Nicaragua Wrap-Up

My time here in Nicaragua has flown by—I can’t believe it’s been a month. All in all it was a great experience spending Christmas time here and learning about the historical and political factors that make Nicaragua what it is. I know I’m a huge dork but I’m actually writing a paper about the Sandinista Revolution and aftermath, and how a socialist state functions (or doesn’t). With Hugo Chavez getting a little bit out of control in Venezuela and the new ALBA treaty, etc., Nicaragua could actually make it onto the American radar very soon.


The last few Nica days after the coffee finca were spent up in Esteli, the northern highlands. Esteli was incredibly important during the Contra war, because the CIA-led contra forces would sneak into Nicaragua from its northern border with Honduras right near Esteli, so this town was especially hard hit and lost a lot of its citizens during the war. As a result, the population is extremely pro-Sandinista. Murals, parks, and statues all over the town remember the victims of the war. Particularly touching is a small park for the children who lost their lives during the war due to terror attacks on schools or land mines. We stayed at a great hotel with an awesome balcony that overlooked the whole town and the mountains in the distance. It was a great place to relax, drink some of the good coffee produced in the nearby hills, and soak up all of the passion for politics this country has before heading out for good.



Although I’m excited to continue my year’s journey I’m especially sad to say goodbye to Nicaragua, and it will always have a special place in my memory. I don’t think anyone can visit here and help but be touched by the plight of these people—how many times they have been taken advantage of and exploited. First by the colonizers, then the U.S. occupation forces, then the dictators, then the Sandinistas. When are the people ever going to have the power to control their own country? The few years of the Sandinista revolution might have been the only time in the country’s history that the people in power actually had the good of the population in mind. Now it is all about power and control of resources once again, and once again it will be the numerous poor of Nicaragua who suffer the most.



On to Ecuador!!

Coffee Finca

James and I decided to spend a few days after the New Years up in the northern highlands of Nicaragua, learning about how much of the yummy coffee consumed at Starbucks and elsewhere in the U.S. really gets its start.



The finca we visited near Matagalpa has been an active coffee plantation since the late 1800’s when a German immigrant founded it. Today his descendents still own and operate the plantation, selling the coffee in Germany as well as at Whole Foods in the U.S. Like so much of Nicaragua’s exports, the Nicaraguan themselves do not control the resources, they simply work the land for the people who do call the shots. During a tour of the 500 acre plantation we saw thousands upon thousands of the bright red coffee fruit (called “cherries”), whose inner seed becomes the coffee bean. This particular farm grows high quality Arabica beans. Workers pick the ripe fruits, and put them in a bag on their backs.



They carry around this heavy sack, which when full weighs 100 lbs, all day and get paid about $3 per bag—which equals about $6-9 per day, for back-breaking labor carried out during the dry season, when Nicaragua is boiling hot. All together they employ about 250 people year-round, and up to 500 during the harvesting. Their incentive to continue this labor is not the measly pay, but the free housing for them and their families (in little huts for the permanent workers, a hostel like barrack for the seasonal workers) provided by the plantation, which keeps them on the plantation generation after generation, cut off from any big towns or cities where other employment might be available. This kind of dependency on the plantation has been widely practiced in Central America and elsewhere to keep the workers tied to the land.



The coffee processing system is fairly interesting—the workers bring in big sacks of coffee “cherries”, and then a machine takes the red outside shell off of them. The beans then fall into long cement “pilas” where the next layer, a filmy slimy layer is soaked in water for around 16 hours before the beans are moved through a channel, the water is drained away, and the coffee beans are laid out in the sun to dry. The drying can take between a week and two, depending on the amount of sunlight and good weather. After the beans dry the final “hull” shell is removed, and the coffee beans then look much like you see them in a whole bean form, except that they are a very light brown color before roasting. As in almost all of Nicaragua, the beans are shipped abroad for roasting and for final sale of the product in cafes and stores. For this particular finca, 85% of the beans go to America, 10% to Europe, and only 5% remains in-country to sell at the finca itself. The rest of the country cannot even afford to buy the coffee that they grow on their own land. It is very ironic to see Nicaraguans drinking this disgusting Nestle “instant coffee mix”, a bitter mix of coffee flavor and hot water, while their wonderful Arabica beans are exported.



We had a fun time at the finca, hiking deep into the forest, seeing toucans, snakes, and other wildlife while howler monkeys howled at us from above. We rode horses out through the working areas of the plantation and enjoyed some R & R near the finca’s pond. It was a really great experience to see the humble beginnings of this wonderful thing called coffee which I have enjoyed at least every morning since the beginning of college exams and term papers drove me to the coffee pot.

Maria

I’ve gone a few times for a Spanish refresher at one of the only language schools in town. They also run a program for about 25 low-income kids to keep them off the streets and help with schoolwork, etc. It’s been a nice experience, and you definitely know you’re learning a language when you can understand the rapid and slurred speech of an 8 year old as he cavorts around.

My teacher here, Maria, has taught me many things about life and struggle (almost synonymous terms here) in Nicaragua. She has a rough and slangy way of speaking, like many Nicas. She dresses casually and always looks a little rumpled, yet has a quiet confidence and assertiveness lacking in women from less modern countries (like Guatemala). Maria is the type of person who looks you in the eye and really tries to press you to explain all of your opinions and thoughts.
Maria’s main concern is for her children, and making enough money to support them and give them a better life than the one she had. She is 28 years old and has had 3 children so far (the oldest, Melanie, 9 years old), all of whom live with her extended family (12 other people) in one house. Maria doesn’t make a lot of money, I’d say probably $10-12 a day, and her husband was laid off from his factory job and doesn’t seem too motivated to find a new one. Although her income is low and she shares a house, she takes pride in the fact that she herself makes money to feed and clothe her children, and if her husband wants drinking money he has to ask her first.

Life has made her somewhat rough and unenthusiastic, and when telling me about her daily routine she doesn’t change composure or get angry when speaking about how her brother’s wives don’t help with the cooking so the burden of cooking for everyone in the family falls on her and her mother’s shoulders, because of course the unemployed men in the family won’t step up and help out around the house when their wives are working. Or how her husband does not help with the children, and she considers him too irresponsible to even be left alone with them. She explained with detachment how the water has been shut off to her house the past few days by the municipality and she’s been getting up at 1 AM every morning just to check if she can get a little water for the day’s washings, drinking, or cooking. When I reply “Well that’s awful, why would it be turned off in your area but not in other areas of the city?” She simply shakes her head and simply says, “A saber” (“Who knows”) resignedly. Its as if years of turmoil and hardship have made her put her head down, immune to the trials and tribulations of life, simply walking forward day to day, doing whatever it takes to survive, ignoring the injustices and injuries.



When this attitude really struck me the most was one day when she came back from the bathroom after a break, and asked me if I could keep a secret. She whipped a pregnancy test out of her purse and asked if I thought it was positive. After staring at the thing for a few seconds trying to figure it out (of course they make pregnancy tests intended for the less educated of the third world the MOST complicated and hard to read things ever) I looked up, unsure from the blank look on her face if me saying “Yep, it’s definitely positive” was going to be good or bad news. She just stared ahead, again with the blank expression. “Oh… ok. Another baby I don’t want… Another kid I have to feed.” For a second she looked distressed, and I didn’t really know what to say. The impoverished mother of three in Nicaragua (where legal abortions aren’t an option) having another baby is very different and has a whole different set of challenges than unwanted pregnancies of young girls in the U.S.

For a few minutes she sat there with her head down, me trying desperately to cheer her up. Then she looked up, and much to my surprise we continued with the lesson. From that moment on, although she still hasn’t told her family, she somehow has reconciled with this latest trial. The only other thing I ever heard about the baby on the way was when she seemed somewhat excited about having gotten a really cheap maternity dress at the market. I honestly don’t know how she, and many women like her, find the strength and determination to keep moving forward and take everything in stride.

MicroSavings

Here is a great article by Nicholas Kristof, reporting from Esteli Nicaragua, on why savings programs for the poor are so important.

New York times Article

Parasitos

Well, I have a new topic to now blog about. I won't go into painful detail about it, but I seem to have contracted a parasite from either unsanitary water or food here in Nicaragua. I can't say that I'm too surprised, it was really only a matter of time. What did however take me aback a little bit was the visit to the hospital to see a doctor and get a lab test finished.

Knowing that Nicaraguan health care is free in public hospitals, and having heard many of the horror stories of awful doctors and hours-long lines, I decided that the better option would be to go to the private hospital down the road (where you have to pay a very small amount, but care is supposedly better). So I arrive and explain that I need to consult with a doctor. 200 cordobas ($10 dollars) upfront. OK. Next I enter a dingy dark hallway with peeling wallpaper and a foul odor (not of ammonia, like in the US, but something decidedly less pleasant). At the end of that hallway is a "waiting area" full of plastic chairs, some with 3 legs, some with four. Ants and other insects abound. After waiting about 30 minutes I gather there is only one doctor on staff, and one nurse who has me stand on a scale in the waiting room and takes my blood pressure as I wait. I am told the doctor is ready and go in and try to explain things about my digestive tract I never wanted to explain in English, let alone stumble through in Spanish.

Long story short, in all it cost $13.50 for this doctors visit (including the lab work). What I really got out of the visit, however, is that if this was the state of the private hospital, I probably never want to step foot into the government-run public hospitals. In this hospital there were gross one-stall bathrooms, and only one sink that didn't work and no soap in sight. I can't even fathom what public care must be like to induce people to come cough up the $10 or so instead that is probably at least a day's pay for most people. Sometimes the hardest thing of 3rd world country annoyances is that even as I'm sitting there in a frustrating situation thinking "this really sucks", the knowledge that 99% of the people living in this country have it much much worse than me makes me feel even more frustrated and grumpy.

On a brighter note, it appears that the government also subsidizes medicine here, as I took my slip saying what I needed to a pharmacy (well, three really, before I found one that had the medicine) and it costs approximately .75 cents for the entire dosage I needed. Now if only medicine in the US were so cheap!