First days in Puerto

On Saturday, I wet back to the airport in Managua and boarded a plane for Puerto Cabezas, which is where I'll be living/working for the next 2.5 months.  It is located in the Northern Autonomous Region on the Caribbean side, called the RAAN, and is the capital and principal urban area of the region.  The only way to really get there is to fly.  There are buses from Managua, but they take about 24 hours, if you are lucky, and there aren't many places to stop on the way since the interior RAAN is pretty uninhabited.  The plane was the smallest I have ever been on--only 10 seats, and until we got up to cruising altitude it was pretty bumpy.  The guy I sat next to had never been on a plane, which is probably not surprising.

The one with the door open was the plane I took.

The RAAN from the air, getting close to Puerto.

Puerto from the air, and that is the ocean on the horizon.

The view from my room at the house of the family I'll be staying with.  Those are sheep.

I will be working with the organization Health Poverty Action and their partner organization Movimiento de Mujeres Nidia White, supporting their joint sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) education and prevention projects.  The Movimiento provides "integrated" services to survivors of violence including legal, psychological, and medical services and they run the only shelter in the entire RAAN region that is available for survivors who are in immediate danger or who have no where else to go.  They also provide education and awareness-building services in the form of trainings to community health promoters, traditional leaders, and directly to community members.  I spent my first few days at work touring the facilities, talking with each staff member, planning with the Health Poverty Action coordinator, and observing trainings in the communities.  Yesterday we had a meeting with the entire team and with two outside consultants who were hired by the project to discuss the baseline study on knowledge, attitudes and practices related to violence that they hope to carry out in the next couple of weeks.  I think it was definitely the first time I had ever discussed indicators, variables, methods, etc., in Spanish!  It was interesting and productive, but unfortunately we didn't make it very far through reviewing the survey that the consultants had designed.  I found out that the statistical program they use here is SPSS, which is the only one I happen to know.

Outside of the Movimiento de Mujeres building.

Inside of the building.

My first impression of Puerto is that it is a pretty interesting place because of how culturally and ethnically diverse it is.  People here speak three main languages: Miskito, Spanish, and Creole English, and some people speak all three.  It was explained to me that although almost everyone is at least somewhat inter-mixed ethnically (between Miskito, Mestizo (Hispanic), Afro-descendent, and various other indigenous groups such as Mayagna), everyone has a single ethnic identity that they most identify with based on how they were raised and the primary language they speak at home.  All of the staff and most adults in Puerto can speak Spanish because that is what is taught in school.  However, when speaking with each other they move seamlessly between all three languages, and everyone seems to follow the conversation.  Needless to say, it makes me wish I spoke more that just Spanish.  Here is Puerto, the majority speak Miskito at home, including the family I am living with.  I have decided that I wouldn't necessarily have to be able to speak it because I could always respond in Spanish, but it would be helpful to be able to understand it.  So far it has been fascinating to just listen to Miskito because of the way it incorporates a lot of Spanish words, but also English words (e.g. family, "siknis").  

One of the Movimiento's educators facilitating a community workshop on types of violence and the new law against gender based violence in a barrio of Puerto.

The community members who came.

I tried to upload a video of the workshop so that you can all hear what Miskito sounds like, and Spanish speakers can hear how Spanish words and even entire sentences in Spanish are used in conversation...but it keeps telling me there is an error.  I will try again later.  

So far, I have been mostly eating with the family and the food has been pretty good.  There are not many fruits or vegetables though since most things have to be flown in from Managua.  They eat a lot of turtle here.  The other day I had it twice: once at lunch and then again at dinner mixed into spaghetti. It was different that any other meat I've ever tried, though not bad.  I am pretty sure sea turtles are endangered but people eat them anyways, as it is a traditional food here.  

!Nicaragua! Llegué.

I got to Managua last Friday.  The administradora from the Health Poverty Action office in Managua picked me up in the airport and took me to buy a phone and to the super, and then to the hotel.  My first day was thus eerily like my first day in San Salvador.  I of course went to Metrocentro to do my errands, just like I did in San Sal, the only difference being that I got a Claro phone instead of Tigo.  The hotel even reminded me of Sisimiles.  Managua, like San Salvador, is a sprawly city of malls.  The next morning before my flight to Puerto, one of the hotel staff took me on a tour of Managua's main attractions.  There aren't many.  Everything historic is located around the Plaza de la Revolución, which looks like it is in a constant state of construction. It is also right on the lake and nearby they have recently built a family-friendly park along the water with fancy landscaping, playgrounds, and kiosk-type restaurants that is called the Puerto Salvador Allende.  Sort of looks like an American amusement park.

This is now the main museum in Managua and no longer the national palace.

This is the old cathedral that was destroyed in the 1972 earthquake, along with the rest of the city.  Neither it, nor the city really, has since been rebuilt.  The columns are wrapped with Christmas lights so apparently it looks pretty cool at night.

International Women's Day: A time to recognize the things women both do and don't do

Celebrations of International Women's Day usually center around recognizing things women do and have done, but what about all of the things that women do not do and have never done?  It could be that those things are just as important.

Last night I watched the video that has gone viral about Joseph Kony, and the list of the International Court's most wanted people got me to thinking.  None of the people on that list are women.  I started wondering if there had ever even been a female dictator, mass murderer, drug lord, ethnic cleanser, warlord, tyrant, or any of the other worst things that people could be.  I definitely couldn't think of any off the top of my head.  When I googled "female dictator" the closest I got was Indira Gandhi, who suspended democracy for 2 years during her rule as president.  And a news article that came up named a Mexican woman as the supposed first-ever female drug lord, but this was in 2011--fairly recent, so still a novelty.  Generally, women have not been directly responsible for wars, the drug trade, Central American gangs, the suppression of democracy, African warlords, nuclear weapons, genocides, killings of civilians, violations of human rights, school shootings, torture, inequality, and I would even say things like underdevelopment and the financial crisis.  Maybe even climate change.  There are a lot of possible reasons for this, most obviously women's historical exclusion from power and lots of other realms of life.  People might say that given the same opportunity, women would act similarly to men, but the women who have assumed roles of power mostly haven't shown signs of this.  Additionally, people might say that it has to do with women being the gentler sex or whatnot, which I don't believe...  I can't attempt to explain this phenomenon, but since it is International Women's Day I think it is very worth noting!

Also, I thought I would share  a very clever and entertaining article I read today.  I wasn't familiar with all of the references to recent U.S. news but it was still interesting:

 Subject for Debate: Are Women People? | TIME Ideas | TIME.com

CENTRAL AMERICA IS NO SOMALIA, BUT CLOSE

CENTRAL AMERICA IS NO SOMALIA, BUT CLOSE - Andres Oppenheimer - MiamiHerald.com

“Central America is a compound of geological fault lines, drug trafficking routes, hurricane paths, historical grievances, insensitive oligarchies that resist paying taxes, irrational political polarization, states without natural resources, extreme poverty, high corruption rates, savage gangs, mighty drug kingpins, and a political class that is incapable of maintaining social cohesion,” Villalobos wrote.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/29/2667997/central-america-is-no-somalia.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy

Thoughts on El Mozote

I have been putting off writing this entry in hopes that with more time my thoughts would just express themselves easily and that I would be able to draw some insightful or even inspiring conclusions on the topic. But now I have decided that I don't have to write about it perfectly or comprehensively, that what is most important is that there be people writing about it. Because even after 30 years no one seems to have really made sense of it nor been able to rectify it, and that is what is most unsettling. It is still very confusing, messy, and politically loaded. I am referring to the El Mozote Massacre that took place here in a small town of the department of Morazán, El Salvador, in December, 1981, during the civil war. The details tend to vary depending on the source of information, and have changed over the years following different investigations and reports. It has been established though, that during the 10th-13th of December, 1981, special Salvadoran military forces trained by the School of the Americas in the United States, and financed by the U.S. government, killed 937 inhabitants of El Mozote and surrounding communities. In El Mozote, according to personal testimony, men, women, and children were separated and systematically executed, often after first being raped or tortured. Houses and buildings were sacked and the bodies were set on fire. The soldiers then moved on to the more rural surrounding communities to do the same. Around 500, or about half, of the victims were children. According to the sole survivor of the town of El Mozote, Rufina Amaya, the villagers had been warned to evacuate and seek shelter in the bigger towns, such as Gotera, because of military attacks on rural areas, which were then the stronghold of guerrilla forces. The community did not evacuate because they felt safe: they were not strongly aligned with guerillas, and had friendly relations with the military.
 
The bodies were left unburied as guerilla forces encouraged news media and human rights groups to visit and report on the events. The reports of a possible massacre were denied by the military as well as by president Reagan. It wasn't until 1992 that forensic archaeologists visited and finally "confirmed" that a massacre had taken place. Another investigation in 2003 found new evidence and established a more accurate count of the death toll.
 
I recently attended the 20th Anniversary of the Peace Accords event in El Mozote, hosted by the president of El Salvador, the first lady, cabinet members, and survivors of the massacre. The purpose of the event, titled "El Mozote Nunca Mas" (El Mozote never again) was to formally acknowledge that indeed a massacre had taken place, and to establish as truths some of the facts and figures. President Funes spoke to the crowd of thousands gathered in the plaza of El Mozote, giving a summary of events and apologizing on behalf of the government for the atrocity. Funes went on to say that those responsible, mentioning specifically Colonel Domingo Monterrosa, could no longer be considered war heroes (there are landmarks in San Salvador that bear their names). He continued with a series of promises to the inhabitants of the present-day El Mozote, to provide them with the attention, justice, and reparations they deserve. Among the promises were the installation of medical personnel in El Mozote to provide more regular physical and mental health care, the donation of twenty computers to the school, the paving of the road leading to El Mozote (currently only accessed by a dirt road) and the road all the way to the town of Joateca, and an economic stimulus program to boost agricultural production and small businesses. He also mentioned reparations to victims and families, although in what form these would be was unclear. He had mentioned in previous occasions that the perpetrators of the massacre can not be covered under the amnesty law which prevents trying crimes committed during the civil war because the law does not apply to egregious human rights abuses, and also, because the state should not be allowed to pardon itself. Attempts were made in the early 2000s to reopen the case in the Inter-American Court, but all failed because of the amnesty law.
 
These new developments and proposals are all well and good, but what is so upsetting is that in 30 years these things haven't already been done. El Mozote is still a poor, rural, community, and probably the only help it has received is in the form of increased tourism to the massacre sight, evidenced by a couple of pupuserias and an artisan store that have popped up in the center of town. They still don't have doctors, computers, or a paved road. There is a monument with the names of victims, as well as a reflection garden at the sight of the old church, planted over the exact place where 140 children were found dead and later buried. Being there in the garden, and hearing a personal testimony from a survivor, I was overwhelmed by the injustice of it all, and I am not even a victim nor have I been personally affected. Vindication is better late than never, but the delay has been tragic. For example, Rufina Amaya, the sole survivor from the town of El Mozote who dedicated her life to espousing the truth, has since died of natural causes.


For more information:


Mark Danner's article in The New Yorker

20th anniversary of the peace accords in El Salvador

Funes ordena al ejército no llamar héroes a violadores de derechos humanos - ElFaro.net

Yes, this article is in Spanish.  Here is the Associated Press article from yesterday, in English, although it is less comprehensive:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/world/americas/el-salvador-president-apologizes-for-1981-massacre.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=El%20Salvador%20president%20apologizes&st=cse

The Peace Corps kids are all right

The Peace Corps kids are all right

A commentary written by a current Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala.