An update!

Oy, it’s been much too long since I’ve updated this blog.  All the things I’ve seen and done and whatnot!  So much to type!  And so little time to do it!

I live in the Colonia Máximo Jerez, which is a working-class neighborhood in Managua.  My homestay family has a mother, father, an uncle (the mother’s brother) and a daughter and her husband who visit daily.  Also, a dog and cat.

There is only water from about 2/3 AM to 10 AM, so I have to get up earlier than I normally would if I had the chance to sleep in, but I have adjusted well.  Usually I woke up on my own a few minutes before my alarm, which goes off at 7 during the week and 8 on the weekends.  The showers are always cold, and no, I have not gotten used to it.  Not sure if I ever will, but it definitely wakes me up.

Breakfast has consisted of a lot of different things.  Gallo pinto (refried rice and beans), regular beans, bean dip.  Also, bananas.  Fried vertical slices of bananas, fried horizontal slices of bananas, fresh bananas.  There are oranges and mangoes (though not usually for breakfast) and other fruits.  As a bread, sometimes I’ll have fried tortilla, sometimes rolls, and oftentimes pancakes (from the Aunt Jemima mix).  There is a domestic worker who my family hires during the week (all days except Sunday) to make breakfast and lunch, and then we have the leftovers for dinner.

My host family has a washing machine, which I use.  But for loads of laundry that are too small for the machine, and for my jeans, I use the washboard.   The process is easier than I expected, but definitely a lot harder than using the machine.  Also, I miss fabric softener, at least for the first minute of putting on my clothes.

The SIT study center is basically a house in the Máximo, but I’ve been able to use my computer to update people and keep in contact (obviously not for keeping up with the blog, though).

We go to Spanish class at the Universidad de Centroamérica (the UCA), which is a half-hour walk away.  Spanish is difficult, and it’s hard to know if I’m getting any better, but I’m trying.  Once a week, we practice our Spanish with college students during our lunch.

Our “Revolution, Transformation, and Civil Society” seminar, as well as our Field Study seminar, is in the Centro por Investigaciones y Estudios de la Salud (CIES).  So far, we’ve gotten talks by Paul Baker (a folk singer from Scotland), and Dora Maria Téllez, a former Sandinista fighter who was instrumental in taking over the National Palace during the revolution.  She now thinks Daniel Ortega is a dictator.  She was offered a job at Harvard, which she turned down, but that’s probably because she’s not allowed in the US.

Our first trip was to the colonial city of León.  That was where the traditional liberal stronghold was during the early history of Spanish occupation.  SIT did a “dropoff,” where we were divided into pairs and dropped off at random spots around the city, and had to ask locals directions to get to specific locations.  Needless to say, I survived, and it was a great experience.

We went to the volcano at Masaya, which was very cool.  It’s a crater volcano, and we couldn’t see lava, but we could smell the sulfur, and the scenery was beautiful.

(By the way, I have pictures, and I’ll upload them eventually.)

A few days ago, we went to the city of Granada (the traditionally conservative city in colonial times) for the International Poetry Festival.  That was awesome.  Lots of poetry, a parade, a reggae performance, and a protest by Nicaraguan feminists against the therapeutic abortion ban!  (I have a post up at Women In and Beyond the Global about that, if you want to read more).

Tomorrow we leave for a nature reserve that works with campesinos who live in the area.  We will be hiking and working in the fields and seeing things and doing things and I’m not sure what’s in store for us, but I’ll be keeping a journal every day (as I have been doing since I got here—I’m actually surprised that I’ve kept it up).

Not sure what I’ve forgotten to mention.  Probably a lot, but then again, you can’t capture any experience in one blog post.  Or two.  Or any amount.

If you’re reading this, I probably miss you!  Also, I am safe, and having a good time!

first day

Airports are strange things.  They embody precariousness, as exploited by that overly-hyped George Clooney movie Up in the Air.

In my Intro to Postcolonial Lit class last semester, we read a book called The Global Soul by Pico Iyer.  There was a chapter on airports, but to be honest, I skipped it because I found Pico Iyer to be insufferably annoying.  But if the global soul is that class of people privileged enough to find a home en route to countless destinations, then they depend on the the seen unseen, those laborers whose work is non-valued in service of the global city, work done by women of color.  Spivak, re-presentation, etc.

Right now, I am in the Casa San Juan in Nicaragua, in a very wealthy neighborhood in Managua.  A few blocks over, people sell less-than-appetizing-looking fruit on the side of the road, and street children toss grass flowers at tourists with the hope (or expectation?  or neither?) that the tourists will toss them money back.

All of this is making me think about space and visibility, and how there could possibly be room in a city for a group of citizens of the empire to wander about the [protected parts of the] streets.  According to the safety talk we had today, we are highly noticeable on the streets.  Visibility strikes again, but in a different way.  And when the program talks about "piropos," or cat-calls, that women, both Nicaraguan and others, endure on the streets, it makes me think of how patriarchy extracts value from a certain kind of enforced visibility, while sacrificing safe spaces (if patriarchy ever had that in mind to sacrifice in the first place).

Anyway, day one down.