Politics in Nicaragua: The Good

In 1990, Nicaragua was shocked to find that the Frente Sandinistas de Liberacion Nacional (FSLN), the Marxist-Leninist party that had been in power since their triumph in the popular revolution of 1979, had lost in the first free and fair Presidential election in that country’s history.  The Sandinistas received 40% of the vote, while the loose conglomeration of opposition forces precariously held together by Doña Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, widow to a famous martyred journalist, got 54%.

In the following two decades, while remaining a powerful force in Nicaraguan politics, the Sandinistas failed to win a single presidential election. Daniel Ortega ran and lost three consecutive times.  Support for the party seemed to hover, and remain stuck, around the 40% mark (in 1996 they got 38% of the vote; in 2001 it was 42%). People began to talk about an entrenched minority of diehard Sandinista supporters:  “the 38%” they were called.  Then in 2006, Ortega ran again, and again he got 38%, only this time he won! (The opposition vote was split in two and the runner-up party ended up with just 28% of the vote.)

At last, after more than 15 years, the Sandinistas were back in power.  And since then (curiously or predictably, depending on how you see it), Sandinista support has appeared to skyrocket.  In 2008, the party easily, and controversially, won a majority of the seats in the municipal elections, and in the 2011 presidential elections, Ortega cruised to victory with over 60% of the popular vote. The election monitors found certain irregularities in that last vote, but they did not question the overall results. A year later, Sandinistas now talk of polls that show 80% support countrywide.

Their public support is probably not at 80%, but there is, without question, a growing support for the current government.  Where is this new support coming from and why?  And what are the views of “the 38%”? Why are they so loyal to the Sandinistas?

Politics in Nicaragua: The Scene

Today I start a series on the political environment of present-day Nicaragua.  I begin with the description of an everyday scene that is emblematic of its current political culture.

People had begun to gather at the park since the early hours of the morning.  Mostly women—mothers who, like rocks, had withstood life’s erosions to the point of achieving an ageless quality—dressed in plaid straight skirts and depleted plain-colored v-neck shirts: campesino women.  They assumed their regular pragmatic, cross-armed stance, as they stood waiting in front of and glaring at the town’s alcaldia.

At the entrance of the alcaldia stood two four-foot high jumbo speakers, that now begun playing music at a deafening decibel level.  It was a playlist of around six or seven songs, that would loop round and round for hours and hours until, mercifully, it would be turned off and discontinued at the end of the day.  The songs included an old revolutionary song, the new Sandinista campaign song, and the famous 1990 campaign song celebrating Daniel Ortega as a razorblade-wielding cockfighting gallo. (Eeeeese es Daniel, Daaaniel Orteeega, Es el gallo enavajado que ya tiene preparado el pueblo trabajador.) Groups of volunteers, wearing the newest edition Sandinista party t-shirts (no doubt collected at the last national rally), sat on the steps of the building or on the bed of the pick-ups parked along the street.

The alcalde (mayor) soon arrived from Managua to deliver a loud, rambling, defensive speech to the cheerfully enthusiastic volunteers and the stone-faced waiting women.  The alcalde reminded the crowd of why they were there, which party had made it possible, and how much the government cares about the poor and struggling.  It could easily have been a cheesy, feel-good speech had it not been for the alcalde’s habit of screaming into the microphone, his aggressive gesticulations, and his overall threatening tone.  Once finished, he got back into his Toyota HiLux and drove off.

Finally, the anticipated materials arrived: sheets of zinc used for roofing.  Volunteers helped unload the cargo from the pick-up trucks, while others started taking the names of the women in line and scanning to see if they appeared on the official list.  Groups of bystanders walked by, some whispering to each other: “Look at how they reduce those poor people to public humiliation,” and “They only give the zinc out to people of their own party.”  Throughout the day, the zinc was distributed to the neediest in the community.  “A lot of those people sell them off after they get them,” one bystander says.  But for many, it is a Godsend.  They can now remove their old, crumbling, leaky tile home roofs, and ensure protection against the elements particularly during the intense thunderstorms of the rainy season.

This scene, of poverty-stricken women being given a helping hand while Sandinista propaganda is shoved down their throats, represents Nicaragua’s current political environment.  It is the hallmark of the current populist regime of Daniel Ortega.

In the next post, I will examine the arguments given in support of the Sandinista government.

My Favorite Posts

In honor of reaching my fiftieth post, I've decided to compile a list of some of my favorite writings so far.  Enjoy:

1. my post-modern summer job - When pretending to work becomes work.

2. Game Theory and Tardiness - Something to read while you are waiting on someone.

3. Nicaragua: Names - Why are Nicaraguan names so strange?

4. Valparaiso - Life in a city of squatters.

5. Mexico City - Life in a city of mystics.

6. Bureaucratic Linguistics - When acronyms take over.

7. International School - When pluralism descends into ethnic conflict.

8. Homage to a Friend/Life in Suburbia - The Goodwill bins, mall parking lots, and buddy cop films.

9. Tower of Babel - God reacts to a new skyscraper in Qatar.

10. Radiohead - You are now entering the strange world of indie music.

Nicaragua: The German Century

Founding members of the Deutsche Club in Nicaragua  1901

When one thinks about foreign powers that have changed the course of Latin American history, the two countries that immediately come to mind are Spain and the United States.  Others that make the list might be Great Britain with its influence in the Caribbean and along much of the region's Atlantic coast during the 19th and 20th century, or France with it's former Caribbean colonies and that one quixotic adventure into Mexico.  A country that doesn't come up very often is Germany; but the German footprint--the result of a wave of immigration in the 19th century--can be seen from the Oktoberfest celebrations in Nuevo Hamburgo, Mexico to the German museums in Valdivia, Chile.  Germany's impact in Nicaragua has been particularly consequential.

Nicaraguan history has been marked by three great power shifts.  The first was independence, which was thrust upon Nicaragua in 1821--no battles were fought, no dilemmas faced.  A few flags and people were swapped.  The power vacuum left behind by the Spanish, however, unleashed a feud between the country's two major cities--Granada and Leon--for control of the newborn state.  The dispute culminated in a civil war, where the Leon faction (the liberals) requested the help of a group of American mercenaries, led by the southerner William Walker.  Walker, after helping to beat the Granada faction (the conservatives), turned his guns on his allies the liberals, and proclaimed himself president.  So, it wasn't until the 1850s that Nicaragua actually had to fight and die for its independence; and it was not against the Spanish, but against a group of slave-state proponents from the United States.*

The second major power shift was the rise of Jose Santos Zelaya, the dictator responsible for the actual establishment of a Nicaraguan political state.  Gaining power through a coup in 1893, Zelaya began building railroads, establishing steam lines, and strengthening public education.  He enacted a number of seminal constitutional rights, introducing habeas corpus, compulsory education, the separation of powers, and property guarantees.  He also took control of the entirety of the Nicaraguan territory by expulsing the British from the Atlantic side of the country, and creating a new department, named (naturally) Zelaya.

The final shift was Anastasio Somoza, who transformed the country into his personal estate.  He is the founder of a very particular political culture: the modern clientalist corrupt authoritarian dictatorship.  A political culture that sees politics as a winner-take-all game, and the presidency as the pinnacle of power, fame, and wealth.  A political culture which became so entrenched that even a popular revolution could not shake it.

Germans, I'll argue, played a critical role in both the appearance of Zelaya onto the national political scene and in cementing Somoza's legacy. All in all, a small group of German immigrants were responsible for much of what happened politically in Nicaragua in the twentieth century.

Telenovelas

What's wrong with her?

Oh, that's Elena.  She's in a coma.

What happened?

She was in a car accident.  She was in the car with Bruno and they were running from the police.

Why were they running from the police?

Because Bruno had just kidnapped her.

Why did Bruno kidnap her?

Because he is in love with her, and because he wanted a ransom payment from the money she inherited from her engagement to his twin brother Alejandro.

Is that Alejandro?

Yes.

Where is he?

Well, Alejandro was on his way to visit his beloved Elena, because she was about to give birth.  But Bruno poisoned the pilot of Alejandro's private jet and the pilot died mid-flight, and now Alejandro is stranded on a desert island.

Who is he talking to?

That's the spirit of his departed mother.  She is the reason Alejandro is rich.  You see, Bruno and Alejandro were separated at birth; Bruno went off with his father, a very wealthy business man, and Alejandro went to live with his mother in a dirt poor neighborhood in the city Medellin.  The two brothers didn't know of each other's existence until one day they crossed paths.  It was around the time of their father's death, and the will, shockingly, handed down all the father's riches to his wife.  So, Alejandro and his mother suddenly became incredibly rich, and Alejandro was left to run his dead father's businesses.  None of this made Bruno, the heir apparent, very happy.  Not only that, but Bruno's girlfriend, Elena ends up falling in love with Alejandro.

The Algorithm

"Does Standard & Poor take into account the impact of its ratings when assessing a country's credit worthiness?"

"No"
 - Myriam Fernandez de Heredia, S&P's director of sovereign ratings for Europe and Africa, on Los Desayunos de TVE (January 20th, 2012)

The new algorithm would change everything.  The Standard & Poor sovereign credit rating system used a hybrid-form of analysis that combined computerized quantitative modeling with expert qualitative insight.  Everyone understood, however, that the credit ratings themselves, once announced, changed people's behavior and, as a result, altered the equation.  It was a bright young man, a recent MIT graduate, that formulated an algorithm that incorporated the rating's projected impact into the final sovereign credit score.

For example, let us imagine that the credit rating for the sovereign bonds of the Republic of Krakhovia suffer a downgrade due to the country's high debt burden and low growth rate.  The country's S&P rating goes from A to BBB+.  The announcement spooks potential Krakhovian bond buyers; Krakhovia has trouble selling its bonds and must raise the bonds' interest rate; the rise in the interest rate exacerbates the country's already troubling debt levels.  So, the projected debt levels, once the impact of the BBB+ rating is taken into account, are higher than earlier models would have anticipated.  The new algorithm suggests Krakhovia's bond rating be downgraded to BBB.  A BBB rating, however, causes even greater concern than the original downgrade, sending bond interest rates even higher.  The new algorithm suggests Krakhovia's bond rating be downgraded to BB+.  BB+ bonds are borderline junk bonds, alarming bondholders who are increasingly trying to unload the assets.   The algorithm suggest a B- rating.  At B-, the bondholders are sent into a panic, causing a massive sell off and the crashing of the country's currency.  The algorithm suggest a CCC rating.  At CCC, the IMF enters the picture.

The algorithm, once tested, proved unusable because any downgrade (no matter how small) sent the rating spiraling to CCC (the lowest possible rating), and any upgrade resulted in an AAA rating (the highest possible).

The markets were never informed of the algorithm.

Book Review: How to Make a Nicaraguan Quilt

Rigoberto Lopez Perez

On September 21, 1956, Anastasio Somoza Garcia visited the city of Leon to accept his party’s nomination to (once again) stand for reelection in the upcoming Presidential contest. The act was merely a formality; Somoza had already been ruling the country for twenty years and through land expropriations and the personal control of several national industries had become one of the richest men in Nicaragua. Dictators, however, like all leaders, require the appearance of legitimacy, even if it’s through rigged procedure. So, Somoza Garcia made the trip north.

Days earlier, Rigoberto Lopez Perez, a young aspiring poet, landed in Nicaragua, after an ambiguous stint in El Salvador. He immediately headed for his hometown of Leon, carrying a cardboard box filled with his belongings, which included a .38 caliber Smith & Wesson. On the evening of the 21st, he sneaked into a town party thrown in honor of the visiting President. It is said, that when he took out the .38 caliber Smith & Wesson and unloaded it into Anastasio Somoza Garcia, the dictator looked straight at him and remarked (like a father reprimanding his child), “You fool! What have you done?”

Margarita, está  linda la mar by Sergio Ramirez tells the story of this extraordinary event, which led to the death of the first Somoza and the consecration of Lopez Perez as a martyr (you can find his bust next to the cathedral in Leon). As Ramirez retraces the assassin and his victim’s steps up to that fateful party, he flashes back a half-century to tell the story of Ruben Dario, by that point an international literary sensation, and his triumphant return to his hometown of Leon after decades of roaming around the metropolises of the world.

The two narrations mirror each other: as Lopez Perez arrives on a boat to the port-city of Corinto, Dario is also arriving on a boat to Corinto; as Leon throws a parade in honor of Somoza, the city is also throwing a parade in honor of Dario; as Somoza lays dying, Dario lays dying. Even some of the characters are present in both narratives. Dario writes what would become one of his most famous poems, “A Margarita Debayle,” on the side of a little girl’s fan; that little girl grows up to marry Lopez Perez’s victim, Anastasio Somoza Garcia.

Game Theory and Tardiness

Imagine the following situation: two good friends decide to have dinner at a certain restaurant and agree to meet each other at the restaurant at five-thirty in the evening.  Whether or not they honor their established meet-up time can be seen as a game theory dilemma.

In the situation there are four alternatives: (1) they could both show up on time; (2) friend A could show up on time and friend B could show up late; (3) friend B could show up on time and friend A could show up late; (4) they could both show up late.

Now, because time is infinite, alternatives 2, 3, and 4 are vague--they fail to specify the exact moment in which one or both of the friends arrive (example: in alternative 4, both friends could show up late but at the same time, or they could both show up late but with one friend showing up before the other).  So, to clarify things a little bit, lets just state the four alternatives as:

(1) they could both show up on time, at 5:30pm
(2) friend A could show up earlier than friend B
(3) friend B could show up earlier than friend A
(4) they could both show up late but at the same time

Alternatives 1 and 4 are optimal.  In alternatives 2 and 3, one person has to sit around waiting for the other to arrive.

What is interesting is that in punctual societies, like the United States (or stereotypically Germany and Japan), there exists a socially ingrained consensus to choose alternative 1.  In countries where such a socially ingrained consensus does not exist (stereotypically non-punctual societies: the developing world), each individual shoots for alternative 4, but ends up with alternatives 2 or 3.

Bureaucratic Linguistics 101

“Hello everybody, please take a seat.”

The meeting was being held in the company’s largest conference room, which seated over sixty people. A representative from each department was there: there was an HR guy, the CTO, the CRM, the CMA, the CFM, the CMO, the CISA, you name it. At the front, standing next to the CEO was the new face we had been called on to meet. The CCO gave his standard upbeat assessment of the company’s current “transition period,” before energetically introducing our new COO. We gave our new leader a polite round of applause.

“Thank you.”

 
He began by humbly praising our skills and character, and expressing his emphatic belief that the future of the company was bright. And then he got down to business. Because everybody knows the first meeting under new management can only mean one thing: new acronyms.

“So, we are all familiar with the Customer Satisfaction Matrix, or CSM.  Well, we believe the people we do business with should be viewed as clients, and that it is not merely their satisfaction that should be considered but their input, be it praise or constructive criticism.   So, here we see an example of a Client Feedback Template; these CFTs are what you will be working with from now on.”

When I first started the CSMs were Purchaser Approval Ratings (or PAR—which lent itself to cutesy PowerPoint slide titles like: “PAR for the course” and “PARticulars”), and then Purchaser Approval Rankings (because they enjoyed the acronym so much).

“Now, the ‘indicators’—or what used to be called ‘indicators’ and shall now be considered ‘markers’—have changed.  In this first square we see the marker states: ‘Client received prompt connection to representative.’  You’ll remember that it used to say something like, ‘Customer received immediate connection to sales agent.’  In the second square, the ‘marker’ states…”

These “buzz word meetings,” as they are known, have become an established rite of passage for any respectable upper management hire.  It is their opportunity to lay claim to a new era, to plant their flag.

“I think we all agree that the Peer Orientation Observation and Practice, the so-called POOP sessions with the newly hired employees—the NHEs—had to be renamed.  Here we have their new name: Monitor, Input, Listen, and Follow-up.”

The directives are clear.  The old acronyms must never be used again.  They have been forever banished by the new tsar.  We must act as though they had never existed, as though we had always used the new acronyms.  How else to avoid confusion?  Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.

“Now, there are also a few confusions about WPTs...you know, work position titles.  We are ready to assign new WPTs, but let me be perfectly clear, these are simply changes in the titles and not in the responsibilities that accompany those titles.  Your current job description and responsibilities remain unchanged unless we talk to you separately.  Lets start with the Financial Administration and Accounting Representative...”

WPTs is a mistake on his part.  He should have said WRD (Work Responsibility Designation).  WPTs got banished years ago, when an old regime attempted to get rid of the concept of “titles.”  But it’s a typical mistake.  Most of us have trouble keeping up with the changes, and simply pick and choose our favorites and stick to them.  This is to the eternal consternation of our boss, who is constantly reminding, warning, and lecturing us to use the “new format.”

“…As for the CSP, his title will remain unchanged.”

The poor CSP. He’d been called that since getting hired, the letters slowly growing independent of the words they represented, until one day he could no longer say with certainty what they were. Custodial Services Provider was his best guess, but he conceded that Cleaning Services Personnel couldn’t be ruled out. He thought he remembered an e-mail about his title getting changed but the acronym stayed the same. Anyway, he didn’t really know what any of the acronyms really stood for, technically, so it didn’t bother him too much that that list also included his own WRD.

“…Folks, lets remember to keep it light, but to also keep it positive…”

A slide flashed behind him, showing a middle aged man on the phone in his office giving the camera a thumbs up; beside him an acrostic: Teamwork/Harmony/Understanding/Motivation/Belief = Upbeat/People. It was well known, even up at the executive level, that rogue employees had begun using vanished acronyms as derogatory terms or placeholders for profanity. CAO (Chief Accounting Officer) became synonymous with cheapskate or tightwad (as in “What a CAO…”), while CTD (Closing the deal) inevitably meant sex (as in “I CTDed your mother last night”). Some acronyms, if said to the wrong person in the wrong context, could get you fired, as former colleagues of mine can attest.

Before ending the meeting, two interns came around handing each department rep a three-ringed binder. Sandwiched between their plastics covers was a rain-forest worth of warm printer pressed papers: this years glossary of acronyms.

“We have no doubt that the new format will help simplify and clarify much of our reporting.  Thank you.  And lets GTW!”

(Get To Work)

Nicaragua: Race

In Nicaragua, there is a direct correlation between skin tone and income level.  The lighter your skin tone, the richer you are, the darker your skin tone, the poorer you are.

Unlike countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, or Bolivia, Nicaragua does not carry the burden of an indigenous underclass.  Native American minorities (and in Bolivia’s case, majority), and their accompanying distinct ethnic identities, historic traditions, cultural practices, and surviving languages, do not exist in Nicaragua. Nor did the African Diaspora leave a mark on Nicaragua as it did the in the Caribbean nations, Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Brazil, and Ecuador. (At least not on the western side of the country, where the majority of the population lives.  Significant indigenous and black-African minorities and majorities do exist in the geographically segregated and sparsely populated Caribbean coast. In this post, however, I will deal exclusively with the western half.)

Nicaraguans are a homogenous bunch, in so far as they can all be described as Spanish-speaking Mestizos.  But within this Spanish-speaking Mestizo category there is an immense variety of skin-tones, accents, and social classes.  In this post I will explore the racial dynamics of a country where there are technically no racial minorities, but where skin-color still plays an important role historically and in the day-to-day life of the average Nicaraguan.

Lets begin by stating that Nicaraguans, perhaps due to this lack of a festering racial minority, are incredibly open and blunt about the skin color of their friends, relatives, and casual acquaintances.  I already discussed bluntness in Nicaragua as it regards to physical attributes, but what I did not mention is that skin color is by far the most popularly used distinguishing descriptor for a person.  Chele (loosely meaning whitie, but without the racist implications) and Negro (loosely meaning blackie but, again, without the racist implications) are the two most common nicknames in Nicaragua.  They are not only nicknames, they are also used in situations where a person needs to get the attention of a light-skinned or dark-skinned stranger or when a person decides to give a friendly “Hello” to a random passer-by.  Americans, such as myself, are well acquainted with “Oe, chele” (“Hey, whitie”), the salutation every gringo receives from any passing stranger. (Rural folk are especially friendly, as one would expect from people who live in tiny towns and are used to greeting anyone that walks by.  They will undoubtedly offer up a “Oe, chele” any time they cross your path.)

Nicaragua: Blunt Objects

Bluntness would seem to come naturally to Nicaraguans.  I once heard, on a bus, a passenger call out, “Hey, piggy,” to a plump vendor, who turned around unscathed and politely attended the customer.  Frank nicknames (apodos) are the norm and tend to completely replace one’s real name.  Baldy (Pelon), Fatty (Gordo), Shorty (Chaparro), and Big-Eared (Orejon) are such common nicknames that people normally have more than one friend that is referred to by the same apodo. (“I talked to the Big-Eared one.” “Which one? Ronald?” “No, man, Franklin.”) In the US, such nicknames, when used to address the person the nickname refers to, would result in either a severe reprimand, a lawsuit, or a beating (depending on the situation). But in Nicaragua, nicknames don’t seem to bother anyone.

So, based on these examples, a person might assume that Nicaraguans are inherently more crass and open than Americans.  I believe they are in terms of physical appearances.  I mean, social norms in the United States strictly prohibit using physical “flaws” as descriptors in public settings.  Just think of those situations when you are describing a common workplace acquaintance whose name you do not know or cannot remember.  The obvious strategy to get the others to realize who you are referring to would be to list the acquaintance’s most striking and distinguishing characteristics.  The problem is that distinguishing characteristics, when viewed as flaws, are taboo in American society.  You cannot say, “I am talking about the fat guy,” because it is viewed as insensitive and insulting.  So, people tend to go for the beat-around-the-bush strategy.  The, “Oh, the one who always listens to Sinatra. Oh, the one who likes to wear blue,” strategy.  Once it is clear that nobody knows who you are talking about, you drop the sensitivity act and say (displaying the appropriate amount of frustration at having to stoop so low), “You know…the fat guy.”  “Oh yeah! Ted!”

In the United States, this tendency towards non-judgment, this abhorrence of discrimination based on physical attributes, became the political correctness movement.  A movement of compassionate judges and executioners, eager to crucify one in the name of the few.  Inevitably, as the PC movement has become more entrenched in American society, it has engendered a counter-movement.  This counter-movement is characterized by people making shocking and uncouth remarks in a deliberate attempt to offend others, with the ultimate goal of mocking the oversensitivity (and perceived hypocrisy) of the PC movement.  Essentially, they say the unsayable, because they know they aren’t supposed to say it, and those offended know that they know that they aren’t supposed to say it.  It’s an easy way to be the “cool rebel,” challenging authority.  Examples of this counter-movement in American popular culture abound; from right-wing shock-jock talk radio stars (Rush Limbaugh), to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, to Sasha Baron Cohen. (You’ll notice it also spans the ideological spectrum.)  More importantly, you see it in every day life, in educated friends who spout off sexist clichés for the sake of irony (supposedly lampooning both people who really are sexist, and people who don’t get the irony).

Crossing the Border: The Welcoming Party

This is the fifth installment in a six part series on a Nicaraguan's journey to the United States. You can find the series in its entirety here.

As Choco ran he didn’t reflect on his journey, on its purpose, on whether or not it had been worth it; all he felt was adrenaline elbowing his chest cavity with all its weight.  He didn’t even realize he was running hand in hand with the pregnant Honduran, until she started to drag.

The others had approached the SUV as it got closer, but Choco had remained suspicious, and the Honduran had stayed with him.  By the time the letters on the SUV became legible, it was already too late for the others.

The Honduran was not keeping up, and they attempted to hide in a private ranch.  Upon reaching the barbed wire, a man appeared out in the distance and aimed his rifle at them.  The shots echoed everywhere, further disorienting them, but also providing a new boost of frantic energy.

As Choco looked around desperately, the Honduran watched their shadows run alongside them, like an inside-out mirror.  They bobbed and panted for another twenty minutes, reaching a group of grazing cattle.  “You see those cows, they have to belong to someone.  Lets hide out here until the owner comes.”

Crossing the Border: Exodus

This is the fourth installment in a six part series on a Nicaraguan's journey to the United States. You can find the series in its entirety here.

They drove up to the Mexican-American border, hidden under the bed-cover of the Coyote’s pick-up.

It was a moonless night, and the milky way, a large violet streak, like the tracks left behind by a jetliner, divided the sky down the middle.  The Coyote pointed the way: “Walk towards that star.  An SUV will be waiting on the other side.”

Day broke a few hours later.  The sun’s heat was oppressive, indifferent…cold.  The sand seemed to conspire with its ruthless ruler.  The days of traveling on nothing but canned food caught up to them.  They began to carry each other in an ill-conceived attempt to save energy.  They kept walking.  There was no SUV.

Choco climbed up a tree to see if there was life anywhere near.  The sight of an endless bare landscape made him dizzy, and he fell to the ground and lost consciousness for a minute.

Partially buried bones--bird, dog and human remains--littered the trail.  “That fucking guy, he screwed us.  He left us out here to die.” “No, come on, let’s keep walking.  He said to just keep walking straight and they would come pick us up.”

The sun was standing right over them, at his most despotic.  The Honduran started to cry, a dry sob.

In the distance, they saw a dust cloud.  A wind storm?  It got closer and closer.  Choco shaded his eyes and squinted.  Leading the storm was a white SUV.

Crossing the Border: A Long Drive

This is the third installment in a six part series on a Nicaraguan's journey to the United States. You can find the series in its entirety here.

The Coyote was a heavy-set Mexican, with a welcoming smile, and an ability to turn a “No” into an “Alright” with a simple look and a “Come on…”

Choco met him, along with his five traveling companions, outside a fried chicken restaurant on an unusually dry night in Guatemala City.  Getting to Guatemala had been simple enough; nobody even asked him for his Nicaraguan identification card.

The Coyote instructed the voyagers to get into the back of his pickup, and so started the first leg of the trip, up to the Mexican border.  As they neared this first border, the pick-up veered off an abandoned stretch of the Pan-American, and the Coyote told the travelers they had to lay down, he was going to cover up the bed.  Choco remembers that after his eyes adjusted, he spent those hours hidden away under the bed-cover studying the feet that lay in front of him.  The red slip-ons, with a rose-like bow near the pinky toe.  The slight cleavage between the toes, the long skinny bones, the veins bulging through like cables under a carpet.  The slight scar near the ankle.  The ankle bone like the bulging eyes of a fish.  Their pungent smell.  Choco claims he would be able to recognize those feet immediately if he ever saw them again.

The Existential Development Worker

Scene: A development worker is lying on a hammock in an unspecified developing country.  The hammock is swinging slowly, and the worker is staring intently at the leaves of a mango tree above.

What am I doing here?  Is this just another form of tourism?  Is it poverty voyeurism?  What am I doing?  Am I just here for bragging rights?  To win some imaginary future argument, where I can reference being down in the trenches and seeing it first hand?  For their reaction?  The way their eyebrows jump up like a cat startled by its own reflection.

But no, I’m doing something.  People express sincere gratitude at the services I offer.  They bless the Lord.  They appreciate what I do.  I am doing something.  But…what am I doing? Am I some tool of a foreign power?  Am I a crusader?  Am I imposing alien values?  Am I a missionary?  No.  Not a missionary.  Not some Jehovah’s Witness sent to enlighten the people with nonsense.  I actually do something.  Build latrines for communities who still shit in bushes; build bridges for villages that are stranded in the rainy season; teach people computer skills to compete in the labor market.  Yeah, some missionaries might also do similar work, but their main goal is to convert.  And a poor Catholic is no different than a poor Mormon.

But, and here is where you start to see the cracks snaking up the pillars, maybe I am a missionary.  Maybe I am just a missionary of progress.  Whose to say my idea of self-improvement (based as it is on the promotion of a skilled labor force, on the diffusion of modern technology, and on certain dietary and health practices) isn’t just as much nonsense as Joseph Smith’s golden tablets?  Aren’t I proselytizing in the name of the modern socio-economic world order?  A world order shaped by the industrial revolution and spread by its powerful disciples.  I am spreading the gospel of the modern technological-industrial system.

Valparaíso

Valparaíso is an abandoned beach house.  A deserted mansion inhabited by young, bohemian squatters.

A late nineteenth century creation, haphazardly constructed, as if several architects had been fired in the process of its erection, the building is hexagonal, with varying angles and side lengths.  The numerous stairwells crisscross each other like a Escher painting; the hallways, varying innumerably in width, zigzag around the many floors, leading to other meandering passageways, or to endless stairwells that, like water wells, fade into darkness;  the antique elevators (the ones with the metal doors that open and close manually like an accordion), long ago out-of-service, at one time rose to unknown heights at a snail’s pace.  Pipes are always bursting, ceilings collapsing at the slightest tremor, and fires are constantly being sparked and charring entire wings.  But the building remains.

The squatters have given the building their personal flavor.  The hallways and stairwells are covered in elaborate street art, stencils, and graffiti.  There are hookah-smoking rooms, cafes, music rooms, bars, arts and crafts rooms.  Downstairs there is a projection screen that plays old Godard and Antonioni films.  The corridors are littered with book stacks.  Dogs roam free, and on some floors outnumber their human companions.

Crossing the Border: The Gold Rush

This is the second installment in a six part series on a Nicaraguan's journey to the United States.

In the United States, the standard caricature of an “illegal immigrant” is that of a desperate human being who cannot make ends meet in his or her poverty-stricken homeland, and therefore sets off on a grueling expedition into an unknown and mystical land of dreams.  The Hispanic immigrant is perceived as “fleeing” a bleak and arduous lifestyle for the opportunities and comforts of the “first world.”  He is the miserable Polish family being greeted by the Statue of Liberty and its “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”  He is an indigent who chooses to migrate for the sake of his or her own survival.  Why else would he cross deserts, dodge bullets, or be stuffed into suffocating cargo trucks?

The destitute immigrant image satisfies the needs of both the left and the right in the United States.  For the left, it creates a sympathetic character entitled to the economic advantages found in the US; for the right, it is a pitiful image of misery that, like a disease, threatens to infect the sacred homeland.

The truth, however, is that the current wave of Hispanic immigrants may be not be so much like the wretched Eastern Europeans passing through Ellis Island, but more like the Northeastern Americans rushing to California during the mid-nineteenth century gold rush.

In Nicaragua, the term for traveling to the United States illegally is to go mojado, or “wet.”  Rather than being destitute, the mojados I have spoken to, and the common Nicaraguan perception of a mojado, is that of an adventurous, ambitious lower-middle class entrepreneur.  The mojados I have met tend to have stable, at times arduous, jobs that afford them a wage that is good enough to get by.   The lower classes that struggle to maintain a healthy diet are far more preoccupied with their daily chores (and perhaps even satisfied by their life routine) to yearn and dream of other worlds.  The struggling middle class, on the other hand, earn enough to survive comfortably, and, in general, comfort can lead only to bored, apathetic dissatisfaction or to an insatiable, ambitious drive.  The mojado is the latter, part of the eager middle class, anxious to move up the income ladder at any cost.

Crossing the Border: The Emigrant

This is the first in a six part series on a Nicaraguan's journey to the United States.

Angel Manuel was a thin, dangly man with a large innocent grin that made him all the more mischievous.  A long protruding nose that arched downward had earned him the nickname Choco, short for Chocoyo or Parrot.  Choco was a gifted mooch.  At the local comedor that his group of friends used as a hang out, he’d arrive, sit down, and greet everyone with a fantastical story about a bar fight, a cheating spouse, or a local government conspiracy; as he told the story, he would reach out and grab pieces of chicken from a friend’s plate, then some tajadas (fried plantain chips) from another plate, then sip on the tropical fruit drink of another friend, not once taking his eyes off his captivated audience.  When the time came to buy alcohol, he was always the one who offered to go pick it up instead of putting money down.  Choco was the type of friend that you didn’t call but would show up; the one that you tried not to eat with; the one that you hid the booze from.

Choco lived with his parents in adobe house with a spacious back yard littered with the droppings of mango, avocado, and lemon trees.  He worked the occasional odd job, at times looked after his little brothers, but mostly spent his time watching television or playing pool at one of the pool halls.

Choco had a brother that worked as a taxi driver.  After many years of work, and through other income streams, he managed to collect five thousand dollars in savings.  Choco’s brother had long ago decided he wanted to go to the United States, and since he had been unable to get a visa, he used his savings to cross the border illegally.  He paid a coyote* the money, reached the Mexican-American border, and crossed over, only to be caught by the U.S. Immigration Authority.  He spent three months in a Houston detention center.  Before releasing him, the immigration officials at the detention center warned him that if he tried to cross the border again, they would consider him a terrorist and he would be arrested and tried in a U.S. court.

Nicaragua: Names

Birth names, on the whole, are interesting cultural indicators.  They can reflect entrenched cultural values (as in the prominence of Biblical names), migration patterns (Irish names, Italian names, Polish names), and even pop culture trends (children named after sports figures and celebrities).  With regard to birth names, Nicaragua represents a curious case.  A person’s name does not seem to reveal a cultural identity, as much as a decision based on whim and fancy.  In many cases, names in Nicaragua seem to be the result of a game of Scrabble gone terribly awry.  How else to explain the following names: Joxe, Jocasta, Axel, Exel, Lubianka, Mayerling, Esquiam, Yen.

In spite of the randomness, many names do fall into certain categories, though some categories are more esoteric than others.  As is to be expected, names of Spanish origin are popular, but not to the degree of other Latin American countries.  Whereas, in other countries “discovered” by the Conquistadors, Spanish names account for around ninety percent of the birth names, in Nicaragua it is probably closer to sixty percent.  Pre-Colombian Aztec names such as Xochilt, Itzachelt, and Cuatemoc are less common, but still typical (especially Xochilt).

The end of the Spanish colonial period, and the rise of the United States as the regional hegemonic power, made a greater mark on birth names in Nicaragua than in many other Latin American countries I have visited.  Anglo-Saxon names such as Karen, Hazel, Helen, Jennifer, Kathy, Katherine, Lucy, Marjory, Jason, Walter, Kenneth, Gary, Bryan, Andy, Michael, Edwin, Sammy, Franklin are unheard of in other Hispanic American countries (to say nothing of Spain itself), but in Nicaragua they are about as common as standard Spanish names like Jose, Luis or Maria.  An odd situation, given the difficulty Spanish speakers have in pronouncing these names (between the English and Spanish languages there is a noticeable deviation in the pronunciation of the letters H, J, and R as well as in the sounds made by the combination of “th” and “ca”).

Top 10 Albums

In true Pitchfork fashion, here are the top 10 albums of the "The History of Music: A Personal Story" series.  The subtitle for this list should be "The albums that are still worth listening to...".  The albums are in order of musical phase, starting with nu-metal, then punk, then indie.  Some of these bands have more than one album that is worth listening to, but as a rule, no band I have ever liked has released more than three solid albums.  So, for any band out there, reach your peak, release three albums, and then just stop.  After that, I will either stop paying attention or just buy your CD out of loyalty.

Rage Against the Machine
S/T (1992)

The first hardcore funk-rock band.  There has never been, and probably will never be, better music to spark a destructive riot.  After the riot, some may sit and ponder what was accomplished, at whom was the anger directed, and whether the destruction was necessary.  But as long as the riot keeps going, we can enjoy the thrill of smashing things, and yelling “FUCK YOU, I WON’T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME!” at someone (not sure who) for telling me to do something (not sure what). (Songs: Killing in the Name Of, Take the Power Back)

Tool
Ænima (1996)

There are not many bands from my nu-metal phase that can still be taken seriously today, but Tool is definitely one of them.  They would have been a damn good prog-rock band, if their sound hadn’t been so sinister. Ænima is a world of dark dungeons, the rhythm marked by the dripping of the leaky pipes, while prisoners tell stories of martyrdom and apocalypse to the cries of the tortured in the background.  The long, intricate song arrangements, and the depth of the writing make these guys the Radiohead of the nu-metal movement. (Songs: Eulogy, Hooker with a Penis)

Operation Ivy
Energy (1991)

Dude, it still sounds like the songs are being played on cassette tape.  Dude, the songs are barely two minutes long (no bridges, man).  Dude, the choruses are just him repeating the title of the song over and over again.  It’s fucking punk rock, is what it is.  And it’s fucking awesome.  This album is an early example of what would later become the 90s punk and ska scene.  Look up the word “crude” in a thesaurus and apply all the synonyms to this album: simple, makeshift, rough, unfinished, unsophisticated, raw, unrefined, unprocessed, rude, coarse, vulgar, offensive, uncouth.  It really doesn't get much better than this. (Songs: Knowledge, Take Warning)

The History of Music: A Personal Story (Part 5)

The Decline

Nearly ten years had passed since KoRn.  A preference had become a hobby, a hobby a fixation, a fixation a passion.  The narrative reached a climax--its High Fidelity moment--with the indie music phase: visits to hip records stores in the city, the friends that only talked about music, the concerts on the weekends, deciding whether to date someone based on their taste in music, mix tapes.  A feverish passion, that soon began its natural decline.  A couple of years later, I had stopped searching for music, stopped browsing CDs, stopped going to shows.  The only exposure to new music was through friends and whatever they played at their house, in their car, or at a party.  I accompanied friends to shows, but never looked into whether any of the bands I liked (or had liked) were in town.

The death of music had two potential causes.  First, the indie music scene had expanded the scope of “good” music to encompass almost anything, as long as you had discovered it on your own.  In other words, it was a race to see who could find a strange, quirky band that nobody had heard of before.  It didn’t matter if it was pop, hip hop, house, electronic, classical, jazz, old, new; anything, as long as you could defend it or as long as it was for the sake of irony. The internet and the proliferation of Do It Yourself recordings made the possibilities endless.  There were the local dive bar bands, the international bands that sung in foreign languages (French, Spanish, or Portuguese), the forgotten bands that had broken up before finding an audience.  These were all potential discoveries that one was on the hunt for.  There was even a movement to rediscover old established bands that had been written off as dated, or had always been acknowledged but never truly appreciated.

The History of Music: A Personal Story (Part 4)

Radiohead and the Indie Scene

Radiohead felt like grown-up music.  It took time and effort--patience--to get into the band.  Unlike pop-punk music, the melodies did not instantly trigger a sugar high, they weren’t ear candy, they did not immediately “click.”  I listened to OK Computer over and over again, the cascading guitar chords flowing like a milky river into the unexplored recesses of my brain.  I developed a relationship with OK Computer; we fell asleep together, wandered through malls together, drank coffee and read the paper in the mornings together.  I got to know the album; I read and re-read the liner notes; thought about whether the layout of the “Airbag” lyrics intentionally created the outline of a tank; analyzed the ambiguous lyrics.  And I began to love OK Computer, began enjoying the once uncomfortable silences.

As a result of the process, the emotional response to the music was, inevitably, different.  Whether it be the delayed gratification, the self-satisfaction due to one’s own awareness of the effort that has been invested, or simply brainwashing through repetition, the connection to the album proved lasting and transcendent.  At the risk of sounding overly cynical, let me say that the music itself was (is) beautiful.  A dreamy world of layered sounds and echoes, of whale songs and bursting bubbles; the image of swimming underwater and looking up at the sky as a light drizzle falls on the other side, blurring the vision like an impressionist painting.  But Radiohead would also come up the surface from time to time, and immerse itself in the gathering storm clouds, the flashes of lightning, the thunder, and the crashing wave of Jonny Greenwood’s guitar.  Radiohead was the roaring “Off with his head man, off with his head man, why don’t you remember my name?!” and the serene “Rain down, rain down on me.”

The History of Music: A Personal Story (Part 3)

Punk is Dead

Elton was pale and unshaven, his face brought to mind a young Ewan McGregor, while his demeanor--slouched, introspective, with a wardrobe in constant mourning--brought to mind a beatnik poet.  He played guitar in our high school jazz band when really the instrument that most suited him was piano.  Unlike your typical attention whore guitar player, Elton always played his guitar sitting down and hidden away somewhere in the rhythm section, his head leaning into the neck as if the electric guitar were whispering a secret to him.  The only indications the audience had of his existence were the occasional of off-beat high-note chords that would slide deliciously back up the fret board.  When he would take a solo, the impressionable audience would look at each other and say, “I didn’t know there was a guitar.  He’s good.”

Elton became my guitar teacher early on, after I decided to follow in my brother’s footsteps and join the jazz band. (My brother played the drums.) He was quiet, dedicated, patient and sharp; he only spoke when absolutely necessary, but in those moments he was clever and devastatingly ironic.  He could also be condescending and elitist.  He quickly became my reluctant mentor.

Elton ridiculed my taste in music.  Punk in its earliest forms had been the last stop on the long road of making music a popular art form; you didn’t need to know how to play an instrument all that well, and you didn’t even need to be a decent singer, to express yourself through punk music.  It was the ultimate form of rebellion against the traditional oligarchy of music.  But you can only rebel for so long.  After twenty years, punk music had became a cheap imitation of itself.  The simplistic four-note bar-chord progressions, were no longer a symbol of rebellion, but of conformity to an established niche.  “Corny, preachy, repetitive, and unoriginal,” was Elton’s crushing assessment.

He led me down the path of sustained and minor chords, of bizarre instruments and strange computer noises: he introduced me to the almighty Radiohead.

The History of Music: A Personal Story (Part 2)

The Punk Period

After the first band, Guti, Carlos and I wandered into separate musical branches.  Guti went further into the darkening forests of hardcore metal, Carlos chilled on the bobbing boughs of the nineties East Coast hip hop scene, and I swung through the addreline-filled tree lines of pop-punk.

Pop-punk was fast and fun.  The irreverent melodic screams of the below-average singers were tinged with the appropriate amount of melancholy.  The singers whined, but their bitterness was masked by exuberant energy and a “I don’t give a fuck” pose, like broken beer bottles under a mosh-pit.

The central punk band of my early punk phase was a skate-punk group from Sweden named Millencolin (a misspelling of “melancholy,” and also, supposedly, the name of a skate trick).  Life on a Plate, their second album, was their best.  The album opened with “Bullion,” a song about a bored, lost, and indolent twenty-one year old, which pretty much sums up the punk scene at the time.  The greatest pop-punk album of the era was Green Day’s Dookie.  The themes being boredom, insecurity, frustration, and the emptiness inherent in a world filled with meaningless, superficial satisfaction.

And Baudrillard rolls in his grave...

iChannel was invented on a weeknight by a group of friends that lived together in a university dorm at Santa Clara.  They reportedly came up with the idea after watching The Truman Show.  People that created an account at iChannel could post real-time footage of what they were up, like a “status update in video form.”  Each member’s account had a profile picture, a wall of saved videos from the past, and, at the top of the page, a live video feed of the member’s life.

It started slowly; at the beginning only a few people joined, mainly to check out what their friends were doing.  The feed came directly from people’s phones, and you could watch your friend enjoying a concert, traveling, at a party, or just shopping at a grocery store.  Then, more and more people started to create accounts, and there was a short-lived fad that involved randomly looking at what strangers were doing.  As this fad became mainstream, celebrities entered the fray.  Now you had the inside scoop on the daily lives of your favorite celebrity.  You knew iChannel had lost all its initial cred, when middle aged news reporters trying to sound “in” on the latest tech craze started doing stories on the company.  Suddenly, parents and uncles starting joining iChannel.

It became addictive.  People shopping at a grocery store would walk down the aisles looking down at their phone at the video feed of a celebrity shopping at a grocery store.  People at parties spent most of their time watching the feed of other people at other parties.  Celebrity iChannels became incredibly popular, reaching a point where television companies started paying these celebrities to broadcast their iChannel feeds.  Reality stars now spent their time off from shooting reality shows, getting paid to film footage of their real life.  These celebrities started hiring writers to help them create better iChannel material.

The History of Music: A Personal Story (Part 1)

The First Band

Infatuated, we were.  Luis would spend most classes writing the band’s name over and over, filling entire pages of his notebook, like a madman carving out the walls of his cell.  Carlos grew out his hair, like the guitarist, and tried in vain to roll the locks into dreads to no avail.  Guti bought an expensive and flamboyant Puma track suit, like the one the lead singer would wear.  And everyday, after school we would make the pilgrimage to Guti’s house to watch the band’s documentary, a collection of the band’s music videos and clips of the members goofing around while drunk.

The group was KoRn, and nothing else in our lives moved us like Jonathan Davis’ whiny, tortured growl.  It encapsulated perfectly the frustration, latent rage, and self-pity of our preteen years.  The loud bursts of heavily distorted guitar, and the unabashed screams embodied our boundless energy and repressed freedom.  We were at a pivotal stage in the system’s process of domestication (puberty), and we needed an outlet for our boiling animal needs.  A desire to jump, to push, to scream at the top of our lungs.  I remember being in my room, turning the volume up until the speakers rattled, and pretending to be up on that stage, and yelling out the lyrics, pumping and flailing my arms around, and running erratically in circles (then someone would walk in and I would feel the same sensation as if they had walked in on me masturbating).

Nigger

Do words have meaning independent of their context?

A simple “Yes” or “No” cannot answer the question.  Instead, we should imagine a continuum, with “Yes” on one extreme and “No” on the other.  People who believe context plays no part in the meaning of a word would fall on the “Yes” extreme, while those who say that words are meaningless outside of their context would be on the opposite extreme.  The greater the power held by words themselves, the closer one veers towards “Yes,” and the greater the influence of context on the meaning of words, the closer one gets to “No.”

I am much closer to “No” than I am to “Yes.”  I believe words have meaning, but that their meaning is incredibly flexible, and molded by the situation in which they are used and the intentions of the person using the word.  A perfect example are those situations in which people use a word or expression incorrectly, and the listeners understand or even accept the new incorrect meaning of the word.  At a recent conference, an audience member made reference to throwing “low balls,” when really he meant to say throwing a “soft ball,” but everyone knew what he meant, and other audience members repeated the “throwing a low ball” expression.

There are many people, however, that lean heavily towards the “Yes” answer.  People on the left and politically correct-types are strong believers in the power of words, and tend to ignore contextualized meanings.  These people believe words (independent of their intended and implied meanings based on the situation) can be offensive and hateful, which leads to a prohibition of words in all contexts and situations. (Caveat: for certain words, the prohibition only applies to certain groups of people) This prohibition has, in my view, ridiculous and nonsensical outcomes.  For example, I, as a white person, am prohibited from reciting lines from one of my favorite rap songs by Nas (“I rap for listeners, blunt-heads, fly ladies, and prisoners,/Henessy-holders and old-school niggers…”), because the word “nigger” is offensive even when quoting someone who is using it in a completely inoffensive way.

International School

It was heavier than merited by its size, like a double-A battery.  Cylindrical, with one end curving together to form a dull point.  We found it in the playground, on a grassy mound by the fence.  A thick bronze needle in a green haystack.  It looked like a miniature skyscraper from one of those futuristic industrial dystopias depicted in movies.

Mr. Morton’s lower lip swallowed up the lower part of his mustache as he held the bronze battery at a distance.  “It’s a bullet,” he stated.  Then, looking off into the distance, his clear blue eyes crystallized.  “This area was a scene to many battles during the war.”  The fog from his eyes clearing, he looked down and started telling us about the system of underground tunnels used to smuggle contraband, and of soldiers sitting criss-cross-applesauce with stethoscopes held to the ground listening for diggers.

                                                      *                      *                       *

She interrupted, disrupted, destroyed, shattered the balance between the factions.  The previous year, before her father’s military post changed, everything had been peaceful, quiet.  The international kids congregated over near the little kid’s playground, sat at the picnic tables, or on the stone steps, and chatted in English, laughing their well-mannered chuckles.  The local kids played football on the other end of the school, or watched their friends play football, or smoked cigarettes behind the bleachers, thinking of the dirtiest things to say to one another in the national language.

The hybrids drifted around, a nomadic tribe, wheeling and dealing with the international kids in English, and gossiping with the local kids behind the bleachers in their language.  The hybrids unwittingly held the key to the relations between the international and national kids.  Beyond symbolizing the physical mixing of the two factions, their association to both groups acted as a valve to release built-up tension between the cliques, and at times even promoted mingling.

The Great Pollution Exchange Program

Standing on a busy street corner holding a clipboard against her chest, beaming her smile and extending pamphlets to each passerby.  Her eyes caught my attention; her pupils were like emerald marbles, with a perfectly circular abyss in the middle.  The pamphlet promoted the Save the Earth Initiative; I don’t tend to talk to these kind of people, but she was too pretty.  I asked her what it was about.  Noticing I was smitten, she began her rehearsed long pitch, targeted specifically for the horny male that is willing to endure a five minute long sales pitch.

Nicaragua: Poor Places

The bus stopped near a dirt path that veered off the Panamerican highway.  Up the dusty road stood a small community, similar to others one sees along the great transcontinental artery.  A collection of grey one-room zinc-roof cement houses, that must have started as a single house along the road and expanded outward along an improvised trail; each new house making the trail a little longer.  The dirt trail now led deep into the forested hills, and the steep inclines and waterways where it proved impossible to build marked the spot where one community ended and another one began.  These communities have no “center,” and the schools and churches simply mark the spot along the trail where a group of homes turned into a village.

The further one travels along the dirt path, the poorer and poorer the villages become.  The community closest to the Panamerican has small convenience shops (called pulperias) that sell snacks, drinks, sliced bread, salt, and other household consumables (soap, detergent, toilet paper, ect.), that are purchased from a bigger town nearby (which is still a pretty small town) and resold at their makeshift shop (their home).  Individuals also go around selling other products; the person who owns cattle sells the milk in the morning, while the people with farmland sell vegetables.  The community lacks running water, which means that people walk daily to the closest well to fetch water; there are several wells, with varying degrees of water quality.  There are “drinking wells,” which are the wells that are chlorinated to allow the villagers to drink from them; and there are “non-drinking wells,” which are wells that used to be drinking wells until a frog was found in them.

Nicaragua: Books

A warm night, a full moon wearing a scarf of clouds.  A large stack of donated books. Cigarette in hand, I look through the titles, like old pictures, and almost instinctual start to order them:

The books published by the Nueva Nicaragua Editorial press company, all dating back to the early eighties; those books from a time when writers spoke of the artistic revolution that would accompany the political one. The skinny La tierra es un satelite de la luna (The Earth is a Satellite of the Moon) by Leonel Rugama: the complete works of the young martyred Sandinista poet famous for yelling out “Que se rinda tu madre!” (literally: “Let your mother surrender!”) when, after his safe house had been surrounded by hundreds of military guards, he was given the option of surrendering or being killed. Books by Ricardo Morales Avila, another Sandinista poet with an equally gruesome fate, and Carlos José Guadamuz’s Y las casas quedaron llenas de humo, a chronicle--written in a prison cell--of a Sandinista insurrection as told by one of its leaders. Guadamuz would, in later years, defect from the Sandinista movement and become one of its most outspoken critics, until one day as he arrived to work at the radio station where he hosted a anti-Sandinista political program he was shot dead; the motive for the murder never to be established, allowing rumors that it was all orchestrated by the FSNL.

Several historical novels written by Sergio Ramirez, and a book with his thesis on the literary history of Nicaragua. A strange historical novel by the poet Julio Castillo-Valle that focuses on the life of Pedrarias, the first colonial ruler of Nicaragua (a true thug). Two books by the poet and literary critic Beltran Morales (Roberto Bolaño sings his praises on the back of one of them). Gioconda Belli’s memoirs on the revolution (apparently, mostly sex with revolutionary leaders in exile). Opening a book by Guillermo Rothschuh Villanueva, a well-known modern poet, I come across an inscription on the first page addressed to the donor: “To my dear friend,” signed…Guillermo Rothschuh Villanueva! In an anthology of poems by the great Joaquin Pasos, I find postcards from the first anniversary of the revolution; one, a vintage photograph of Augusto C. Sandino in his standard rugged, cowboy pose, the second, a painting of a village with housewives and children celebrating the victory by running onto the streets with red and black flags.

Sports as Art: Boxing

Boxing is poetry,
it can be as short as a round,
as long as an epic.

The studied fighter
enters the ring,
a problem to tackle.

Each jab a calculated word,
meant to prod.
Hesitations, investigations,
searching, slow unearthing.

A combination like a stanza,
each punch a different line,
body shots, haymakers, upper cuts,
missing, landing, missing, landing.
One gets past your conscious enclosure,
knocks you down,
knocks you out.

An intellectual discovery;
bashed to a bloody pulp.

Shanghai

Land of cranes and jackhammers.  Of chain-smokers, and taxi drivers that spend ten minutes snorting, and hocking before spitting out the window a baseball-sized accumulation of black phlegm.  A land of curious onlookers, who will gather to watch two men fight awkwardly in front of a mall.  Of boutiques and black markets.  Of chaotic freedom.

One morning, I awoke to the vibrations of jackhammers drilling into concrete, like the sound of God’s teeth chattering.  On television, a former high-ranking official who had been purged politically due to his support of the Tiananmen Square protesters, had died of pneumonia, and CNN International had made the story one of its top news items for the day.  I went about my morning routine, leaving CNN International on, like I did most mornings.  As I was brushing my teeth I overheard the anchorwoman giving a teaser to the story on the former Chinese politician; the story would air right after a short commercial break, she said.  Then came the commercials, mostly self-promotional advertisements for other CNN International programs, with the occasional spot reserved for companies that catered to the upper-class traveling businessman that CNN International attracts (commercials for investment banks, phones, computers, and airlines).  Then, the CNN logo and the little CNN jingle, signaling the end of the commercial break; the camera zooming in to the anchorwoman at her unnecessarily gargantuan news desk.  And then…static.  I flipped through the channels to see if I had lost the signal to all the channels on cable, but CNN International was the only one.  All the other channels were fine.

I didn’t think much of it; losing the signal to a channel happened from time to time, who knows why.  Maybe there was a technical failure at the offices of the local provider, or maybe there was a problem at the headquarters of CNN International.  I simply changed the channel, and waited for CNN International to come back on.  It didn’t take long for the signal to return.  When I lost the signal a second time, again after the teaser for the story on the purged Chinese official, I started to get suspicious.  By the third time (if there is one thing cable news is good at its repeating stories ad nausea), I was pretty sure somebody was deliberately disrupting the signal to censor the broadcasting of the story.

Sports as Art: Basketball

 

Basketball games are novels.  Basketball is a game of stars and match-ups.  The game is divided into four chapters; throughout, the principle characters (usually two) collide and a theme develops within this conflict.  The theme can be a triumphant Michael Jordan beating the odds and making three-pointer after three-pointer in the face of a shocked Clyde Drexler, who had given Jordan the open looks based on his history of missing those shots.  Or it can be a cunning innocent prisoner’s redemptive escape from a maximum security prison in the face of his nemesis, the sadistic head guard.

Besides the two (or more) main characters, there is the supporting cast, and the possibility that one may steal the show.  But generally, they simply help the main character achieve his or her aims in the face of the obstacles presented (mainly, the other main character on the opposing team).

The climax is the consummation of the theme, and the better the game (or novel) the later the climax.  Great novels leave the climax to the last line, just as great games leave them to the last second.  Ideally, Michael Jordan would hit a game winning three-pointer over Clyde Drexler to drive the point home, and after noticing the prisoner missing there would be a grand reveal of the entire escape plot (and maybe some discovery pointing to his innocence all along).  Terrible novels resolve everything in the first chapter, and then just drag on.  Of course, there is always the possibility for a twist; the game was not truly resolved in the first quarter, maybe there will be a comeback.  Then again, how unsatisfying to read through a whole book hoping for a twist that never comes!

Sports as Art: Football

 

Football (soccer) games are jazz music.  The structure of each team’s play provides the background for the constant improvisation of the players.  The jazz musician looks for an opening in the composition, where he will be able to toy with the arrangement, where he can poke holes in the structure, where he can play faster than the established beat or play notes that don’t belong in the composition (or sometimes don’t even belong in the structure of the musical key).  He breaks the rules, because breaking the rules is fun, different, uncertain, and emotionally expressive.

Football players are given a position and a task, and spend most of the game adhering to its principles.  They touch the ball once or twice and pass it on to another player, who then proceeds to do the same.  The team patiently waits for the opportunity to arise when a great player will receive the ball and suddenly start his solo.  As he solos he leaves his position, holds the ball for longer than dictated by his task, and just has fun zooming past players and placing the ball behind the net.  The team stands behind him, comping along as the player improvises.