Welcome to Nicaragua

When I found out I was coming to Nicaragua, I assessed what I knew about the country. Quality coffee, sweatshops (I saw a few “Made in Nicaragua” tags in my closet.) and, of course, the Sandinista Revolution came to mind, the latter of which made me cringe considering the role of the U.S.. (Although, not surprisingly, Nicaraguan history is rife with U.S. intervention,  most notably the late nineteenth century filibuster William Walker, who staged a coup and proceeded to instate slavery, all in the name of Manifest Destiny. More on that later.) The assessment did not take long: I admittedly knew very little.

I arrived about one month ago. Nicaragua in May is hot, green and just entering the rainy season. The heat of day is cooled by rain and breeze in the evening, which makes for comfortable sleep, aside from the roosters crowing at 4 a.m. and the enhanced dreams I have as a side effect of the anti-malarial medications. I am living with a family in a small rural town about one hour south from the capital city of Managua in the department of Masaya. Most families here are farmers and/or agricultural workers, which has made it easy for me and other trainees to jump in, visit farms and observe and talk about campo life and agriculture in Nicaragua. Technical training has been fun; we've started gardens, attended practicums on compost making, pest management and related topics, and learned how to install simple drip irrigation systems and build improved ovens out of a barrel and bricks. At the end of July, I will finish training and move on to the community where I will live and work for the next two years as an agriculture volunteer as part of a food security project. 

I am cultivating my Nica-Spanish (loosing my Quiteña/Andean highland accent), and learning to love rice, beans and corn. (Rice and beans mixed together, which in many households is eaten three times a day, is called gallo pinto.) I have found Nicaragua to be surprisingly different from the South American countries that I feel I know so well. The surprise is pleasant in the sense that it challenges my arrogance and the tendency to generalize Latin American this, that, or anything, and also means I have more to experience and learn. The disappointment is that Nicaragua seems to be more conservative than I was expecting. Like a good student of anthropology, I am engaged, adapting and committed to learning about how the people here live. Simultaneously, as any good American, I am stubbornly sticking to my ideals, insisting on maintaining my independence, feminism and other habits. The challenge and to some extent the goal is to find a balance.

The title of this blog is an allusion to a poem written by famous Nicaraguan poet Rubén Dario (1876-1916), titled “To Roosevelt.” The poem, published in 1905, is an intelligent, artful critique of U.S. imperialism and “undoubtedly the Sandinistas' favorite Dario poem,” according to journalist and author Stephen Kinzer in a NYTimes review article of Dario's work. In the context of the poem, "mas la América nuestra," means Latin America. (Dario, a strong proponent of Latin American unity, would perhaps be pleased with the present historical moment in which many Latin American countries are quite unified, politically and otherwise. There are even plans for a regional currency, the Sucre.) 

I propose a broader, more inclusive, "our America" concept, not because United States history in Latin America merits such inclusion, but in the spirit of an increasingly interconnected and borderless future.

Please feel free to comment and question, via this blog or my personal e-mail. And welcome to Nicaragua!

Poetry analysis is not my forte; hence I decided to forgo direct quotations. Although I am unsure of where to direct interested readers to a particularly good translation of the poem, I encourage you to read it. Here is one possible source.  Here's a link for the Spanish.