4/10/86, Thursday

4/10/86, Thursday

There is so much poverty here. It’s hard to put into words but some of the campesinos literally dress in rags, the cloth so threadbare that it can’t possibly offer much protection from the elements. They eat just a bowl of beans and a few tortillas and they have to work very, very hard just for that. I’m sure that in the U.S., we’d call their houses shacks. Many are put together with scavenged building materials from bombed or demolished sites and do not have indoor plumbing. Outhouses are common. On top of all this, the country is at war and their kids are being sent off to fight. How is it that they don’t break? People smile through it. Walk by any house in Esteli and you can hear people singing at the top of their lungs while doing their chores.

Last night, we went to a party for Francie’s friend, Paco. It was very interesting to see how politically aware everyone is. The party consisted of a lot of former combatientes and others who at some point were integrated in the struggle. Everyone sat around discussing internal and external affairs and, in particular, the rights of women and their participation in the revolution. I've never been to a party like that. It was so odd to hear the women telling the men exactly what they were thinking and what needed to be done to promote equal opportunity. Who talks like that at a party? In L.A., a party involves getting dressed up, getting drunk, and maybe finding someone to have sex with. Meaningful talk is optional.

I like to hear the men and women refer to each other as compañero and compañera or even the shortened compa. The word can mean partner or companion; it’s so much sweeter than calling someone “honey” or “baby.” I’d much rather be an equal partner and companion than sweet or childlike.

There was no dancing at the party, no games, no chips or dip. A compañera brought a bottle of homemade rum and I took polite sips of what I suspected was really paint thinner. Everyone drank in moderation and the general mood seemed to indicate that discussion was the best entertainment. People exchanged passionate, sometimes opposing viewpoints. They listened, reflected, and offered thoughtful responses. Everyone was engaged and once again I had the feeling that people in this country were somehow more alive than people in the U.S. It made me sad for my country, where people get bored at parties and we often feel the need to drink before we can talk in a social setting and even then, we rarely say anything that we feel this passionately about. It seems like a heated discussion in the U.S. is considered impolite; here, it’s considered stimulating.

4/9/86, Wednesday

Archbishop Oscar Romero

4/9/86, Wednesday

Today I went to the Salvadoran agricultural cooperative along with three other students from the NICA school. I thought I was gonna faint! It was hot, heavy work. I was planting rows of tomatoes and hoeing little irrigation ditches. I tied a bandana around my head to keep my hair back and it was soaked with sweat within minutes. I got blisters on my hands and fingers from clutching the handle of the hoe. Every now and then, some disgusting bug would poke its head up and I’d clobber it with the hoe. The first time I saw the ugly insects I started to scream but I quickly felt embarrassed by my sissy, city-girl behavior as my co-workers communicated their annoyance with a quick glance. After that, I simply hit the bugs with the edge of my hoe, attempting to slice them in half. I felt mean doing it but they freaked me out.

Our Salvadoran co-workers are refugees from the war in El Salvador. Some of them were part of the FMLN, Farabundo Marti Liberacion Nacional, others were denounced by orejas, informants who accuse people of conspiring to overthrow the government. Those accusations are as good as a death sentence. The FMLN is an armed guerrilla organization trying to do for El Salvador what the FSLN has done here. Our compañeros had to flee their country to avoid death and/or torture but they’re still committed to raising awareness of their cause. Talking to them while we worked helped me take my mind off my aching body. As we listened to their stories of political repression and corruption, our minds were distracted from the physical strain. Some of these compañeros have lost family members to the struggle and all of them have lost loved ones. They talk about Bishop Romero’s assassination and the subsequent massacre of mourners at his funeral by the police. I can tell that the pain is still fresh, it’s generational. Their parents and grandparents have fought against Las Catorce, the fourteen families that made up the oligarchy for as long as they can remember, so even though the heat was terrible and every inch of me ached, I felt like I could push through the work. It seemed worth the pain to help them out, to show solidarity in my own very small way.

In the evening the driver dropped us off at the school again, just in time for a charla with the Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs of the Revolution. It was heartbreaking hearing the mothers tell and probably relive the pain of their loved one’s death and in some cases, their torture. Several of the stories involved gory dismemberment and my stomach turned as I thought of cutting insects in half with my hoe that day. The thought that someone could do that to a person made me sick. They took turns telling their stories until every eye at the charla was teary. 

NICARAGUA. Esteli. 1986. A mother sits in front of her son whose legs were blown off by a Contra landmine. The victim's wife sits on the other side of the bed. Photo by Larry Towell

At the end, one of the mothers told us that she wanted us to know what our tax dollars are doing here in Nicaragua and that although it was hard for them to talk about the terrible tragedies that had happened to their families, the purpose was for us to understand the cruelty and inhumanity being inflicted on them as a result of our government’s financial and military support of the Contras. They urged us to help them change the situation. I felt so bad. How is it that they don’t hate us?

I want to help but how can I change it?

Archbishop Oscar Romero gained great popularity in El Salvador in the seventies when he began speaking out against poverty, social injustice and the assassination of political dissidents. His Sunday sermons were broadcast on the radio and had a far reaching effect as they provided a rallying point for disenfranchised Salvadorans. In 1980 Romero was fatally shot while celebrating mass. His funeral was attended by over 250,000 people. The ceremony was disrupted by smoke bombs and gun shots directed at the mourners. The attack left dozens dead and hundreds wounded. It was believed that the Salvadoran government was behind the attack.

Shortly after this the country plunged into civil war.

4/8/86, Tuesday

4/8/86, Tuesday

Last night was crazy! We had been at the construction site all day and the sun was already setting when the driver dropped us off at the NICA school. One of the women who runs the school invited us to her house for a glass of Flor de Caña. Hillary is an American ex-pat who’s been living in Esteli for a few years now and she’s been great at giving us tips on adapting to our new surroundings. She’s also one of the few people here who can afford to keep alcohol handy for entertaining. Most people buy, trade or grow what they consume on a daily basis. My family doesn't even have a refrigerator. Our kitchen is a small room with a table, a stove and two small cupboards that hold salt, dry beans, and other bare necessities. The sink is outside and it’s used for washing hands, clothes and dishes.

Anyway, I’m getting off track. Christie and Nancy, two of the students who are studying Spanish went with me to Hillary’s for the local rum. Occasionally, if gaseosas are available, Flor de Caña is mixed with cola and lime to make a fancy Cuba Libre but tonight, we drank it warm and straight. We only had one drink before we realized it was getting late and our families would wonder where we’d gone, so we decided it was time for us to leave. Christie, whose Nicaraguan family lives way on the other side of town was afraid to walk home alone as it was well after 10 pm and quite a distance.

Since Nancy and I live in the same neighborhood, we walked Christie home first before turning back toward our own houses. We were having a great time, talking and joking along the way when we suddenly heard automatic rifle fire in the streets. We jumped over the shrubbery of a nearby house and ducked behind the bushes, our hearts pounding as we tried to calculate the proximity of the shots and whether or not they were approaching. The sound of the automatic rifles was close but didn't seem to be advancing.

I was acutely aware that if someone sprayed our hiding place with bullets, the hedges would offer no protection. I crouched, thinking of hitting the ground belly first, like I've seen in dozens of action movies but as I deliberated, the gun fire suddenly stopped. Nancy and I froze in our crouched positions, listening to see if anyone was coming, trying not to move, daring not to even breathe. Minutes crawled by while we looked at each other, waiting for more gun fire, preferably in the distance but it was eerily quiet - no sound coming from any of the neighborhood houses, everyone lying low.

After what felt like a very long time we felt bold enough to signal and start whispering to each other, neither of us sure if it was safe to get up and start walking home again. Eventually, we worked up the nerve to resume our journey. Our easy, joking stroll a thing of the past, we became Olympic speed walkers the rest of the way home, pointing out good places to duck in case the gunshots came back. The whole experience felt surreal: one minute we were drinking warm rum, the next we were dodging bullets. It’s almost as though we have to ignore the war to continue with everyday life. It’s oddly easy to forget about the war but we are in a state of emergency. The war does exist and it’s all around us.

4/7/86, Monday

4/7/86, Monday

I woke up very early this morning and after a big cup of thick black coffee and a bowl of beans, I felt ready to go out and do some construction. A small group of us met at the NICA school, where we waited for a ride to our work site out in the country. Since the school’s Spanish classes are in the morning, the Spanish students would not be part of the construction brigade, but we had a few volunteers from the community and from the Salvadoran collective.

We were all in good spirits, eager to get to work but it only took a couple of hours for my little bubble to burst. I discovered that I am not cut out for masonry work. When we first got to the site, they had me laying bricks but apparently I sucked at it, so they sent me down to the bottom of a hill to fetch a load of bricks in a wheelbarrow. It was tough because the terrain was rocky and very uneven. Pushing a cart load of bricks is heavy work and frankly, I’m a little flabby these days since I haven’t been going to the gym. When I hit a rock on the way up, I lost control of the cart and couldn't keep it from tipping over. All I could do was watch the bricks careen down the hillside, breaking on their way down.

"I'm here to help!"

I felt terrible. Carrie sneered at me. I think she was secretly happy that I was proving to be the fuck-up she imagines me to be. Everyone else tried to hide their chagrined expressions, saying it was okay but I could tell they were thinking I should have stayed home. I cleaned up my mess and went back to bricklaying after the mortar application method had been explained to me again and I seemed to do a bit better.

Working out in the open air in the middle of the country is something I never thought I would like but for a few moments, standing on that green hill, breathing the cool, fresh air and watching a little posse of ragtag kids running after each other, I could understand the attraction. An hour later, that charm would wear off. By midday I was sweaty, tired and hungry and even the kids didn't look as cute.

When it was time to go in and eat, I was hungry but I felt like such a poseur, I didn't think I deserved the bowl of beans and corn tortillas that I was handed. I felt certain that the money spent on the bricks I’d broken could feed this family for a week. The kids ran around barefoot, with clothes that were so old they were practically transparent and the house we were eating in made the Little House on the Prairie look posh. I tried to turn down the food but the cook insisted. Obviously, she hadn’t seen me drop the bricks.

Fuck this!

Part of the value of participating in a cooperative construction project is going through the process of building relationships, it’s every bit as important as the process of building a house. True, I messed up, but if others were willing to forgive me, I could have and should have forgiven myself. Indulging in self-pity is a waste of time, better to accept a mistake and try to move forward with a positive attitude.

4/6/86, Sunday

4/6/86, Sunday

Today started off a lazy day, playing cards at a neighbor’s house. When I got home, I found that Francie had company. She had a friend over, Comandante Gladys Baez of the Sandinista armed forces, a short woman with indigenous features who wore her hair in braids. She looked more like someone getting ready to bake a batch of cookies than lead an army. She was really warm and friendly and kissed me on the cheek when she met me.

Comandante Baez insisted that I call her Gladys and seemed surprised when Francie said I was American. Gladys complimented me on my Spanish and Francie agreed, saying I acted, looked and spoke like a Nica, which I know she meant as a big compliment. I took it as one. We sat down in the living room to talk. Gladys asked me about life in the United States and what people in the U.S. thought of the war between the Contras and Sandinistas. I confirmed the things she already knew: that Reagan was on a campaign to change public opinion of the counterrevolutionary Contras by talking them up as patriots who are protecting us from the spread of communism and by refusing to use the word Contra and employing instead the sympathetic sounding name “Freedom Fighters” when referring to them. I told her that it was working. Furthermore, they were now being described as advisors rather than combatants, something that the Nicaraguans knew was a blatant lie.

Gladys moved on from the topic of Reagan and asked me about women in my country. That was hard for me to talk about. It seems that the death of the Equal Rights Amendment has stalled any progress for the women’s movement. I don’t understand what happened with the ERA and I can’t explain it to her, I guess I’m just too far removed from the mainstream. I told her I was involved in music and that my musician friends were generally open-minded about politics and women’s rights. I said that the kind of music I play has been liberating for women because it’s more about having something to say than being a great musician, so women, even those who were novice musicians, were not intimidated or shut out due to lack of experience. She was happy to hear that more women were playing music and writing songs and encouraged me to write a song about Nicaragua and share the experiences I was having here with my friends back home. She didn’t seem much older than me but she took on a motherly tone as she reminded me “sin la mujer, no hay revolucion” (without equality for women, there is no revolution). I’d never heard anyone say this before, despite the fact that it seemed like such a simple and obvious truth.

Later, when Gladys had left, I had to ask Francie again if I had heard correctly. Was Gladys really a comandante? I guess if I tried hard, I could imagine her as a guerrilla but a comandante? She didn’t look or act like a warrior, much less a commander. I couldn’t imagine her bossing the men around. She looked like so many women in East L.A., ordinary working class moms and tias. My Nicaraguan mother assured me that Gladys was one of the first and most respected Sandinista comandantes. She laughed at me and asked why I doubted her. I said that I didn't think Gladys looked strong enough to be taken seriously as a comandante.

“Why don’t you think she’s strong?” Francie asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I lied.

I was too ashamed to say it was because I expected muscles and a snazzy uniform; inwardly, I had to admit that I expected a man. I had never seen a woman who looked like Gladys have any power. In my world, women who looked like Gladys took care of kids, did housework, warmed up tortillas. I glimpsed myself, just for a second, in all my sexist, racist and colorist ugliness and I quickly stepped away from the mirror.

Francie cocked her head, looked up at me and said, “Es MUY fuerte. She fought alongside (FSLN founder) Carlos Fonseca,” she assured me. Francie went on to tell me a little about what she and Gladys had done together. They were pioneers in AMNLAE (Asociacion de Mujeres Nicaraguenses, Luisa Amanda Espinoza) an organization which is named after the first female casualty in the war against Somoza. Espinoza escaped a life of poverty and abuse to become a revolutionary. Originally, the organization was to address the needs and concerns of women who were fighting to overthrow Somoza; now, it is dedicated to increasing the political participation of women in post-revolutionary Nicaragua. Francie and Gladys were not only active members, they were founding members.

“Gladys herself was tortured by Somoza’s guardia,” Francie continued. “She was captured by Somoza and held prisoner for over two months in solitary confinement. She never broke down.”

Comandante Gladys Baez

I imagine this braided woman in an interrogation room, bright lights shining in her face, electrodes shocking her as she refuses to talk. Sweat runs down her lovely, weather-worn face, where a look of strength and resolve is carved deeper than Mt. Rushmore. Unexpectedly, a man and some snot-nosed kids look into the interrogation room.

“Gladys, we need some warm tortillas,” they call to her.

“Heat your own damn tortillas!” she replies. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

4/5/86

4/5/86, Saturday

Last night we had a frightening experience. Some time between 11:00 pm and midnight, we heard machine gunfire going off somewhere in town. The shooting continued erratically for about an hour while I lay in my bed, feeling scared. I thought the town was under siege. I had to pee desperately but I have to go outside to get to the bathroom, so despite the fact that I was terrified of leaving my bedroom, I quietly walked outside and then tiptoed back again. After awhile, the shooting died down and I was able to sleep a little but I had a pretty good scare.

This morning, nobody seemed to be quite sure what the machine gunfire was all about. My Nicaraguan mother, Francie says she got up and got dressed in case we had to evacuate in a hurry. She is perplexed, she says it may have just been a bolo (drunk) having war flashbacks. Luckily, two of my little sisters slept through the incident. Anyway, the real attack came from the bugs. I’m covered with bug bites despite the sleeping bag, repellent, and mosquito netting. C’est la vie.

Contra (Counter-revolutionary soldier) attacks were very common in Northern Nicaragua during this time period, so people throughout Esteli had legitimate cause to be concerned about their safety. 

Around this time, Sister Nancy Donovan, a Catholic nun who was working in Esteli was captured by Contras while enroute to the nearby town of Limay. Nine people who were traveling with her were slain. She later told her story and related some of her conversations with her captors: 

Sister Nancy: "You people always complain that, with the revolution, there’s a scarcity of certain things; so, why did you burn our vehicle? " 

Contra: "Because it belonged to the state." 

Sister Nancy: "Ask the people from Limay, and they’ll tell you: that was our bus."  

Contra: "No, that bus didn’t belong to the people. If it had, nobody would’ve had to pay." 

Sister Nancy: "Why do you kidnap and kill people?" 

Contra: "We only do that with Sandinistas and the ones who belong to the army." 

Sister Nancy: "But we weren’t with the army." 

Contra: "You’re all Sandinistas." 

Sister Nancy: "Are you going to let me go?" 

Contra: "Is this the first time you’ve had any contact with us?"

Sister Nancy: "Yes."  

Contra: "I bet you thought we were no good." 

Sister Nancy: "It’s not up to me to judge anyone. All people have their own conscience. What’s important are their acts." 

Contra: "We only harm the Sandinistas. The revolution’s evil; it’s communist and atheist."  

Sister Nancy: "How do you know that?" 

Contra: "Before we never had to line up with a card to get sugar. That’s communism." 

Sister Nancy: "And how do you know that the revolution is atheist?" 

Contra: "The nine comandantes are against religion." 

Sister Nancy: "But have you people had any problems practicing your religion?" 

Contra: "No, not us."

Sister Nancy: "Well, I’m a nun, and the only problems I’ve had have been with you people, in places where you’ve been."

Sister Nancy added: “The counterrevolutionaries who were holding me had very good uniforms. The majority of them had the letters ‘FDN.’ One had ‘US Army’ on his arm, and another ‘Soldier of Fortune, Second Convention.’ Everything they had seemed quite new. One of them said to me: ‘There’s a plane that comes by very quietly in the night and drops us really good provisions.’ ” 

Source articles and more information here: 

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/11/world/us-nun-detained-briefly-by-rebels-in-nicaragua.html

http://www.envio.org.ni/articulo/3391

4/4/86, Friday

4/4/86, Friday 

I’ve been hanging out with Audrey a lot. She’s one of the students at Escuela NICA. I like that she seems happy and eager to fill a room with her raspy laugh. We’re going through a similar journey, both of us are amazed at how far we’ve come since we first got here. She also saved me from myself. One of the women at the school started to give me a derisive smirk when she saw me applying colored lip balm but before I had a chance to snap at her, Audrey came over and asked to borrow it. Carrie, the smirk-giver quipped, “You two always have to look good, don’t you?” 

Audrey with other Escuela Nica students

Audrey laughed at her good-naturedly and I responded “we don’t have to, we just can’t help it.” Audrey is cute, she has short, auburn hair and a thin frame and neither of us wears much more than tinted lip balm and mosquito repellent. Carrie doesn’t wear make- up or deodorant and she brags about it as though it somehow strengthens her political views. She’s not always annoying but she sometimes acts like a know-it-all. She goes around correcting people’s Spanish pronunciation but she’s not even a teacher, she’s just another student. She doesn’t ever correct my Spanish, she’d better not even try. 

Audrey and I have learned to deal with the bugs, lizards, and rats. We’ve learned to eat food we’d never even heard of before. We’ve compromised our own standards of sanitation. We’ve learned to sleep through the clucking of the hens, the crowing of the roosters, and the pigeons walking and cooing on the tins roofs overhead. 

This morning, I saw a woman walking a cute little black pig on a leash. Its legs were moving really fast and the woman was having a hard time keeping up. Before I could take out my camera, the woman and the pig were halfway down the street. Chickens and pigs are everywhere, they walk along the road with everyone else. I have noticed that there are no homeless people or beggars to be seen. I don’t know if they exist, everyone seems to have some kind of job.

Kelly Thompson, 2015

I brought some cheap, lightweight tennis shoes that I wear at work, thinking they would be perfect for walking, but they are no match for the sett paved streets of Esteli. I think I packed inadequately. Contact lenses, make up and sweaters are out of the question, I wish I had a good pair of walking shoes and toilet paper instead. This afternoon the water was cut off unexpectedly. I was really thirsty and decided to go to the market to buy some soda, maybe even rescue the family from another meal of beans and rice, which incidentally, we have eaten everyday since I got here. 

When I got to the store, I noticed that many of the shelves were empty. There were some bottles of hot sauce, dry beans, dry rice, a small selection of ugly looking vegetables, a few household items and very little else. Everything was inexpensive. I asked the woman behind the counter about the scarce selection. She informed me that when something is in stock, it is cheap enough that anyone can buy it and so it sells out quickly. 

“The US has declared an embargo against us, but they will not break us. We’ll eat beans forever if we have to.” There was disapproval in the woman’s voice. “You are a guest in this country. You do not buy the groceries.” It suddenly struck me that what I was doing was rude. Who did I think I was, coming to their country, thinking I could buy better food because I had more money? I felt stupid and decided against the groceries, then asked her for some toilet paper instead. 

“Papel hygienico?” 

She looked amused. “No hay. Go back to your family and live like a Nicaraguan.”