si, estoy viviendo

Here I am, sitting at an internet cafe across the street from the US embassy.

It´s been an action-packed 8 days, with three more full days to go.

I´ll blog more later, but we´ve visited everybody poor and dispossessed in Nicaragua from the Human Rights Campaign to a worker-owned maquila (the only one in the world) to a public hospital to a small village to union leaders to banana and sugar cane workers who were poisoned with field chemicals ... I can´t remember them all now, but it´s been exhausting. So, with the embassy meeting, I called basta, and I´m wandering the streets for a couple hours and then we´re off to a lake where we´ll do action planning for a couple days.

The good news is that I can communicate ok with Nicaraguans. not fantabulously, and they have to speak slowly and clearly, but I do ok. That has been the highlight for me - getting away from the group and talking to regular people.

The organization is scheduled in such a way to not allow such activities, so I´ve been pretty subversive. It´s funny to me to have to spend so much time with people who consider themselves subversive but expect absolute compliance to group norms. So, I just ignore them and go off and do what I´m going to do anyway. In the campo (country) when the delegation leader from the US told me that it was really important that I not go off by myself and interact directly with people, and that we all really must have the same experiences, I of course promptly got so ill that I couldn´t possibly make it to the meetings.

Don´t fucking tell me what to do.

Managua is not a great city unfortunately. It was destroyed in the 1972 earthquake and corruption ensured it would not rebuild well. It´s piecemeal and not much to do really. It is the safest Central American capital, as I retort back to all the Nicaraguans who tell me it´s so dangerous, and of course far safer than New Orleans, so I don´t worry much for my safety as I wander around. Though, of course, bad things aren´t unknown.

The accent here is distinctive. They drop endings, especially if with ´s, and their s in general is almost a lisp like Castillian Spanish. I hope that the time here will make me do ok in Cuba. I´ve been underimpressed with the friendliness - people are nice to me if I´m nice first, but they don´t ever initiate. I´ve been quite popular among everybody we´ve met, if only because I´m the only person in the group who chats it up with everybody. A real highlight was a group from Bluefields (who was staying a night where we are staying), which is on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua - they were super friendly in a Caribbean way, more like NOLA and Africa, and I felt instantly at home with them and was super close to going with them yesterday.

I´ve learned a ton, of course. I have taken a total of three pictures because everybody else has taken loads, and so hopefully I can just access pics from them. They group is pretty nice overall, though we´re at the point where people are getting kind of bitchy and I just don´t have the patience. The two Americans who are living in Managua and work for the organization and lead the delegation, I have some mixed feelings about. They seem to cram our days full so much with running from one meeting to the next, with no time to just BE in Nicaragua. I haven´t even had a chance to spend any money - which is good considering my bleak economic forecast, but it made me skip one afternoon to go to the supermarket to find the strangest local thing to bring to Sabine (my custom, wherever I go).

The thing is, that honestly my time here has made me LESS sympathetic. Seeing how people live and the conditions of maquilas and agricultural cooperatives and hearing the stories - I´m more concerned about the people of New Orleans now. In many ways, things are worse there than here, which means that my energies won´t be turning away from NOLA to anti sweat shop organizing and the like. I already have tons to do where I am, and this was an interesting educational exchange. I´ve been very friendly and had lots of interesting conversations with people, and that´s about the extent of my involvement for now at least. I didn´t even want to go to the embassy to be associated with them - or to be bored with hearing it all yet again and again.

Does the US economically exploit Nicaragua? Absolutely. It should change.

Have I had a good time? Well, I´ve been in a LOT of meetings, which has been challenging. But I´ve also had some really great interesting times, such as chatting it up with the banana and sugar cane workers who are camping outside the president´s offices until he honors former agreements with them.

Would I come back? Well, definitely to the Atlantic coast, and probably to actual historic cities such as Leon. Managua, not so much. No problems, just not exciting.

OK, I got 15 minutes left so I better post this and then surf for some porn. Ha. Hmm ... maybe the real reason I´m underimpressed wtih Managua is the absolute lack of hot men. Seriously NONE. Over on the Atlantic Coast, oh yeah. BUt here in Managua - NO EYE CANDY. It´s been seriously a problem for me. And no hot guys in our group. I begged our leader to find me some and he has tried (well, probably not really). So, good to know - no need to bring condoms to Nicaragua. Note to self.

Hope yáll are doing great, and I will note that my email is full of NOTHING INTERESTING. People, I´m in Central America, I´m not dead. Email me and post comments already. pretend I have some friends in the world who don´t want to marry me to get a green card.