Life in Central America

Good article on mad cow disease

From the NY Times

By 1994, the illness had spread to people, probably from eating beef. So far, the number of human cases has remained relatively small, 137, mostly in England, out of millions there who may have eaten contaminated meat. But the disease inspires fear because it is fatal, the incubation period is uncertain, people have no way of knowing they have been infected until they get sick and the symptoms are horrific. The disease attacks the brain, leaving a person mentally and physically helpless. Many victims were young, including some in their teens and 20's.

Silicon Valley is like a third-world country

I am struck by this each time I call my engineer friends back in Silicon Valley. They all have to scramble for jobs, or try to start a new business, just like the people in Nicaragua do. It’s a constant struggle to survive, and a large percentage of the population just give up and move somewhere else.

In Nicaragua the old way of life still lives on. Relatives who come back still see the same countryside.

But in Silicon Valley, all they see is empty office buildings. And the job histories of the residents who are left look the survivors of a major war. They are the working wounded - if they are lucky. They keep saying “It’s getting a little better, but not much”. The long-awaited economic recovery has never happened, and many of their jobs have gone overseas - something unthinkable just a few years ago. Silicon Valley was supposed to last forever, and keep getting better and better. Instead, a whole way of life is slowly dying. The world doesn’t need Silicon Valley anymore.

Someday, archeologists will excavate the remains, but they will be hard pressed to explain this strange community. What did these people do?

I made it back across the border

It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I found a third-class bus company that was still selling tickets to San Jose. We hit the border at just the right time, and it didn’t take any longer than usual.

It was an old bus; the toilet overflowed and made a ghastly stench. Other than that, the trip was uneventful.

Snake oil salesmen in Nicaragua

These guy (and the gals also) are alive and well in Nicaragua. Their favorite marketing venue seems to be the long distance bus.

A woman of able girth was giving her pitch on a bus yesterday. The bus was crammed, standing room only, and not much of that. It was amazing how she squeezed her way past two fat men who where both standing in the aisle so she could make one more sale. Money is a powerful motivator - and so is pain, which her salve was supposed to cure.

I'm stuck in Nicaragua

I got a problem: millions of Nicaraguans try to get home for Christmas from Costa Rica, where they are working, legally and otherwise. And after Christmas they all try to go back. It can take 16 hours to get thru customs. You can't get a bus reservation going South until Jan 10.

Fortunately, I made a bus reservation to go back the first thing I got here, one week ago. I thought Dec 30 would be a good time to go back, but yesterday I got tired of Nicaragua and thought I would go back to Costa Rica tomorrow (the 27th). Ordinarily, this would be no problem, but this time of year it is flat-out impossible.

So I have to wait four more days before I can use my bus reservation and head back. But then I still have to get across the border. I have done a 3 hour wait at the border before, and that was hell. I can't imagine a 8-16 hour wait. I should have stayed home for Christmas.

Christmas is noisy in Nicaragua

There were at least two hours of fireworks on Christmas Eve, starting about 11 PM. There weren't many visual displays, but the racket was awesome.

I was told the last of December was also feast of the Purification of Our Lady (Notre Dame in Latin), because there have been fireworks every night. In Spanish, Christ is El Senor, and Mary is La Senora.

I wish I knew the theological significance of this event. Maybe it is a parallel event to Easter, when Christ was purified. I also found out that Mary had her own Assumption into Heaven, according to Catholic theology. I didn't learn this in my Protestant upbringing.

One market, under God

I have to warn you. I got these ideas from some women, and not only that but feminist women.

Cecilia López Montaño
Mariama Williams

The title of this piece is intended to be a satire on the phrase One nation, under God. And it summarizes the neo-liberal attitude toward the Market. In their view, the Market has replaced God is the utimate good force in the world. These people want to liberalize trade and financial flows, deregulate all market-based activity, and privatize industry and public services. This has become some kind of religion, and its adherents are religious fanatics.

But it doesn't work, even in the developed countries. The economy is made of people, and they have to work together for the good of all. The market economy gives control to the rich and powerful, not the weak and poor. This is not a Christian world, or an Islamic world, or a Buddhist world - or any kind of world where people matter. It is a fundamentalist world, with fundamentalist economies, and fundamentalist religions.

43% of Latin Americans live in poverty, half of them in extreme poverty - and they are representative of most of the people in the world. And it's getting worse.

By contrast, China, India, Singapore, and Taiwan have never accepted the neoliberal dogma. They decided to get out of poverty by themselves, and they are succeeding. They have strengthened their own economies - instead of weakening them, and making them a invisible part of the world economy. They know the global market is just a mechanism for the rich countries to exploit the poor countries - the same as always.

The world needs something different, a new prescription that will confront the power of global investors, promote social equality, preserve natural resources and the environment, strengthen corporate governance, and promote democracy. This is not going to be easy, but we don't have much of a choice. What we have now isn't working.

Let me finish with one more quote:

Women stand at the crossroads between production and reproduction, between economic activity and the care of human beings, between economic growth and human development. And it is women who suffer the most when the two spheres meet at cross-purposes. - Gita Sen

Estreli

This is the name of a town, it's pronounced est-tre-LEE. How come I ended up here? That's a long story, so let me break it down.

Sunday the 21st. Left Granada for the high mountains. I intended to go to San Rafeal del Norte, and study my Spanish lessons. But after traveling on buses all day, I only got to Jinatega. That night I had an acute attack of diarriha. I didn't feel sick, but I was practically exploding. To top it off, Jinotega was cold, and I didn't have any warm clothes. You don't go to the mountains in the winter, you wait for the summer, when the rest of Nicaragua is roasting.

Monday the 22nd. Got the first bus south. Since this was the first bus of the morning, it was jammed. Several people on the bus were throwing up, so it was safe to assume they were sick too. By the time I got to Esteli, I wasn't feeling too good myself. I got a hotel room and collapsed. I felt better in the afternoon, so I went to an Internet cafe. Then I fainted. When I came to, my head was lying on the keyboard. Fortunately, nobody panicked, like they would of back in the States. I was able to stagger back to my hotel, four blocks away. People on the street probably thought I was drunk.

Tuesday the 22rd. There was a nice Canadian couple at the hotel, they reccommended some diarria medicine, and I bought it at the pharmacy next door. I don't feel too bad today, but I am weak, so I will probably spend Christmas in Esteli. This wasn't the plan, but there are worse places I could be. The hotel is nice, and I can buy cheap food in the park.

Wednesday the 24th, the day before Christmas. I hear 'Jingle Bells' on the radio frequently - in Spanish, and in English. What a culture gap! Sleigh bells vanished in the US a hundred years ago, so I have not idea how this translates into contemporary Central American culture. Probably it is not translated at all, it is just imported as part of American Culture - which is our most important export, by far. Everyone thinks if they could just become like Americans all their troubles would be over.

One of my troubles are now over, with the aid of modern medical technology: my diarria.

I'm getting some good pictures, but I will have to wait until I get back to Costa Rica before I can send them.

Shays' Rebellion

This is a neat historical goody from Mark Rosen.

I believe these guys were pardoned by John Adams.
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Daniel Shays (1747?-1825, born Hopkinton, MA), a former Revolutionary Army captain, led a rebellion by farmers against unsettled economic conditions and against politicians and laws which were grossly unfair to farmers and working people in general. They protested against excessive taxes on property, polling taxes which prevented the poor from voting, unfair actions by the court of common pleas, the high cost of lawsuits, and the lack of a stable currency. They rallied for the government issue of paper money, since at the time there were a variety of paper monies in circulation, but not much was honored at face value. A campaign for "sound money" rallied for the issue of a gold-backed currency. The revolutionary war was over, but The United States had yet to form formal government organizations. The contstitutional congress had yet to convene, and the country was in chaos. The rebels protested against governmental and court systems that were wrought with dictatorial and oppressive regimes and against excessive salaries for government and court officials.

Their actions included mobbing the court buildings in Northampton, Great Barrington, Worcester and Concord to prevent the sitting of the courts, whose actions had been grossly unfair to working people.

On August 29, 1786, rebel mobs stormed the courthouse in Northampton to prevent the trial and imprisonment of debtors. In September 1786, Shays and about 600 armed farmers stormed the courthouse in Springfield. Governor Bowdoin countered with a militia of 4400 troops.

On January 25, 1787, Shays led 2000 rebels to Springfield, MA to storm the arsenal, but government forces of 1200 soldiers led by General Shepard quelled the uprising. The rebels were captured and sentenced to death for treason in February 1787, but they were later pardoned.
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Ongoing Legacies

One of the leaders in Shays' Rebellion, a farmer named Stone, who had led a group of 400 farmers during the actions of 1786-87, left another rebellious legacy, his great-granddaughter Lucy Stone. Ms. Stone was born in West Brookfield, Massachusetts, and became a rebel against racism and sexism in the mid-1800's. She is thought to be the first American woman to retain her maiden name when she married. She was abhorred by interpretations of the Bible that said that women should submit to men that she learned Greek and Hebrew so that she could translate the texts herself and challenge the sexist interpretations that seemed wrong to her.

She attended Oberlin college in the 1840's, and was involved with abolitionist and suffragist movements, and spoke publicly about the issues. She was influential in the women's rights movement, and is credited with having been an important influence on Susan B. Anthony and Julia Ward Howe. In her time, the expression "Lucy-Stoner" was commonly used to describe women who were independent thinkers, especially those who defied the sexist notions of the day.

Lucy Stone's husband, Henry Brown Blackwell, was active in the abolitionist movement and came from a family of progressive thinkers. In 1847, Henry Blackwell's sister Elizabeth received the first doctorate of medicine conferred on a woman in the U.S.

When Lucy and Henry were married, Lucy ommitted the words "obey" from her vows. It became a symbolic event, which led to much discussion in the newspapers of the time, and some lively public debate on the issues and laws. Some historians credit Ms. Stone as an extremely important historical influence whose life made great contributions to our society.

Christmas in Nicaragua

I had to get out of San Jose, and Nicaragua seemed like the best place to go. It's the busiest time of the year, and I thought Nicaragua wouldn't be so crowded. I was only partly right, must of the hotels and hostels are full, and I had a hard time getting a bus ticket from Costa Rica to Nicaragua. Last night I got in late, at 9 PM. I found a room without too much trouble, but it was expensive: $23, the most I have ever paid for a room in Central America. First thing this morning I got a bed in my favorite hostel. I pigged it out in the local market and gave my body time to get here.

In a day or two I will go to San Rafael del Norte, a small town in the mountains, where I plan on concentrating on my Spanish lessons. I still like Nicaragua, but I guy told me about some good places close to David, Panama, so I will probably go there in January.