I take the bus to and from Spanish class every day. The trip takes about 30 mins in each direction. That's a full hour of intense, presonal Nucaraguense, a kind of daily informal orientation to Managuan life. And so, I bring you the Managuan bus system as I know and love it:
The bus lines are run by private entities, usually co-operatives, that own and maintain the buses. The fares are regulated by the government, but that's about it. Buses are generally old US school buses, and some are old European or Russian buses.
The companies paint the buses in their own color themes, so it sort of feels like you're joining a team by riding it (maybe that's just me). The red and white buses are lines 113 and 114. I don't know if this is a rule, or just a coincidence. I take the 114 almost every time I go to class. I imagine myself on the red and white team. Maybe our mascot could be the candy cane or a barber poll. More likely, however, it is Jesus in a red and white jeresy. That's right, Jesus. Pictures of Jesus can be found on any given wall of any given bus. If you didn't know who or what Jesus was, you might think that "Jesus" meant "bus" based solely on how many times it appears on Managua's public transportation system. Outside of Jesus's picture and name, the interior bus walls are usually covered in sayings and graffiti. Mostly, they address love, god, pain, fear, and otherwise abstract or intangible concepts. They are stenciled to the wall in the team colors. I imagine them as my mantras, words with meaning beyond meaning, words that will carry me through the intense populous that pours in and out of the mechanical doors.
Riding the bus feels more like a daily carnival than a commute. Often, as I walk up to the bus stop the 114 is waiting for me with an announcer outside the door yelling something like "114, 114! There's room for everyone! Come on! Ride the 114!" When I walk up, he usually says some variation of "Gringita, come ride my bus." This is one of the more polite phrases that Nicaraguan men yell at me, luckily I don't usually understand them.
Then I hop on and pay my 2.50 (~15 cents) and find a seat. Often there are no seats, in which case I hold onto one of the bars that has been welded to the ceiling and coated with colorful plastic tape. The Managuan bus system's answer to nylon upholstery is plastic tape. When the bus takes off it weaves in and out of traffic honking its horn wildly at passers bye. If another bus of the same color (team) passes it, the drivers cheer at one another and honk their horns with fury. At each stop the bodies shuffle around one another to squeeze on or off. Usually, a vendor will hop on selling chicklets, bags of water, carmel peanut bars, or some other sweet snack for a cord or two. He will push his way down the isle, stepping on feet, pressing his candies against the backs and heads and arms of people. He will ask me three or four times if I want a candy. Just in case, he tries again in broken English. I am pleased by his persistence, his generosity of time and manner. I feel a little bad that I will not be buying candy.
The bus offers me a little journey into the pulse of a populous I can't communicate with (yet). It presses me against strangers, jostles my belongings, makes me a little worried about whether I will ever get off. It lets me touch and smell and hear the normalcies of Managuan life. Each day I feel a little more like I might become one of those normalcies--the little gringa with a plastic bag who rides from Las Piedrecitas to the FNI and back again . I imagine myself as part of other people's commutes, less of a spectacle.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Felix y Katrina hermanos de destruccion
This morning Rick and I went to Casa Ben Linder to hear a presentation by the director of Accion Medica Cristiana or Christian Medical Action. He discussed the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, focusing mainly on the effects of Hurricane Felix, which some of you may know struck Central America on September 4th of this year.
After painting a general socio-economic picture of the region before the Hurricane, he addressed the relief work by international aid efforts, the Nicaraguan government, and various NGO's. Primarily, he demonstrated that the portion of the country hit by the hurricane was under-funded and over-burdened with health issues (malnourished population, lack of access to health care, etc) previous to the hurricane, and that the current conditions only exacerbate that situation. After the hurricane struck, the government was unable to provide the necessary aid, and developed no effective venue to coordinate private and public efforts. As a result, food and water shipments arrived in some localities two and three times, and in others not at all. Many smaller and more recent developments got no aid because no one even knew they existed. For ten days after the hurricane thousands of people were stranded without shelter, potable water and food.
Besides the sheer tragedy of the information, one particularly interesting point he addressed was food security. The portion of the country hit by Hurricane Felix is largely agricultural. Much of the land and infrastructure has been destroyed, which has rendered it useless for the second harvest of the year. Besides leaving the people of the region without current sources of food, he explained that missing the second harvest will threaten the availability of food for the entire country in approximately 9 months. This will mean a greater dependency on foreign food sources for the entire country, and a corresponding hike in prices.
Although the two situations are certainly different, I found many similarities and even some connections between the current Nicaraguan problem and the US's own struggle with Hurricane Katrina. The government's infrastructure of relief failed the people of New Orleans, many of whom were already in extremely vulnerable socio-economic positions. Immediately after the hurricane, the price of fuel for the entire country rose dramatically because of threatened oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. Also similar, the relief efforts following the storm were total chaos--regardless of the US's relatively prevalent transportation resources and a strong, wealthy government.
One conclusion that these similar scenarios has led me to draw--and I would love to hear observations from anyone reading this--is that although it plays an important role, the wealth of a nation does not necessarily allow that nation to effectively address crises. In fact, it seems that greater overall wealth, coupled with great disparities between wealthy and poor individuals, as in the United States, serves mostly to isolate privileged persons from such crises without necessarily preventing or addressing them.
Nine months from now in Nicaragua most of the country will be feeling the effects of Hurricane Felix, even though it struck a relatively unpopulated, poor region of the country. On the other hand, while many people in the US felt sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the privileged class was not subject to any substantive aftermath. Wealthy individuals could absorb the rise in fuel cost, thus making it more of a tax on those families and persons already struggling to get by--the same group of people that suffered most from the direct impact of the hurricane. Although Hurricane Katrina did not necessarily threaten the economic vitality of the US, such monetary resilience does not translate into a nation that is better suited to handle crises and natural disaster, merely one that is better able to shove the effects of such events onto the backs of struggling populations.
Furthermore, American economic policy abroad limits the capacity for poorer countries, like Nicaragua, to respond to their own crises. By backing IMF plans and pushing trade agreements like CAFTA, the US hog-ties social spending in poor countries in order to institute free trade and short term (ineffective) "debt management" plans. These plans outlaw export subsidies and import tariffs, devalue currency, freeze domestic health and education funding, and destroy agricultural infrastructure in developing nations. How is Nicaragua supposed to administer even basic medical aid in a crisis if their national budget is dictated by a trade agreement that insists on extremely limited social spending?
These policies render developing nations utterly dependent on foreign trade and private investment. Already, Nicaraguan farmers cannot compete with the tariff-free prices of foreign products. Agriculture in developed nations is larger, faster, and more productive than Nicaraguan methods. No farmer harvesting with a machete can compete with mass agribusiness. Thus, farmers are having to minimize their capacity, and in some cases stop farming entirely. Will the agricultural infrastructure of Nicaragua be able to recover from Hurricane Felix? Not with cheap international food sources infiltrating the food market, especially over the next nine months. Trade agreements and debt stipulations outlaw domestic farming subsidies. How will agriculture recover without income from a harvest? How will they buy seed? And what happens in the future when the international price of fuel skyrockets as we pass peak oil production? The price of shipping food across the globe will appear in the grocery stores, and there will be nearly no domestic agricultural infrastructure left to pick up the slack.
Thoughts? Comments?
After painting a general socio-economic picture of the region before the Hurricane, he addressed the relief work by international aid efforts, the Nicaraguan government, and various NGO's. Primarily, he demonstrated that the portion of the country hit by the hurricane was under-funded and over-burdened with health issues (malnourished population, lack of access to health care, etc) previous to the hurricane, and that the current conditions only exacerbate that situation. After the hurricane struck, the government was unable to provide the necessary aid, and developed no effective venue to coordinate private and public efforts. As a result, food and water shipments arrived in some localities two and three times, and in others not at all. Many smaller and more recent developments got no aid because no one even knew they existed. For ten days after the hurricane thousands of people were stranded without shelter, potable water and food.
Besides the sheer tragedy of the information, one particularly interesting point he addressed was food security. The portion of the country hit by Hurricane Felix is largely agricultural. Much of the land and infrastructure has been destroyed, which has rendered it useless for the second harvest of the year. Besides leaving the people of the region without current sources of food, he explained that missing the second harvest will threaten the availability of food for the entire country in approximately 9 months. This will mean a greater dependency on foreign food sources for the entire country, and a corresponding hike in prices.
Although the two situations are certainly different, I found many similarities and even some connections between the current Nicaraguan problem and the US's own struggle with Hurricane Katrina. The government's infrastructure of relief failed the people of New Orleans, many of whom were already in extremely vulnerable socio-economic positions. Immediately after the hurricane, the price of fuel for the entire country rose dramatically because of threatened oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. Also similar, the relief efforts following the storm were total chaos--regardless of the US's relatively prevalent transportation resources and a strong, wealthy government.
One conclusion that these similar scenarios has led me to draw--and I would love to hear observations from anyone reading this--is that although it plays an important role, the wealth of a nation does not necessarily allow that nation to effectively address crises. In fact, it seems that greater overall wealth, coupled with great disparities between wealthy and poor individuals, as in the United States, serves mostly to isolate privileged persons from such crises without necessarily preventing or addressing them.
Nine months from now in Nicaragua most of the country will be feeling the effects of Hurricane Felix, even though it struck a relatively unpopulated, poor region of the country. On the other hand, while many people in the US felt sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the privileged class was not subject to any substantive aftermath. Wealthy individuals could absorb the rise in fuel cost, thus making it more of a tax on those families and persons already struggling to get by--the same group of people that suffered most from the direct impact of the hurricane. Although Hurricane Katrina did not necessarily threaten the economic vitality of the US, such monetary resilience does not translate into a nation that is better suited to handle crises and natural disaster, merely one that is better able to shove the effects of such events onto the backs of struggling populations.
Furthermore, American economic policy abroad limits the capacity for poorer countries, like Nicaragua, to respond to their own crises. By backing IMF plans and pushing trade agreements like CAFTA, the US hog-ties social spending in poor countries in order to institute free trade and short term (ineffective) "debt management" plans. These plans outlaw export subsidies and import tariffs, devalue currency, freeze domestic health and education funding, and destroy agricultural infrastructure in developing nations. How is Nicaragua supposed to administer even basic medical aid in a crisis if their national budget is dictated by a trade agreement that insists on extremely limited social spending?
These policies render developing nations utterly dependent on foreign trade and private investment. Already, Nicaraguan farmers cannot compete with the tariff-free prices of foreign products. Agriculture in developed nations is larger, faster, and more productive than Nicaraguan methods. No farmer harvesting with a machete can compete with mass agribusiness. Thus, farmers are having to minimize their capacity, and in some cases stop farming entirely. Will the agricultural infrastructure of Nicaragua be able to recover from Hurricane Felix? Not with cheap international food sources infiltrating the food market, especially over the next nine months. Trade agreements and debt stipulations outlaw domestic farming subsidies. How will agriculture recover without income from a harvest? How will they buy seed? And what happens in the future when the international price of fuel skyrockets as we pass peak oil production? The price of shipping food across the globe will appear in the grocery stores, and there will be nearly no domestic agricultural infrastructure left to pick up the slack.
Thoughts? Comments?
Friday, October 12, 2007
Hello from the House with the Gray Door
As my plane descended into Managua, I could see them beaming into the night sky, pulsating out from an otherwise sparsely-lit metropolitan area: McDonald's golden arches. Gringos had branded the flight path into Nicaragua with that emblematic nod to mass-produced coronary failure. I began to wonder if McDonald's had actually paid the airport to align the runway so that incoming passengers would pass conveniently overhead. But I digress...
I've marked each paragraph's main topic in bold, so you can read selectively, if you like.
I arrived in Managua on Monday night. Rick picked me up from the airport with all 5 of my bags. (For those of you who are wondering, the computer tower made it safely, but the rolling duffel has some battle wounds.) We got a cab from the airport to our house in Las Piedrecitas (The small stones), a neighborhood in southwest Managua. The cab ride (30 mins) was 6 dollars, roughly 120 cordobas. The cab drove right by the new American embassy complex, which is just down the road from us. Compared to the rest of the city, the embassy looks like a fortress. Its definitely not an exercise in modesty, but that's about what I would expect from a country with our track record.
Our house is wonderful. There are 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a kitchen, living room, laundry room, and some awesome porch space. We also have a great garden and some fruit trees out back. Just in case this sounds like total paradise, we don't have any hot water, which makes showering a little more brisk than usual. Also, the water tends to "go out" around 5PM and stay off until dawn. This adds a little challenge to dinner prep, but we are usually able to figure out something. We are especially lucky because we live across from a hospital, which means that we almost always have electricity, while most of Managua loses electricity after sunset.
Our roomates rock. Kevin and Rachel have lived here for roughly 5 months. Rachel works for Witness for Peace with Rick. Kevin does graphic design and pretty much operates as house handyman. He planted the garden and is currently building a little pin for the chickens we will be getting! Our other roomate, Patty, also works with Rachel and Rick. She is from Oregon and has some extended family here in Nicaragua. We had our first house meeting Wednesday night, where we decided we will consider getting 2 dogs for security (and for fun). The dogs are puppies that currently live at a neighbor's house. Everyone knows puppies are adorable, but these little guys drive it home.
On Wednesday we took a bus to a market down the road. It was pouring rain for most of the morning, so the market was operating at about 2/3 capacity. It is a total maze of cosmetics, household items, hardware stores, and food stands. Everyone is very friendly, and I was surprised to find that vendors didn't heckle us nearly as much as I expected. I think most people are just surprised to see white people. At one point a little girl who walked by yelled, "Adios Gringoita!" which pretty much means, "See ya later whitey!"
We wont need to go to the market too often because most of the things we need we can get right here in our neighborhood. In fact, there are vendors that walk around all the time selling ice cream, milk, doughnuts, and more. They know that gringos live in this house, so they will usually walk right up to our gate and yell inside. The ice cream man stands in the street out front ringing his bell for, literally, 20 mins every day. Our Nicaraguan friends, Martha and Loius, insist that we get ripped off at all the local vendors because we're Gringo. It's probably true, but the real truth is that we can afford to pay much more, so I suppose this is the barillo's own special communism--from each according to his/her ability, to each according to his/her need. The "rip off" prices are still much, much cheaper than we would pay in the states (2$ for a full lunch or dinner plate). I'm sure as we build relationships in the neighborhood the prices will start to drop a little, too.
On Thursday Kevin and I went to Price Smart. It is both an amazing and disturbing store. It is just like Costco in the States--you have to be a member and buy in bulk (we used Rick's boss's card). In fact, I'm pretty sure that Costco owns Price Smart b/c they have most of the same stuff, the same layout, and they only accept American Express. I was overwhelmed by the place, myself, and obly bought a few items. The prices are pretty high by Nica standards, and the tax is murder (15%!). Kevin, who has been here for longer, went on a total splurge, getting everything from Kraft mac and cheese to frozen burritos. I can see myself at that point in a few months.
Overall, I think of Managua as Los Angeles' shabby doppelganger--it has no functioning metropolitan center, sprawls outward into loosely connected neighborhoods, and is lined with strip malls. Also, the bus system is abysmal, and, oh yes, the air carries that distinct flavor of diesel. That being said, Managua, like LA, has an undeniable draw to it. There is so much to discover that I don't even know about yet. At first I wasn't sure that I wanted to be in Managua, because I had heard a lot of negative reviews. However, I'm very excited to be here. The resources that Managua offers will let Rick and I really make the most of our time in Nicaragua. Also, the ex-pat community here is vast and young--which makes for some great friends. We've hosted 3 parties at our house already, and will be having another one tomorrow night!
I'm going to try to update this blog regularly, and I would love comments and email from any of you. I miss you all very much, and look forward to sharing my adventures with you.
I'd better go make dinner now. Hopefully the water hasn't gone out yet...
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