Class Consciousness in Nicaragua

As I write this, I have just come back from a vacation with my sister and my dad in San Juan Del Sur, a part of Nicaragua I had never thought existed. It is your stereotypical surf town, mixed with a bit of wealth, inflation, and drinking, and a little more drinking. It’s strange, because the Nicaragua I felt I knew is nothing like San Juan Del Sur – it is made of cement and dirt, it washes its clothes by hand and hangs them to dry under skies that promise rain on plants and barbed wire, and it shrugs off periodic electricity and water losses. It speaks Spanish. Here, the foreigners have pushed their way in and pushed Nicaragua out. The Nicaragua of gallo pinto, low prices (because that’s all the people can afford), 2 or 3 class commodities, and a porous sense of “inside” and “outside” barely exists amongst the three story houses perched on hills over beaches. These houses look like they were cut out of housing developments in LA, with windows and screens, and a clear distinction between what was inside the house and what was considered “outside” and dirty – houses with rugs that you can’t track mud all over. At first it was strange to have to wear sandals in my house because the cement comes apart beneath my feet, and there may be a slug, scorpion, or trail of ants to step on as I walk to the toilet.

Now, for the brief time in which I am more accustomed to living the way most Nicaraguans live rather than how Americans live, the distinction is not only visible but visceral. And I am torn in between the two. In San Ramon, Matagalpa, I had grown accustomed to feeling ill and under-nourished, although I realize this is also a function of my mind because I know the answer to most of my perceived needs is “no”. No, I cannot eat my favorite comfort food (meusli) because there is no refrigerator to store the milk, no I cannot find out why I’ve had body aches off-and-on for the last 2 weeks because the doctors will only listen to your symptoms and prescribe you something, no I cannot feel completely comfortable because my clothes, sheets, towels, hair will not dry, no I cannot have a warm shower to take the chill off. Nonetheless, I had grown accustomed to this, and it really the only time I let it get to me is during the occasional exceptionally cold showers.

The juxtaposition of wealth has been an intense one. I left Matagalpa the day after my birthday, which meant I went right from a home stay with a family who had never been out to a restaurant and had never celebrated a birthday or had a cake. And went straight to Granada to a 4 star hotel. A pool, hot showers, everything was clean to a different standard. Nothing looked like anything that could come from nature. The tiles provided a distinct separation from the dirt, and the temperature controlled room felt nothing like any damp, humid Nicaraguan room I’ve been in. As I sat on the side of the pool swinging my feet in the water, surrounded by wealthy people, it just felt different. Wealth feelsdifferent.

So a few days ago, I had an interesting conversation with a man from Holland. Because I was visiting his house and his chocolate factory, and he just seemed so soft-spoken and gentlemanly, I decided not to say anything to allude to the constant battle in my mind about how to feel about “wealth” and “poverty.” It has been an on-going struggle to come to terms with the varying shades of normal that can be bought with either more or less money. So, I was humoring him by allowing him to say all the things you would expect a person coming from European or American standards and values to say. “You just want to wash your hands all the time” he said, and I realized just how right he was. Since I got to Nicaragua, I have grown to love washing my hands. “Holy shit, you’re so right. Especially on those jankie old school busses imported from the US where I’ve seen people literally lick the seat in front of them, sit with a handkerchief over their mouths looking exceptionally ill, plop live chickens into over-head racks and the plastic is literally wearing away from the touch of thousands of hands. And you know they’ve never been washed. Being on that bus’ll make you feel dirty the rest of the day.” And there it came, pouring out of me –my perceptions of public transit, inherently laced with judgment. It’s hard to keep myself free of judgments when a life with less opportunities just feels different. And it’s little things, like finding that your clothes, shoes, backpack, and sheets have molded while you were gone for a few days, or that the clean dishes you put in the rack several days ago need to be washed again because there’s a black ring of mold in the bottom of the cup. Or having a scorpion in your clothing bag that little by little unnerve me.

I guess it’s particularly poignant for me because I have never been able to, nor have I had to navigate between spaces of wealth and disadvantage before. I have never had enough money to live a life of not having to worry about how much something costs. I have never been able to expedite anything in my life by throwing money at it because I have never had enough money to throw. But here, it’s different. For example, I wanted to get off the island of Ometepe as quickly as I could because I knew I had a 5 hour bus ride ahead of me to get back to Leon. There were two options: take the jankie old 50 cent school bus that everyone takes because they have no cars (i.e. a 1.5 hour trip over un-paved roads), or pay the $16 for the speedboat to take me to directly to the ferry. I had enough toe-wiggling room to be able to take the speed boat, but it was the strangest thing to look out at Lake Nicaragua and know that we were probably one of the only motor boats on the entire like. Then, to be chauffeured directly to the ferry as everyone on it stared in awe at us that we had arrived in a private speed boat. It felt like the equivalent of showing up to something in The States in a private jet. Never in my life has it been more noticeable that the more money you have, the more options you have.

Thanks for reading. I guess I just had to share this because everyone I run into seems to have strong opinions about what Nicaragua is. I think a lot of figuring out “what Nicaragua is” is a process largely contingent upon finding out what the United States are, because it’s only in the juxtaposition that I can realize and understand all the things I had taken for granted as being universal truths. So, I guess I’m renovating my ideas of what’s normal for me and what’s normal in the upbringing I come from. It’s really an exciting and sometimes simultaneously empowering and debilitating process, but I’m really enjoying it.

--Brie

Getting underway, at long last

As of yesterday, I´m officially making headway in my project - to investigate the agricultural systems of San Ramon. My specific interest is in the production of basic grains; to understand how people here assure their food sovereignty. In the States, the idea of food sovereignty is considered hopelessly obsolete or not considered at all.

In a small nation like Nicaragua, though, to be in control of your own food sources is a strong gesture of independence. Unfortunately, the trend right now in these same countries is to abandon traditional small-scale agriculture (the domestic producers of the nation´s basic foods, overwhelmingly) for the promised high returns of cash crops - in the case of Nicaragua, cotton, coffee, sugar, beef. Then these nations spend much of the revenue on importing the same foods they could have produced themselves.

But it´s hard to explain that to young farmers here. Partly because my Spanish skills aren´t adequate, partly because people here know there´s much more money to be made in other crops - and one can always buy their food instead. I suppose the problems only really seem so grave when one looks down at the whole, global picture. As a college student in the USA, we spend most our time doing that...granted, with all the abstractions that keep real consequences at arm´s length.

So that´s where I was yesterday. Specifically, sitting on a steep hillside of maize, overlooking a stunning vista of the cordillera, of the cluster of roofs marking San Ramon, patchwork corn-and-bean fields everywhere with jungle in between. There was one of those rare, cool breezes brushing the corn plants as Mario (my homestay brother) talked with me for an hour about...well, everything. How he preserves his soil, controls weeds, rotates crops, all of it. And he offered to let me help in the harvest next month, which I´m really excited about.

Up on that hill, I´m happy to say much of my uncertainty about why I came here...dissipated. Talking about growing food; well, that´s my element. Right where I want to be.

Excerpts From My Personal Journal

July 18th

7:00am: I got into a fight with a cockroach over who was going to have possesion of the toilet this morning. I won.

July 19th

The majority of the decorations on my walls are slug trails.

I saw a beetle the other day that resembled a miniature rhinoceros.

The Daft Punk sond "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" could be an anthem for the Nicaraguan wildlife.

Itching our bug bites has become a way of life.

I found myself trying to imitate one of the common song birds around here, but I can't whistle; so, I got frustrated.

My host family's house cat is named Socrates.

One thing that unites all of us travelers in Nicaragua is that we share the common notion of not knowing why we're here exactly.

Most commented on subject: The rain.

It's what truly unites this country.

5:00am: woke up to the roosters call.

5:10am: Fell back asleep.

5:20am: Woke up to the abrasive howls of the Congo Monkeys.

The dogs here rub their behinds together in a kind of foreplay. They don't indulge in regular doggy style.

There is a cloud of flies that always follows the dog around. Other than the chickens and Socrates, They seem to be his only companions.

Eventually, they tell me, you start getting used to the cold showers. I'm beginning not to believe them.

There is a wasps nest connected to the roof of my room. The wasps are building two more. I hope it takes them longer than two months. There are stories that in rare cases they fly into peoples ears. They call them "catala".

They tell me there are large spiders in the jungle that bite the ankles of cows, and their ankles swell up so much that the cows tip over and die.

Since I've come here, my dental hygiene has improved. It might be because it gives me something that I feel is in my control.

I've been called "chele" here, the word for "white person". This is the only country that I've traveled to where I've been categorized as "white". I guess things are still black or white around here, or rather, Nicaraguan or white.

I don't romanticize about the "simple life" any more.

I try to adjust to my life here, but my bowels still desperately try to purge this country of its system.

Does anyone actually buy the water that people sell in little plastic baggies that are knotted off at the end?

You never really feel like you are a part of nature until you become a part of its food chain. My body feels like a walking buffet.

-Levi Sharpe