X-Street Children in Nicaragua

I got a tattoo of a dream catcher before I graduated from high school. Aside from trying to be cool, it was an attempt to bind myself to the idealistic dreams I had about my potential contributions to the world- and a reminder for myself of the dreams and ideals I had as a naive 17 year-old who had never been outside the comforts of the world’s richest countries. Somehow, I knew it would be hard to remain as hopeful and energetic after actually attempting to change the world. Maybe the inkling came from seeing the spirit of the adults of the 21st century after many of them were done with the spirit of the sixties.

I was right. I’ve worked at non-profit organizations in post-conflict areas of extremely poor countries in the past, and learned some things that – in particularly frustrating moments – I think I would have rather not learned: that one can have all the good ill in the world, but it takes a lot more than good intentions to overcome the tendencies of the “New World Order” that has left most of the people in the world behind. And, after facing some of the obstacles in the way of poverty alleviation: politics, corporate media, instability, cynicism, hopelessness, and poverty itself- a year after I got my symbolic dream catcher tattoo, I was glad I’d gotten it… I already felt like a part of my idealistic spirit had died.

Then, last Sunday, I arrived in Esteli. (more…)

“It is difficult,” our Spanish teacher said, “Difficult to be here.”

We were in the Galeria de Heroes y Martires (The Gallery of Heroes & Martyrs): Maddie, Jane, Janique, Katrina, Maddie, Christina, Laurel, and I. The museum is a tribute to those valiant and selfless men and women who fell during the decades of the Nicaraguan revolution.

“It is difficult, because we remember their faces.”

She seemed as if she were about to cry, and I looked away. The walls were covered with photos of the faces of which she spoke, with a name, a date, and a place, as the caption… except for “los desaparecidos,” whose names and faces lacked any further caption. “Los desaparecidos” in Nicaragua refers to those revolutionaries who went to the mountains in the northern city of Esteli to join the revolution and never came back – not even their bodies. One can only guess- or try not to guess- what happened to them.

According to our Spanish teacher, many of these were kidnapped by the National Guard, and thrown from helicopters. Those men and women died alone, on an unknown day, in an unknown place… somewhere over Nicaragua, or Honduras perhaps. Their photographs, up on the wall of the Galeria, serves as their grave site, where their mothers go to grieve, and to remember.

Our homestay mother this first week, and a mother of a fallen revolutionary, Dona Guillermina Meza, opened the Galeria in the early 1980′s, for the community, and especially for the mothers who lost their children in the revolution. Many of these mothers granted their children’s firearms and clothing to the museum, and wrote out their stories (if they knew it) so Nicaraguans would never take their post-Somoza, post-Contra, post-Aleman political system for granted.

At a luncheon for the mothers of the martyrs a few days later (on Nicaraguan Mother’s Day), one woman hugged me tightly and whispered in my ear, “I’m so happy you’re here. I haven’t spent Mother’s Day with children in over 20 years.”

When she loosened her embrace, we introduced ourselves.

Before I begin this blog, a brief history of Nicaragua is necessary to contextualize the country in which I am working. The following was excerpted from the Nicaraguan section of the Lonely Planet Guidebook to Nicaragua and Esteli.

(Paige R. Penland, Gary Chandler, Liza Prado. Nicaragua and El Salvador. Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd. 2006. 55-58).

Nicaragua won independence from Spain in 1821, and the resulting power vacuum led to a civil war. In 1852 the conservatives took power for 30 years of peace, if not prosperity. For the next two decades the USA dominated politics in Nicaragua. In 1914 the Bryan-Chamorro Treaty was signed, granting the USA exclusive rights to a canal it had no intention of building, just to shut out the competition. The occupations casual brutality- torture, political killings, dragging the bodies of dead rebels through the city streets- inspired one teenage boy, Augusto C. Sandino.

The liberals mounted a noble, if ineffective, resistance to the US occupation, which wilted completely in the 1920′s. But Sandino- by now a commander of his own personal army- continued fighting. The US trained the Nicaraguan National Guard under the command of loyal bureaucrat Anastasio Somoza Garcia.

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Hola! Today marks my final day in Esteli, a small city in the northwest of Nicaragua. During my time in Esteli, I have had the pleasure of living with a very caring and amiable host family along with my fellow CPGC intern and Bryn Mawr alum, Laurel. Unlike Laurel and I, the other five CPGC interns on this delegation were put in home-stays with mothers who lost a child during the Sandinista revolution of the late 70´s.

The Spanish speaking environment of my home-stay, in addition to my participation in language school this past week, have been very beneficial in helping me brush up on my high school Spanish. Language school was an unique experience, for I was exposed to a classroom environment reminiscent of a typical Haverford class, small and intimate.

Over the course of five days Laurel, Janique, another Bryn Mawr alum, and I discussed everything from abortion to Nicaraguan politics in Spanish with our teacher, Ruth. To celebrate the culmination of our week in Esteli, Ruth introduced us to a very quaint coffee shop called “Cafe Nana.” At this British owned cafe I had the pleasant opportunity to have a taste of home as I enjoyed a frappuccino and sappy American romance novel.

In addition to this outing, I have had the opportunity to travel to other noteworthy sites around Esteli. These sites for the most part represent the achievements of an active and concerned community. Mamma Linche’s birthing center, for instance, demonstrates one woman’s struggle to provide expectant mothers in Esteli and neighboring communities with instant medical care and attention. Other local women have also taken the initiative to make advances in their community.

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Dina Rubey BMC ‘09 is blogging from Nicaragua as part of her CPGC Internship. She will be focused on Post-Conflict Democracy & Community Building through a theater arts program at the Esteli Municipal Library.

Cristina Morais ‘11 will be spending 10 weeks in Nicaragua (7 weeks in Managua) this summer. While in Managua she will be working with the Quaker organization, ProNica. She will be teaching basic computer skills to the daughters of sex workers in the hopes that they won’t end up in “the world’s oldest profession.” The skills they acquire will hopefully help them in the future with getting secretarial jobs or jobs in one of Managua’s many cyber-cafes.

Laurel Pellegrino BMC ‘08 will be volunteering at the Acahualica Women’s Center in Managua assisting the nurse, writing grants, and doing other publicity for the center.

Jane Seymour ‘10 will be working in Esteli, Nicaragua at Mama Licha’s Clinic, a birth center that offers pre- and post-natal care for the women and children of the community. While there she will be collaborating with two professors from Yale’s School of Midwifery to help in their research projects and to develop her own regarding the impact of Nicaragua’s Civil War on the health care that women pursued.

Maggie Bishop ‘10 will be working with Los Quinchos, which is a multifaceted program for former glue-sniffing street children. One of its projects is a girls residence in San Marcos, which houses about thirty girls, entitled the Yahoskas. Los Qunichos serves more than 200 children in residential programs and even more in street outreach programs. Maggie will be working with the girls residence in San Marcos, helping with school work, water safety skills, and doing various activities with the girls (playing games, reading, dancing, etc). She hopes to encorporate art into their daily activites and I has raised $1,650 for their small library.