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Chronicle of a Journey
Central America, 2008
by Loida E. Fernández G.
What contrasts in such a short time and a small distance. I remember anew: God is not only God of things as they are, but also God of things as they were meant to be and for which they were created.
In Monteverde
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| León’s cathedral, Nicaragua |
| Photos courtesy of Loida E. Fernandez G. |
In late January 2008, I waited for several hours in the Mexico City airport as the prelude to a two-week trip to Central America. My plan was to attend a writers' workshop for Central American Quakers in Monteverde, Costa Rica, entitled "Writing as Ministry," organized by Friends World Committee for Consultation and Earlham School of Religion. My role was to coordinate the workshop, and also serve as its interpreter. Following the workshop, I planned to visit Nicaragua so I could see the country and connect with longtime friends.
I arrived in San José, Costa Rica, at midnight and joined the other participants. After a good rest, we traveled another four hours the following day up to Monteverde. The days there, though packed, were a refuge for the spirit, with sunrises and sunsets that I could see from the kitchen window of my host family, who were among the first settlers of that Paradise-like place. We enjoyed a unique, incomparable view of the Gulf of Nicoya on the Pacific coast.
Strong winds kept reminding me of the Bible text, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth" (John 3:8). Feeling the soft massage of the garúa—a kind of dew that sometimes turns to rain in the cloud forest and at lower altitudes—reminded me of another text that speaks of the breath that rose from the earth before there was rain, and watered all the face of the earth, including the garden God had planted to the east of Eden (Gen. 2: 6-8). Another resonant passage for me those days was one that speaks of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 21: 1).
What can I say about the presenter, Professor Susan Yanos? Her manner of instruction truly communicated a sense of calling as a teacher. She guided us through a profound experience that transformed our time together into something that was spiritual in the fullest sense of the word.
Leading each of us figuratively by the hand, she opened us to literary analysis, then took us to deeper, more intimate regions of human existence. We shared heart to heart without superficiality. This was literary analysis that allowed us not only to dissect texts but also to approach them in a different way—from our own experience. "Ways to Attract and Transform Readers," "The Power of Story," "Organizing the Climax of the Story," "The Personal and the Persuasive"—these were some of the topics on which we reflected, in the mode of narrative theology.
The days in Monteverde were full of new experiences for all our senses. The natural world surrounded us—many new plants, birds, small mammals; new foods; new people to get to know; new names for familiar plants and fruits; new paths; new music; and, for some, even a new language. But what undoubtedly has stayed with us from the time together has been our common experience as human beings, rooted in spiritual light that unites us beyond cultural differences and life heritage. Despite our differences in background, we shared a language of inward life. We were amazed by this inward sharing, just as we were amazed by sunrises and sunsets, recognizing that God is not only the God of things as they are, but the God of things as they were and are destined to be. As the days passed, they seemed to grow shorter because of all we wanted to learn from and share with each other.
Back in San José we returned to reality, encountering numerous peasant leaders protesting the Central American Free Trade Treaty (CAFTA). Each of us went our separate way; I continued on to Nicaragua. As I prepared for this second phase of my travels, I felt as if I were 1,000 light-years away from that special time in Costa Rica.
In Nicaragua
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| Workshop participants ready to visit Monteverde Reserve |
The 90 kilometers between Managua and León Santiago de los Caballeros went by slowly. So did the hazy, hot afternoon, as we rode the minibuses that make that trip every day. As we rounded Lake Managua, a body of water that receives the entire city's garbage, and as we went past the base of the imposing, fearsome Momotombo (I wonder, do other capital cities have volcanoes that guard them—or destroy them?), the lowlands and somnolence brought on by heat reminded me of other weary, torrid trips in my Mexican homeland, from Mante to Ciudad Valles. "León, León, León," shouted the agent, trying to snag additional passengers from another minibus driver at the Universidad Centroamericana stop.
It took us about an hour to arrive in the "city of poets," which holds in its cathedral the remains of the renowned Nicaraguan legendaries Rubén Darío, Salomón de la Selva, and Alfonso Cortez. That was an hour of hearing others' conversations: the endless ringing of cell phones, arranging get-togethers, closing deals or simply sending messages to who-knows-who in cyberspace.
The local foods are special. "For that reason alone it's worth enduring the heat," I was told by a woman selling pinolillo (a classic Nicaraguan beverage made of corn, cacao, sugar, and cinnamon) when I asked her if she was from León.
I felt tired but relieved when I connected with a good friend of mine for more than 30 years, nicknamed la negra, in the legendary Sesteo de las Aves. This coffee shop boasts that it served as the meeting place for the greats of Nicaraguan literature, as proven by the old photos hanging on one of its walls. Not many people approach the place now, or if they do they may discover to their disappointment (as we did) that to eat a nacatamal (a very close relative to our banana-leaf-wrapped tamales) and to drink a pinolillo costs around ten U.S. dollars. That's prohibitive for most Nicaraguans these days, since for many it is equivalent to several days' pay.
Three days before, my friends had welcomed me at the airport that hasn't changed its name since it was christened during the period of the Sandinista Revolution as Augusto César Sandino Airport.
"Ajá, and how was the trip?" "And deai? How's the traveler doing? Let's go straight to the UCA stop before the afternoon hits us and it gets impossible to travel to Carazo." That's what we did just to find spots on the minibus that would carry us for over an hour's travel into a more temperate zone of Nicaragua. We passed through Las Piedrecitas, El Crucero, Diriamba, Dolores, and other little towns where the minibus stops to drop off those who are returning from their daily job hunt, from selling their wares, or from manual labor in smoldering Managua. Others make similar rounds every single day through Granada, Masaya, León, and Managua, just to survive.
"Watch out for thieves, put your money in your shoes, be careful crossing the streets" were some of the many recommendations with which I was sent off in the mornings as I went out to visit various places in Managua. It's with this fear that thousands of people of all ages set out every day, entrusting themselves to all the saints before leaving at six in the morning, and ultimately sleeping on the minibuses that bear them day after day to their work in the country's capital.
The dream of seeing a different Managua vanishes in the scorching sun and in the middle of the crush of people in the Eastern Market or Roberto Huembes or any other market. There, still more vendors offer fresh produce ranging from yuca (cassava), cashews, yams, plantains (both whole and fried), pumpkins, and squash. Then there are the shoes, jewelry, and endless Taiwanese products sold by the ton in the streets. It was as though Taiwan's throwaways, unwanted in other places, had all ended up in Managua.
After several hours' visit to two of the museums in León—whose Colonial buildings reminded me of Old Havana—we visited the Art Center of the Ortiz Gurdián Foundation. Located on Calle Real across from the San Francisco Church, the center is said to have been founded by one of Nicaragua's richest bankers. It offers the public an outstanding collection of Western paintings from the Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic periods, as well as modern Latin American art. To the latter collection are added prize-winning works from the Center's biennial painting and sculpture competition. These pieces—treasures that invite contemplation—are housed in two beautiful colonial mansions, amazingly preserved. These buildings, located in the midst of the bustle of transit, pedestrians, and street vendors, are a refuge in the city, the first capital of Nicaragua and the cradle of Nicaraguan culture.
Getting back to Managua took us over an hour since hardly anybody travels to the capital once afternoon arrives. One has to wait till the minibus fills up, engulfed in the sounds of bands, the agent's loudspeaker, and the music of the Mejía Godoy family.
"Move it," is heard, and yet another passenger enters the sardine-can minibus with its uncomfortable seats. And we're off in the five o'clock minibus, hoping to connect with the last bus in Managua that will take us to Carazo.
Land of the Extremes
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| The author with her son Emiliano |
After a marketplace fire years ago, Masaya, city of craft-making par excellence, has a new market full today of many things that are far from being traditional Nicaraguan crafts. Instead of those guayabera shirts from the La Aguja house of embroidery (which was located in Granada, if I recall correctly), one finds an international mix of personal effects, accessories, and handwork similar to what I'm used to seeing in our own market back in Mante. Crafts made by hand are yielding to the invasion of synthetic textiles, Taiwanese bags, and backpacks. Woven hats and jícara water cups are giving way to cheaper plastic versions.
And the cities are shadowed by despair, by discouragement from the daily struggle for survival. The extremes of wealth and poverty are now growing ever more distant from one another, with nothing in the middle. In Nicaragua today, you can be either very rich or miserably poor. There is no middle ground. It would seem that nothing has changed.
Checking In with Friends
I couldn't track down Lena the anthropologist, an old friend whom I had hoped to visit, who I know lives in a very unstable situation and has resorted to spiritualizing neo-Christian religiosity in the midst of her poverty.
Adriana, another friend, lives in the country, working with street kids. She's a psychologist, has worked in prisons, and she has now started a foundation for these youths to make hammocks. They sleep in them, but also sell them. They also cultivate a little coffee. For them, she represents hope.
My friend Aurora amazes me on the last night of my stay with the news that she's going to throw her husband out of the house for being irresponsible. She doesn't want anyone to know yet. Perhaps she tells me because she knows I'm leaving tomorrow and can therefore be her confidante. "He doesn't pay attention," she says; "He doesn't take care of himself, they've told him to stop smoking and not to eat pork, but he doesn't listen." Her children don't know she'll do it, but tomorrow, early tomorrow, at breakfast, before everybody goes off to Managua, she'll run him out. She already has her speech memorized and all that's left to do is ask him to take his things. "Ah! but yes," she added, "I'll ask him to leave the first book of poems he wrote, that he dedicated to me." Definitely tomorrow, tomorrow will be another day for them all.
Calixto, another friend, has an epileptic son. His medicine changed his sleep patterns and now he can't stay awake during the day; since he works all night, he hasn't finished his thesis. Calixtito, as they call him, is 25 and very intelligent; yet his only option is to work as a watchman or, if he's lucky, sometimes in a nighttime telephone service, but that's it. The family has two more children who haven't yet completed their studies.
A married couple I know, Abdias and Amira, are housing Amira's mother, who can no longer live in the United States; she's diabetic and has no insurance. Though her life expectancy may possibly decrease, her quality of life may improve with all the affection she will now receive here—something nobody showed her when she was in the U.S.
I open the newspapers and find the same news I read in newspapers in other cities—the same in Managua as in San José, Costa Rica; or Chiquimula, Guatemala; or any Mexican city. The model, just as misery itself, is duplicated.
I watch a video about places that we—the humans of the world—should be ashamed of seeing. It shows children living in the Managua landfill, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of vultures hovering or roosting in trees around the San Salvador dump. The sight gave me goosebumps, both on my skin and on my soul.
And I wonder, where is hope? Are we any better off? Do I need to come to Nicaragua and see extreme poverty so that I can say, "I'm okay, we're okay"? Do I care to see those same things in my own country? Or, is it easier to deal with those realities in a foreign land?
I read: "A scrap of blue is more intense than the whole sky/And I feel my yearning lives there in a bloom of ecstasy" (Alfonso Cortez).
And I add: "our yearning."
What Passeth Away
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| A mule taxi in Masaya, Nicaragua |
I return to Mexico overwhelmed by so much poverty, yet deeply moved that in the midst of all that poverty and hellishness, people keep going without losing sight of a better tomorrow.
I can only think of the paradox, of the extremes through which I passed in just two weeks. Monteverde and Managua! What contrasts in such a short time and a small distance. I remember anew: God is not only God of things as they are, but also God of things as they were meant to be and for which they were created. I tell myself: perhaps little paradises like Monteverde allow us to draw breath so that we can then continue moving through life without being mere spectators.
Finally, I think, I get a clearer sense of the meaning of those verses from Revelation, from John of Patmos, which resounded so much in my mind during the workshop in Monteverde:
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, and there was no more sea.
. . . And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them; and they shall be his people. . . . And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the first former things are passed away. —Rev. 21:1,3,4
And I wonder: When will these things truly pass away?
Ah! But that's not where it ends; the text continues:
And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write . . . —Rev. 21:5
And so it goes on. I've just written this. I don't know where it will go, nor to what end.
Tomorrow I'll hand my friend Mariano, a Nicaraguan from my home town Mante, the book on poetry I brought him from his homeland, along with these words I've written. I hope he won't weep as much as I have wept.
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