VisioneSolares

Sabana Grande from on high

Our nearly 14 weeks here in Sabana Grande have flown by. We’ve learned much, contributed something of enduring value to the community (we hope), and enjoyed sharing our experiences in this medium. Blogging of this sort is not something either of us had done before; in the end, we hope that the ability to share our thoughts with far more people than we could possibly correspond with singly compensates for the impersonal nature of the medium—and for those of you who don’t know us but have found this blog somehow, we hope it has been enlightening. There are so many topics we’ve wanted to address but haven’t. Had we but world enough and time! In any event, this is a kind of “loose ends” entry, with no illusions that we are tying anything up. And we will keep posting things as we travel around Nicaragua and Costa Rica for the next four weeks. Among others, there will be an entry reflecting on eco-tourism.

Pedal Power

If you’re reading this blog you probably already know how much we love the bicycle. As a tool for getting from one place to another, for hauling cargo, for recreation the bicycle has no equal. In terms of the power generated per unit of energy expended the bicycle is the most efficient transportation machine ever invented. Here in Nicaragua—especially in the poorer, rural areas—the bicycle plays a vital role in moving people and cargo around. In the village itself most households have at least one bike, almost exclusively mountain bikes, almost all of which were of Wal-Mart quality to begin with and take a real beating here. Nonetheless, the bikes are functional and the relative simplicity of the machine itself means that they can be repaired and modified with relative ease at a relatively low cost (certainly compared to any motorized vehicle).

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I walk with one…

Humility. For me (Kristen) this has been a running theme of my experience here in Sabana Grande, highlighted particularly during the past three weeks of building a roof. And a friendship. I’ve entitled this entry “I walk with one…” because the phrase is evocative of the process that we have gone through to build both a complicated circular roof and a trust between two cultures.

Yo ando con uno, can be translated as “I walk with one.” The verb andar can mean many things. It’s most literal translation is “to walk.” However, when it is used in Nicaragua and much of the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, it has a plethora of meanings: “to bring,” “to carry,” “to go out on a outing,” “to wear,” and even “to be” in certain cases. When we would say, “I brought one in my backpack,” here they say “Ando con un en mi mochila” or“I walk with one in my backpack.” Is is a very soft way of speaking, evocative of the many hours that people often spend each day doing just that — walking. Walking to get water for an hour, walking to the next town, walking with their animals to their fields. Walking to bus stops. Our host family walks three hours a couple of times per year to get to their planting fields. Bicycles and motorcycles have made inroads with the younger generations, but only with those who have the money. Walking is a very humble way of getting around.

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In the 1930s, stands of enormous old-growth long-leaf pines covered the cerros around Sabana Grande. Soon after the Somoza family seized control of the country, the U.S.-owned Nicaragua Long-Leaf Pine Company began to cut them down with abandon, the wood exported. No sign of what must have been a very impressive forest remains. An average-sized adult could embrace the largest of the scattered pines today, whereas once pines of 3 feet in diameter were common. So while the cutting of wood for cooking and the clearing of what remains of the forest for agriculture certainly have played a role in the deforestation of the country, they account for only a small proportion of the destruction that has been wrought on the original forests of Nicaragua.

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A Cortez tree in all its glory

News from home of late has included word that intimations of spring are finally arriving after a long winter. Having not felt a temperature below 60 since early January it is hard to relate to that particular transition, though a seasonal shift is perceptibly underway here too.

In Nicaragua “summer” is reaching its peak both culturally (Semana Santa has a strong religious valence here but also seems to mark the season the same way Independence Day does in the U.S.) and climatically. It has now been five months since regular rain has fallen (though we’ve had some strange precipitation events of late, on which more presently). The ground is harder than it gets on the coldest winter day in New York and the waterways are all but dry. The fields are dusty, stubbly, rocky places where livestock glean the last remaining stalks of corn or maisillo in exchange for their welcome deposits of manure.

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For those readers who have no interest in baseball I (Michael) apologize for another entry on the subject.  We’ll be back with some thoughts on eco-tourism, more on deforestation, and an update on the adobe project in the next week or two.

The major league baseball season in the States is upon us, which usually marks the official beginning of spring for me.  There is, of course, the occasional snow-out in April but generally when baseball season begins, winter is done for.

Here, however, winter doesn’t really exist in the sense most of us North Americans think of it.  It was hot when we arrived and it is even hotter now (though we’re going through a strange—a word our Nicaraguan friends have used—period of cooler nights, some cooler days, and most odd, some rain).  It feels like baseball weather … in August.

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We have logged here many observations about the landscape and the material culture here, but have written little about the people themselves.  Something that happened to us yesterday exemplifies the generosity and kindness we have experienced from our first day here.

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It is impossible to live in Nicaragua for very long and not notice how much of the material world here consists of things being reused, something we’ve mentioned in passing before but which merits more attention.

The school buses from North America are perhaps the most visible example of this. All of the public transportation save for a handful of old (and a very few new) Brazilian and Russian buses are the familiar old, growling, yellow hulks that prowl the streets and roads of the U.S. and Canada every morning and afternoon from August to June (and often in the summer too). We’ve seen one as old as 1979 and as recent a vintage as 2001. Most have had all traces of the school districts they once served completely erased, though occasionally not (Canandaigua, as we mentioned awhile back, Muscatine Iowa, Port Arthur, TX, Newport, VA are a few of the town/city school district names we’ve spotted).

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What film aficionado doesn’t have this iconic scene from The Graduate practically memorized?

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.

Benjamin: Yes, sir.

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?

Benjamin: Yes, I am.

Mr. McGuire: Plastics.

Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?

Mr. McGuire: There’s a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?

Plastic. It is so ubiquitous that most of us probably haven’t ever taken stock of how much of the stuff we use on a daily basis (a couple of years ago one of the staffers at The Grist, a terrific environmental news service, tried to go a week without using plastic—it was really, really hard). Beth Terry’s recent book It’s Even in Gum is troubling on many levels, not the least being how hard it is to escape plastic.  Although only 7% of the world’s petroleum is eventually turned into plastic (depending on the source, figures range from 5-9%), the process of polymerizing hydrocarbons that was pioneered early in the 20th century has utterly transformed life in both the (over)industrialized and developing world. In fact, plastic is one of the few synthetic substances whose reach is so extensive that nearly all of the world’s population uses it.

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When the young adults are around, the radio at our host family’s is most often tuned to a station in Estelí that plays a curious mix of Christian music, contemporary pop and hip-hop (mostly in Spanish), and the occasional older pop song in English.  For some inexplicable reason the DJs seem to like Bread—we’ve heard several Bread songs over the past few weeks.  And “Sister Christian” twice.  The cream of the crop of 70s and 80s rock.

Happy International Women’s Day! Among the many progressive social initiatives here in Nicaragua is the elevation of the International Women’s Day to the status of an official holiday. In the local school were several information posters about the day and about women’s rights done by both the teachers and the students. This day goes by with barely a notice in the U.S.

Now, by celebrating the fact that this day actually means something in Nicaragua we are not suggesting that this is a society where the rights of women are universally upheld or that there are not arenas of work and leisure that are circumscribed and patrolled according to gender norms. But women here do have a good deal more autonomy and power than in much of the region and world, one of the many positive outcomes of the Sandinista Revolution. The women’s cooperative we are working with here (Las Mujeres Solares) is one of thousands of such cooperatives in the country. We can’t speak for the other cooperatives but the one here has certainly empowered its members in all kinds of ways, especially economically but also in terms of the respect earned by their having become solar cooker experts whose advice is sought throughout the region (including neighboring countries).