Bob T
03-09-2005, 04:25 AM
* REPORT ON NICARAGUA GRASS-ROOTS FIELD TRIP
Wed Mar 2, 2005
Dear Thirsters:
This field trip report is recently in from Thirster in Residence Irene Tinker, political scientist recently retired from the University of California, Berkeley, and specialist on women in development. Irene has devoted her entire career toward understanding issues of peace, justice, and development in the economically developing areas. Here, she gives us the result of her recent fieldwork in Nicaragua, with lots of fine-grained description of the problems of real people who are attempting to make a real difference.
Thanks, Irene!
Best,
Bob
##################################
NICARAGUA-GUATEMALA MARCH 2004
–observing first hand the problems created by US interventions and local efforts to recover
When I was invited to join a dozen other women to go to Nicaragua and Guatemala in March 2004, I jumped at the chance. I had never visited either country, though I had used texts about the roles women played both in resistance and in rebuilding their societies. The politics swirling around those countries during the1980s are emblematic of current debates about how the US should use its considerable power abroad: big stick versus carrot, military interventions versus development assistance; trade and US corporations versus local enterprise.
My knowledge about Nicaragua was very personal. Mira Brown, a daughter of Janet and Norman Brown, who grew up with our children, sent home widely circulated letters during her years working out of the village of El Cua, north of Matagalpa, as part of a team measuring stream flow to find sites for mini-hydro projects. Ben Linder and two Nicaraguan colleagues were assassinated in El Cua de Bocai by contras. Ben was the only American killed during that protracted struggle. Several participants were reading a book about his life and death. Our group visited his grave in Matagalpa on our way to Jinotega; something of a tourist stop, boys scurried to show us where it was.
The trip was organized by MercyCorps as part of their effort to provide donors and friends with a deeper understanding of their distinct approach to development by on site visits. Our trip was unique because all participants were women and we would focus on projects affecting women: the shorthand title was Women to Women, W2W. The headquarters of MercyCorps are in Portland, the largest of five nongovernmental international organizations in the city.
Many MC staff frequent my monthly Development Salons which provide a gathering place for the amazing number of residents of the area who are deeply involved in development projects or studies. After wine and cheese, someone talks about their work: about ICT linking Nepal residents and diaspora, new types of microenterprise in Afghanistan, community development in Tanzania, politics in Indonesia, immunization in the Philippines. The Salon has provided an international ambiance and contacts for all participants. At the salons, I heard about the distinct approach of MercyCorps to development assistance, and I was curious how rhetoric played on the ground. So I added days on both ends of the official trip to meet members of the local development community on my own.
Green Empowerment is a much smaller NGO in Portland that works with partner organizations in Central and South America and in Asia on renewable energy projects to provide electricity and water to poor villagers. Its Nicaraguan projects continue the work undertaken by a fund set up in memory of Ben Linder, who grew up in Portland; another component is the Borneo Project, started by Berkeley students. Jaime Enrique Munoz heads Asofenix, an affiliate of GE that receives Canadian funds to improve the living of poor women and children. His group promotes biogas, solar cookers, and improved Lorena stoves for households; they also install solar panels on community buildings and install microhydro dams for energy and potable water. Once a Sandinista official, he resigned in order to work with the poor; he runs a tiny >pulperia= (general store) out of his house and works on some renewable energy projects.
The original Lorena stove, made of adobe and popular in the highlands of Central America, was touted in the 1970s as an efficient stove that would reduce the amount of fuel consumed, especially in the Sahel. The stove’s ambient heat was hardly an advantage in the Sahara; further, women lacked tools to chop the wood into small sizes. Nor do the poor in much of the developing world use wood for cooking; rather they burn fuelwood consisting of anything from leaves to straw to paper. Jamie says the Lorena stove doesn’t work well in Nicaragua because with poor quality dirt in the adobe, the stove actually burns faster. This fascinated me, as I was for a short time an energy "expert" arguing that most improved cookstoves did not work well outside the laboratories of well-meaning proponents of appropriate technology. Rather, these stoves often increased the pressure on women’s time. In that vein, I wrote "The Real Rural Energy Crisis: Women’s Time." Jaime’s improved stoves, made of concrete with steel linings, saves 50% of the fuel. Because of its expense, street food vendors are the major purchasers.
Fundacion Solar in Guatemala is also a partner of Green Empowerment. Their programs seemed better funded than those of Asofenix. GE provided a technical review of a community-owned micro hydro project in Chel, Quiche, and then helped facilitate a $25,000 CO2 emission reduction credit trade between the indigenous community group in Chel and a Canadian foundation, EnerGreen. This trade is significant because it establishes a precedent for small non-profits in developing countries to benefit from the emerging greenhouse gas credit market.
I was equally curious about the Sandinista women’s movement in Nicaragua. Articles I had used in my Women’s Studies courses at UC Berkeley reflected both a revolutionary zeal and a social conservatism. Virginia Vijil, who organized the Nicaraguan part of the MC trip, arranged for an intoxicating series of talks by women leaders in Nicaragua that delved into these issues as background for our visit to MC projects upcountry.
On the first day we met for an early breakfast with Dora Maria Tellez, from 1985-1990 the Minister of Health in the Sandinista government, current member of the Nicaraguan parliament, and a recent candidate for mayor of Managua. In 1979, she was one of two comandantes who led the attack on the presidential palace in Managua which led eventually to the end of the Somoza regime. She is famously quoted as saying that the women who fought with her were "militants by day and traditional oppressed women at night." This in an army that was one-third women and which had special uniforms for pregnant fighters.
While Dora noted that the revolution had opened doors for women in politics and education, and given them options for work, she reiterated how hard it is to change family and community structure. Her personal style and dress openly declare that she is a lesbian, yet she remains a commanding figure in the country. A local writer commented that "coming out" in a patriarchal country itself sends a message.
Dora is frustrated with the current political system. The 35 parties, which are grouped in parliament into five coalitions, make instituting new policies difficult. She argues that the closed list system encourages splintering among right and left by giving power to the party heads. Dora feels that voting for individuals in a single constituency system would require the winners to have greater response to the people. What about women in parliament? Because parties have informal quotas, 10% of members are women. Dora also commented wryly that many women are judges because the low pay discourages men.
When asked why the US supported the Contras, Dora replied "we are the backyard of the US." During the revolution, our rhetoric frightened interests in the US, yet we tended to "talk hard and act soft. We need to reverse that." Dora wishes the US elites would stop "cooking our power." She continued: US policies such as free trade dominate us today despite the opposition by most parties, yet US supplies a mere 6% of international assistance; most comes from Europe. The contra war undermined the successes of the revolution: we eradicated polio, but now malaria is endemic, and 20% of the kids have no access to school. This reversal, after all our commitment and effort, is enervating: our enthusiasm is gone.
The exhaustion of revolution was echoed by several peasant women we met in Masaya who told movingly about making explosives in their homes, of the siege and bombing by Somoza in 1979 with the help of Israeli troops, of sons killed or disappeared, and of belonging to the social movement Cursillos de Christiandad – rethinking life -- which preached social responsibility, and which Somoza attacked. Overall, they seemed to think that the revolution had been good for women, but they felt betrayed by Daniel Ortega. Today, they said that new revolution is against global forces, not local.
The elite women and men I talked with were equally ambivalent about the meaning and impact of the revolution. Oligarchy prevails in the country; these families often split between supporters of Somoza and the Sandinistas. Virginia Vijil invited me to her birthday the day before the trip began where three of her four siblings, and their families, gathered. Her sister had supported Somoza and continued to argue that it was the Sandinistas that bombed Managua; Virginia countered that only Somoza had airplanes. A brother and Virginia’s ex-husband had both been ministers in the Sandinista government.
Virginia’s house was the back section of the larger building that had once been occupied by her family. An early supporter of the Sandinist movement, she refused to use her husband’s position in the ministry to obtain scarce commodities while he enjoyed the fruits of power. Over time she became disillusioned with many of the Sandinista leaders, but also with the conservative head of the Catholic Church, though not with her religion: her house is filled with symbols and she gives financial support to nuns working in a nearby slum. After her divorce, Virginia rented the front part of the house to an international organization, then studied for a law degree. For 20 years she worked for the UN, primarily in the country; but her last assignment was in East Timor.
From so many voices, certain themes emerged. Sandinista supporters said "we were arrogant, tried to do too much too fast." Literacy campaigns spread all over the country in the 1980s; but today schools and teachers are underfunded and peasants see no reason to send their kids to school. Peace allowed money to flow to the elite, encouraging corruption in government and outside. Most Nicaraguans are poor, 42% earn less than one dollar a day. NGOs, a new phenomena in post revolutionary times, are taking up the slack in social services. Without the heavy-handed US intervention, many think the revolution would have learned from its early mistakes and succeeded in establishing a more egalitarian society.
As in many revolutions, women participated and died, but the men still expected to assume their patriarchal dominance once the war was over. The conservative churches, both the dominant Catholic and the growing Evangelical, support tradition. Post-revolution, men migrated to the US for jobs. One third of households are women headed; 70% of the workforce are women; domestic violence is widespread. Electing a woman, Violeta, as president resulted in "air circulation," commented one feminist, but now situations are stiff and it is hard to breath. A community worker summed up the malaise in the society: Nicaragua suffers from post traumatic stress disorder.
Many Catholics bemoaned the political role of the conservative church hierarchy and praised progressive orders such as the Maryknolls who promoted a people’s church. The continued hold of Catholicism in Nicaraguan politics is illustrated by the story of Rosa.
In 2003, Rosa, the 9 year old daughter of poor Nicaraguans working on a plantation in Costa Rica, was raped and became pregnant. When her parents took her to a doctor, she was "held hostage" to prevent her return to Nicaragua. At this point, the story appeared in the newspaper and feminists from Managua were able to bring Rosa to a hotel room to discuss what she wanted to do. Once she said she "wanted the thing out," the feminists were able to sneak her back to Managua. Therapeutic abortion is legal in Nicaragua under a law passed during the Sandinista period, but the publicity forced the government to set up a panel to decide the case. When the panel was indecisive, an abortion took place even though the Minister of Health objected. Soon after this incident, a ten year old Nica girl in Costa Rica was similarly raped; but she was forced to give birth.
During the two intensive days in Managua, before W2W began, I met local women and men activists and staff of international groups engaged in development, many of which arrange for volunteers from the States to come to Nicaragua for humanitarian projects. A teenaged group from a Canadian church was on the plane, headed out to build a playing field A medical doctor from Oklahoma was on his sixth trip in two years to train doctors in new techniques for hearing loss; he had also set up a clinic in Jinotega to treat what he feels is an epidemic of hearing loss among children in the region. Funds for his clinic come from friends, his church, and himself. Doctors who receive his training in Managua agree to volunteer in the clinic.
This use of volunteers is particularly significant in Nicaragua, though a glance at volunteer opportunities in Central America also lists many possibilities in Guatemala and Honduras. They come for weeks or years, a curious reverse flow as so many Nicas immigrate to the US because there are no jobs at home. The volunteers fill in gaps for construction of sports grounds and hospitals. I recall that after WW II, students took boats to Europe to help rebuild roads and schools. Later planes took students to Africa for a summer experience. Since 1961, Peace Corps has provided an more intense involvement for many people, but requires a two year commitment. Whatever the length of time volunteers spend in a developing country anywhere, their work clearly impacts more on their own lives than on the communities they come to assist.
Two projects stand out. A diminutive Italian school teacher, Zelina Roccia, had come to Nicaragua in the 1990s and was astounded at the number of street children, a post-Sandinista phenomena. After raising money in Italy, she returned to set up the Quinchos project, in many ways the most successful project for street kids I have observed, and I have visited such projects in India, Indonesia, and Brazil. What is different is the method first of weaning the kids from inhaling glue, and then of reinserting them in society by placing them in local schools in the rural town of San Marcos, away from the street influences of Managua. Two boys are now studying in Cuba. The girls’ houses are new, on the far side of San Marcos. But they join the boys and children of the local community at cultural events, dancing, singing, plays, at the community center placed half way between.
Lillian Hall arranged this visit. She came down as a recent Cornell graduate during the revolution and found herself volunteering for the Ministry of Agriculture in areas invaded by the Contras. Lillian recalled some near-misses, remarking casually that the Contras targeted those who were involved in education, health, or agriculture, hoping to undercut any advances by the Sandinistas. Young urban high school and college students, volunteering with the National Literacy Campaign, were particularly targeted. Lillian has remained in the country, except for earning an advanced degree. Supported by ProNica, a service project of the Southeastern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, she identifies projects like the Quinchos for assistance and coordinates a center where volunteers who come to work on these projects stay when in Managua.
The Jubilee House Community (JHC) is another example of how a few dedicated people can make a difference. For over a decade, JHC worked with homeless and battered women in North Carolina; post-revolution misery in Nicaragua drew them, and in 1994 a group of five adults moved south with their children to begin community development in Cuidad Sandino, a squatter settlement on the outskirts of Managua that was overwhelmed by refugees from the 1998 Hurricane Mitch and has 80% unemployment. Volunteers are an essential part of their planning. The day I visited, students and faculty from Bucknell University were receiving orientation from Mike Woodard, one of the original founders. The university sends volunteers every semester who must have taken courses to prepare them for their two week project building a health clinic in Nueva Vida, a self-built housing community down a rutted road from the JHC center. Mike showed us the garbage dump, used by Nueva Vida residents, which is in a dry river bed. Rains carry the refuse throughout the area. He also pointed out the graffiti on many houses, tagged by former Los Angeles gang members who have brought their violence back with them when they returned.
A European NGO had built modern bungalows across the road from JHC for teachers, and I mistook them for Nueva Vida. No, said Mike, those NGOs imposed their ideas without consultation. So they made two major mistakes: the homes were connected but Nicaraguans like single dwellings. Also, they placed the septic tanks in the back yard right under the rooms that most occupants built to enlarge the homes.
Sanitation is a huge problem in this flat dry area. JHC itself built a type of latrine that was new to me. By siphoning off liquid waste and situating the curtained door toward the almost constant wind, this dry latrine had not yet needed to be dredged. Another innovation is an inexpensive water filter: ceramic lined with colloidal silver. Production has been perfected by JHC which sells the filter for five dollars! The filter is now reproduced globally.
Nearby, a huge shed housed a women-owned sewing cooperative "Maquiladores Majors." The women worked for two years with no pay to construct their future work site and today run the coop themselves. In 2002, the women made and sold over 60,000 organic cotton shirts and camisoles for Maggie's Clean Clothes in Ann Arbor MI. Since my visit, the Sewing Cooperative has been designated a "free trade zone," a first for a worker owned factory!
Both Quinchos and Jubilee House are run by foreigners and depend on foreign funds. In contrast, the MercyCorps project we visited in Jinotega, Aldea Global, a small farmer’s association that is now run entirely by its members. Started by MC in 1992 to increase food security and improved agricultural practices, and build small scale gravity flow irrigation systems, the association became an independent NGO in 1996 in order to reduce dependency on foreign leadership and funding. After a few rocky years, the association is prospering.
Our delegation was met with songs and a band when we arrived at their office: Virginia even danced with a board member! We then divided into three groups so that we could talk to the women and men who were the founders, the office workers, or board members. Coffee and beans are major crops; to increase income they have begun to grow organic coffee for export and have won several prizes for their product. MC is assisting in marketing this "single-origin" coffee. As VIPS, we were treated in the evening with a cultural program of traditional dance and skits.
Wed Mar 2, 2005
Dear Thirsters:
This field trip report is recently in from Thirster in Residence Irene Tinker, political scientist recently retired from the University of California, Berkeley, and specialist on women in development. Irene has devoted her entire career toward understanding issues of peace, justice, and development in the economically developing areas. Here, she gives us the result of her recent fieldwork in Nicaragua, with lots of fine-grained description of the problems of real people who are attempting to make a real difference.
Thanks, Irene!
Best,
Bob
##################################
NICARAGUA-GUATEMALA MARCH 2004
–observing first hand the problems created by US interventions and local efforts to recover
When I was invited to join a dozen other women to go to Nicaragua and Guatemala in March 2004, I jumped at the chance. I had never visited either country, though I had used texts about the roles women played both in resistance and in rebuilding their societies. The politics swirling around those countries during the1980s are emblematic of current debates about how the US should use its considerable power abroad: big stick versus carrot, military interventions versus development assistance; trade and US corporations versus local enterprise.
My knowledge about Nicaragua was very personal. Mira Brown, a daughter of Janet and Norman Brown, who grew up with our children, sent home widely circulated letters during her years working out of the village of El Cua, north of Matagalpa, as part of a team measuring stream flow to find sites for mini-hydro projects. Ben Linder and two Nicaraguan colleagues were assassinated in El Cua de Bocai by contras. Ben was the only American killed during that protracted struggle. Several participants were reading a book about his life and death. Our group visited his grave in Matagalpa on our way to Jinotega; something of a tourist stop, boys scurried to show us where it was.
The trip was organized by MercyCorps as part of their effort to provide donors and friends with a deeper understanding of their distinct approach to development by on site visits. Our trip was unique because all participants were women and we would focus on projects affecting women: the shorthand title was Women to Women, W2W. The headquarters of MercyCorps are in Portland, the largest of five nongovernmental international organizations in the city.
Many MC staff frequent my monthly Development Salons which provide a gathering place for the amazing number of residents of the area who are deeply involved in development projects or studies. After wine and cheese, someone talks about their work: about ICT linking Nepal residents and diaspora, new types of microenterprise in Afghanistan, community development in Tanzania, politics in Indonesia, immunization in the Philippines. The Salon has provided an international ambiance and contacts for all participants. At the salons, I heard about the distinct approach of MercyCorps to development assistance, and I was curious how rhetoric played on the ground. So I added days on both ends of the official trip to meet members of the local development community on my own.
Green Empowerment is a much smaller NGO in Portland that works with partner organizations in Central and South America and in Asia on renewable energy projects to provide electricity and water to poor villagers. Its Nicaraguan projects continue the work undertaken by a fund set up in memory of Ben Linder, who grew up in Portland; another component is the Borneo Project, started by Berkeley students. Jaime Enrique Munoz heads Asofenix, an affiliate of GE that receives Canadian funds to improve the living of poor women and children. His group promotes biogas, solar cookers, and improved Lorena stoves for households; they also install solar panels on community buildings and install microhydro dams for energy and potable water. Once a Sandinista official, he resigned in order to work with the poor; he runs a tiny >pulperia= (general store) out of his house and works on some renewable energy projects.
The original Lorena stove, made of adobe and popular in the highlands of Central America, was touted in the 1970s as an efficient stove that would reduce the amount of fuel consumed, especially in the Sahel. The stove’s ambient heat was hardly an advantage in the Sahara; further, women lacked tools to chop the wood into small sizes. Nor do the poor in much of the developing world use wood for cooking; rather they burn fuelwood consisting of anything from leaves to straw to paper. Jamie says the Lorena stove doesn’t work well in Nicaragua because with poor quality dirt in the adobe, the stove actually burns faster. This fascinated me, as I was for a short time an energy "expert" arguing that most improved cookstoves did not work well outside the laboratories of well-meaning proponents of appropriate technology. Rather, these stoves often increased the pressure on women’s time. In that vein, I wrote "The Real Rural Energy Crisis: Women’s Time." Jaime’s improved stoves, made of concrete with steel linings, saves 50% of the fuel. Because of its expense, street food vendors are the major purchasers.
Fundacion Solar in Guatemala is also a partner of Green Empowerment. Their programs seemed better funded than those of Asofenix. GE provided a technical review of a community-owned micro hydro project in Chel, Quiche, and then helped facilitate a $25,000 CO2 emission reduction credit trade between the indigenous community group in Chel and a Canadian foundation, EnerGreen. This trade is significant because it establishes a precedent for small non-profits in developing countries to benefit from the emerging greenhouse gas credit market.
I was equally curious about the Sandinista women’s movement in Nicaragua. Articles I had used in my Women’s Studies courses at UC Berkeley reflected both a revolutionary zeal and a social conservatism. Virginia Vijil, who organized the Nicaraguan part of the MC trip, arranged for an intoxicating series of talks by women leaders in Nicaragua that delved into these issues as background for our visit to MC projects upcountry.
On the first day we met for an early breakfast with Dora Maria Tellez, from 1985-1990 the Minister of Health in the Sandinista government, current member of the Nicaraguan parliament, and a recent candidate for mayor of Managua. In 1979, she was one of two comandantes who led the attack on the presidential palace in Managua which led eventually to the end of the Somoza regime. She is famously quoted as saying that the women who fought with her were "militants by day and traditional oppressed women at night." This in an army that was one-third women and which had special uniforms for pregnant fighters.
While Dora noted that the revolution had opened doors for women in politics and education, and given them options for work, she reiterated how hard it is to change family and community structure. Her personal style and dress openly declare that she is a lesbian, yet she remains a commanding figure in the country. A local writer commented that "coming out" in a patriarchal country itself sends a message.
Dora is frustrated with the current political system. The 35 parties, which are grouped in parliament into five coalitions, make instituting new policies difficult. She argues that the closed list system encourages splintering among right and left by giving power to the party heads. Dora feels that voting for individuals in a single constituency system would require the winners to have greater response to the people. What about women in parliament? Because parties have informal quotas, 10% of members are women. Dora also commented wryly that many women are judges because the low pay discourages men.
When asked why the US supported the Contras, Dora replied "we are the backyard of the US." During the revolution, our rhetoric frightened interests in the US, yet we tended to "talk hard and act soft. We need to reverse that." Dora wishes the US elites would stop "cooking our power." She continued: US policies such as free trade dominate us today despite the opposition by most parties, yet US supplies a mere 6% of international assistance; most comes from Europe. The contra war undermined the successes of the revolution: we eradicated polio, but now malaria is endemic, and 20% of the kids have no access to school. This reversal, after all our commitment and effort, is enervating: our enthusiasm is gone.
The exhaustion of revolution was echoed by several peasant women we met in Masaya who told movingly about making explosives in their homes, of the siege and bombing by Somoza in 1979 with the help of Israeli troops, of sons killed or disappeared, and of belonging to the social movement Cursillos de Christiandad – rethinking life -- which preached social responsibility, and which Somoza attacked. Overall, they seemed to think that the revolution had been good for women, but they felt betrayed by Daniel Ortega. Today, they said that new revolution is against global forces, not local.
The elite women and men I talked with were equally ambivalent about the meaning and impact of the revolution. Oligarchy prevails in the country; these families often split between supporters of Somoza and the Sandinistas. Virginia Vijil invited me to her birthday the day before the trip began where three of her four siblings, and their families, gathered. Her sister had supported Somoza and continued to argue that it was the Sandinistas that bombed Managua; Virginia countered that only Somoza had airplanes. A brother and Virginia’s ex-husband had both been ministers in the Sandinista government.
Virginia’s house was the back section of the larger building that had once been occupied by her family. An early supporter of the Sandinist movement, she refused to use her husband’s position in the ministry to obtain scarce commodities while he enjoyed the fruits of power. Over time she became disillusioned with many of the Sandinista leaders, but also with the conservative head of the Catholic Church, though not with her religion: her house is filled with symbols and she gives financial support to nuns working in a nearby slum. After her divorce, Virginia rented the front part of the house to an international organization, then studied for a law degree. For 20 years she worked for the UN, primarily in the country; but her last assignment was in East Timor.
From so many voices, certain themes emerged. Sandinista supporters said "we were arrogant, tried to do too much too fast." Literacy campaigns spread all over the country in the 1980s; but today schools and teachers are underfunded and peasants see no reason to send their kids to school. Peace allowed money to flow to the elite, encouraging corruption in government and outside. Most Nicaraguans are poor, 42% earn less than one dollar a day. NGOs, a new phenomena in post revolutionary times, are taking up the slack in social services. Without the heavy-handed US intervention, many think the revolution would have learned from its early mistakes and succeeded in establishing a more egalitarian society.
As in many revolutions, women participated and died, but the men still expected to assume their patriarchal dominance once the war was over. The conservative churches, both the dominant Catholic and the growing Evangelical, support tradition. Post-revolution, men migrated to the US for jobs. One third of households are women headed; 70% of the workforce are women; domestic violence is widespread. Electing a woman, Violeta, as president resulted in "air circulation," commented one feminist, but now situations are stiff and it is hard to breath. A community worker summed up the malaise in the society: Nicaragua suffers from post traumatic stress disorder.
Many Catholics bemoaned the political role of the conservative church hierarchy and praised progressive orders such as the Maryknolls who promoted a people’s church. The continued hold of Catholicism in Nicaraguan politics is illustrated by the story of Rosa.
In 2003, Rosa, the 9 year old daughter of poor Nicaraguans working on a plantation in Costa Rica, was raped and became pregnant. When her parents took her to a doctor, she was "held hostage" to prevent her return to Nicaragua. At this point, the story appeared in the newspaper and feminists from Managua were able to bring Rosa to a hotel room to discuss what she wanted to do. Once she said she "wanted the thing out," the feminists were able to sneak her back to Managua. Therapeutic abortion is legal in Nicaragua under a law passed during the Sandinista period, but the publicity forced the government to set up a panel to decide the case. When the panel was indecisive, an abortion took place even though the Minister of Health objected. Soon after this incident, a ten year old Nica girl in Costa Rica was similarly raped; but she was forced to give birth.
During the two intensive days in Managua, before W2W began, I met local women and men activists and staff of international groups engaged in development, many of which arrange for volunteers from the States to come to Nicaragua for humanitarian projects. A teenaged group from a Canadian church was on the plane, headed out to build a playing field A medical doctor from Oklahoma was on his sixth trip in two years to train doctors in new techniques for hearing loss; he had also set up a clinic in Jinotega to treat what he feels is an epidemic of hearing loss among children in the region. Funds for his clinic come from friends, his church, and himself. Doctors who receive his training in Managua agree to volunteer in the clinic.
This use of volunteers is particularly significant in Nicaragua, though a glance at volunteer opportunities in Central America also lists many possibilities in Guatemala and Honduras. They come for weeks or years, a curious reverse flow as so many Nicas immigrate to the US because there are no jobs at home. The volunteers fill in gaps for construction of sports grounds and hospitals. I recall that after WW II, students took boats to Europe to help rebuild roads and schools. Later planes took students to Africa for a summer experience. Since 1961, Peace Corps has provided an more intense involvement for many people, but requires a two year commitment. Whatever the length of time volunteers spend in a developing country anywhere, their work clearly impacts more on their own lives than on the communities they come to assist.
Two projects stand out. A diminutive Italian school teacher, Zelina Roccia, had come to Nicaragua in the 1990s and was astounded at the number of street children, a post-Sandinista phenomena. After raising money in Italy, she returned to set up the Quinchos project, in many ways the most successful project for street kids I have observed, and I have visited such projects in India, Indonesia, and Brazil. What is different is the method first of weaning the kids from inhaling glue, and then of reinserting them in society by placing them in local schools in the rural town of San Marcos, away from the street influences of Managua. Two boys are now studying in Cuba. The girls’ houses are new, on the far side of San Marcos. But they join the boys and children of the local community at cultural events, dancing, singing, plays, at the community center placed half way between.
Lillian Hall arranged this visit. She came down as a recent Cornell graduate during the revolution and found herself volunteering for the Ministry of Agriculture in areas invaded by the Contras. Lillian recalled some near-misses, remarking casually that the Contras targeted those who were involved in education, health, or agriculture, hoping to undercut any advances by the Sandinistas. Young urban high school and college students, volunteering with the National Literacy Campaign, were particularly targeted. Lillian has remained in the country, except for earning an advanced degree. Supported by ProNica, a service project of the Southeastern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, she identifies projects like the Quinchos for assistance and coordinates a center where volunteers who come to work on these projects stay when in Managua.
The Jubilee House Community (JHC) is another example of how a few dedicated people can make a difference. For over a decade, JHC worked with homeless and battered women in North Carolina; post-revolution misery in Nicaragua drew them, and in 1994 a group of five adults moved south with their children to begin community development in Cuidad Sandino, a squatter settlement on the outskirts of Managua that was overwhelmed by refugees from the 1998 Hurricane Mitch and has 80% unemployment. Volunteers are an essential part of their planning. The day I visited, students and faculty from Bucknell University were receiving orientation from Mike Woodard, one of the original founders. The university sends volunteers every semester who must have taken courses to prepare them for their two week project building a health clinic in Nueva Vida, a self-built housing community down a rutted road from the JHC center. Mike showed us the garbage dump, used by Nueva Vida residents, which is in a dry river bed. Rains carry the refuse throughout the area. He also pointed out the graffiti on many houses, tagged by former Los Angeles gang members who have brought their violence back with them when they returned.
A European NGO had built modern bungalows across the road from JHC for teachers, and I mistook them for Nueva Vida. No, said Mike, those NGOs imposed their ideas without consultation. So they made two major mistakes: the homes were connected but Nicaraguans like single dwellings. Also, they placed the septic tanks in the back yard right under the rooms that most occupants built to enlarge the homes.
Sanitation is a huge problem in this flat dry area. JHC itself built a type of latrine that was new to me. By siphoning off liquid waste and situating the curtained door toward the almost constant wind, this dry latrine had not yet needed to be dredged. Another innovation is an inexpensive water filter: ceramic lined with colloidal silver. Production has been perfected by JHC which sells the filter for five dollars! The filter is now reproduced globally.
Nearby, a huge shed housed a women-owned sewing cooperative "Maquiladores Majors." The women worked for two years with no pay to construct their future work site and today run the coop themselves. In 2002, the women made and sold over 60,000 organic cotton shirts and camisoles for Maggie's Clean Clothes in Ann Arbor MI. Since my visit, the Sewing Cooperative has been designated a "free trade zone," a first for a worker owned factory!
Both Quinchos and Jubilee House are run by foreigners and depend on foreign funds. In contrast, the MercyCorps project we visited in Jinotega, Aldea Global, a small farmer’s association that is now run entirely by its members. Started by MC in 1992 to increase food security and improved agricultural practices, and build small scale gravity flow irrigation systems, the association became an independent NGO in 1996 in order to reduce dependency on foreign leadership and funding. After a few rocky years, the association is prospering.
Our delegation was met with songs and a band when we arrived at their office: Virginia even danced with a board member! We then divided into three groups so that we could talk to the women and men who were the founders, the office workers, or board members. Coffee and beans are major crops; to increase income they have begun to grow organic coffee for export and have won several prizes for their product. MC is assisting in marketing this "single-origin" coffee. As VIPS, we were treated in the evening with a cultural program of traditional dance and skits.