over half of the PLC vote, which,
the going theory is, handed the election to Ortega.  And Eduardo Montealegre
came in second!  Arnolda has not been happy since (he´s out of house-jail
now for some reason), and has been trying to 'unite' the opposition, PLC and
ALN, for his own purposes.  This week he visited Montealegre´s office
unannounced, with a cloud of reporters, seeking a meeting.  But Eduardo
would not meet with the reporters present.  When the reporters left he
offered to meet with [Arnoldo] Aleman in private, but Arnoldo stalked off in
a huff.

            That´s all I know (or a little more).  Ortega continues to
establish his government, and I just hope he doesn´t get too committed to
Hugo Chavez and Venezualean oil money.  At least he met last week with a
U.S. State Department undersecretary, Daniel Sullivan, who was in the area
trying to offer a counterbalance to Chavez and back up Bush´s current Latin
America trip.  Sullivan was pushing the perfectly reasonably point that
connection with the U. S would be more profitable for Nicaragua, in the long
run, than connection with the Venezuelan megalomaniac (my word, perhaps
unfair).

            My English class if picking up some steam.  After Bob Wrigley
sent me some lovely poems for using with my kids, I punted and reverted to
something simpler, STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING.  And they did a
nice job of translating the poem, once they got past 'Whose woods these are
. . . ,' which threw most of them.  ('Downy flake' was a little tough, too.)
But there is a student culture here of copying other students´ work; it
looks like each group of friends has its own worker and the rest are
copiers.  That may be overstating the case, but I tried to persuade them
yesterday that not doing your own work is bad for learning!  I forbade the
practice.  We´ll see.

            In the meantime we´ve been studyinlg a letter from Moscow HS
Leslye Penticoff and Brendan Littlefield.  Before leaving, I asked them to
write a letter to my Nica students, in both Spanish and English, about their
lives and plans.  This they did brilliantly, but I hesitated to use the
letter because of its complexities in English.  Then it occurred to me that
here was an entrance into an area of their expertise:  Spanish!  So I asked
them to find the errors in Leslye-Brendan´s letter.

            L & B are so proficient in Spanish, so far beyond the point
where my Nica students are in English, that I hope they will forgive me this
indiscretion.  I learned a great deal about Spanish yesterday myself, as my
students had a gleeful frenzy over the text.  Like tiburones felices they
were, happy sharks.  The mysteries of 'a' vs 'en,' 'por' vs 'para,' 'diez y
siete' vs 'diecesiete,' 'me gusta bailando' vs 'me gusta bailar,' etc., all
became a bit clearer to my gringo eyes.   Now I need to have them write
letters of their own to B & L.  But I´ll have to help them with the English.

            Dia Internacional de la Mujer:  This day was celebrated at
Gustavo Carrion [school], and Mario took three big cakes to his school.  Ana
arrived home with two red roses.  Mario took us all out to dinner, with
three generations of women, Doña Amanda, 83, Ana, and niece Aura.

            Roberto came also.  He alternates between staying with his
grandmother Amanda here and his mother in Managua.  Roberto is intensely
dedicated to learning English, though why he doesn´t know more at this
point, in his early 20s, is unclear to me. He evidently has no social life,
doesn´t dance or sing, doesn´t like the popular music, doesn´t drink, or
swim.  But he´s very friendly and the only person here with whom I have a
2nd-person-singular TU relationship.  (Nicas turn out to be more formal
than, say, Spaniards -- unless there´s a deference to my age; though it´s
possible to forget in a house without mirrors, I am almost twice as old as
Ana and Mario.)  At first I thought Roberto was going to intrude on my
space, but he turns out to be perfectly sensitive in that regard.  What is
most fun about Roberto is that he is curious.  He asks about me, my family,
Mary (Voxman), the United States, Idaho.  At dinner last night he was asking
about the Idaho landscape, where we go to find beaches, rivers, and lakes.
And he asked about Idaho potatoes.  I explained all about Idaho potatoes
being grown mostly in Washington, and told him about the FAMOUS POTATOES
license plate.  All this was stirring memories in Ana from her time in
Moscow.  We sat there in the warm summer breeze, recalling Idaho farm
fields, lakes, rivers, potatoes.  Images of the Pacific Northwest deep in
the heart of Central America.

            Hope you don´t mind the rambling, or if you do you know what to
do about it.

            Dave

 


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