History in the Making

“…we come into the world with a ball of yarn to weave the fabric of our lives. One cannot know exactly what the tapestry will look like, but at a certain moment one can look back and say: Of course! It couldn’t have been any other way! That shiny thread, that stitching couldn’t have led anywhere else!” (Gioconda Belli's beautiful words that I think are a great take on each of our own histories.)

History. The word makes me cringe. In my three and a half years of college, I’ve managed to avoid any classes with the ‘HIST’ header, but now I find myself in a history class. (And, on top of that, a political science class, too. Yuck!)

Before I get more into how I am dealing with these adventures into an untrekked territory of my academic self, let me share with you a bit of my recent history. Last week, my friend Laura and I spent over 45 hours on buses, met tons of interesting people, and officially visited all the Central American countries (well, except Belize…but depending on who you ask, Belize can be part of either the Caribbean or Central America). After leaving El Salvador, and passing through Honduras and Nicaragua, we arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica, where we spent a day and a half. We went to the national symphony, which is by far one of the highlights of my trip; found a really sweet diner down a happening, NYC-feel strip of shops and hundreds of pedestrians; and spent a good hour and a half at a local souvenir shop, talking with the workers. Besides that, we did a lot of hanging out in the TicaBus hotel and getting ripped off by taxi drivers. (Costa Rica is expensive!) San Jose was a beautiful city. A shorter bus drive later, we found ourselves in Los Balsas, a small more-rural community near Santiago, Panama. Laura spent two months in this community some four years ago, so we were privileged to have a connection with her former host family who oh-so graciously allowed us to stay with them for four days. It is a great community, where youth spend their evenings hanging out at the cancha (basketball court), your thoughts are your only privacy, and, at this time of the year, everyone prepares for the upcoming independence celebration. I'm glad I got to spend most of the trip in this smaller, non-touristy part of Central America. It was more like our weekend rural homestays during our study program rather than a vacation, but it gave me yet another perspective of life in Central America. We did manage to spend a day and a half in Panama City before our 25-hour bus ride up to Managua, Nicaragua. I got to see the famous Panama Canal and some beautiful sites of this unique and interesting city, full of run-down apartments and eye-catching skyscrapers on the peninsula.

We arrived in Nicaragua on Sunday, where we settled into our temporary guesthouse/CGE office building, located just a block away from the president’s house. On Monday, we began our classes. We've only had class for three days, but let me tell you--Nicaragua is the perfect place to (confuse yourself) study history or politics. I have already gained a new appreciation and interest for both topics. Nicaragua is full of a complex and unique history that angers me, makes me laugh, and intrigues me all at the same time. Nicaragua has a president who comes from the revolutionary political party, but whose party wouldn’t call him “revolutionary”; is currently struggling against Costa Rica for river rights; is the second poorest nation in the Western hemisphere with one of the highest literacy rates; has found ballots in dumps during election time; consists of two totally different cultures of very distinct geographical and social characteristics (the Caribbean  and Pacific coasts); and has spent many years fighting against, compromising with, and accepting and refusing money from the United States. And this is just the beginning of the many things I’ve jotted down in my notes—the beginning of my attempt to understand this complicated and unique small triangle of a nation.

We are staying in the capital city of Managua. On Tuesday we took a small tour where we saw Lake Managua, the national cathedral and palace, low-income housing projects, and some other parks and monuments. From the recent rains, the lake is terribly flooded; we were told that it will take at least two years for the water to recede to normal level. Who knows how many houses were wiped out not only here in the city, but the whole country. Managua is not like any city I’ve ever visited. The presence of many trees and two in-city lakes add to the city’s beauty. It lacks organization, and it’s normal to see a nice building right next to some very poorly built shacks (or tents) that serve as people’s homes. Directions are not typical—you give directions with the terms arriba (“up,” or where the sun rises), abajo (“down,” where the sun sets), al lago (toward the lake), or south. Also, there are not many tall buildings—the tallest I’ve seen is maybe six stories high—because of the earthquake in 1972. Managua is still a city under construction—structurally, socially, and politically.

Our group is living in a very lively neighborhood, or barrio, called Batahola. The people here are the sweetest! The small house where Laura and I are staying houses a small pulperia (more or less an in-house store), and the house is probably just a bit smaller than my house in Rock Rapids (which is not very big…we fit five people in it comfortably, but any more would have been difficult). But here our family consists of eleven people, including Laura and me. Our host mom runs the store and takes care of everyone and our host dad drives taxi. Their four children live here, too, and one son’s wife and two kids and one daughter’s daughter, too. And to prove just how small of a world this is, the daughter studied for a year in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It’s a pretty happening place—people stopping by the store all the time, kids always playing or the baby totting around in her walker, someone always enjoying a show or a game on the TV. I went walking this morning, just to find myself being greeted and waved at by all our neighbors. We live across from a basketball court/soccer field and the cultural center, where classes in English, music, painting, jewelry-making, cooking, and other things are taught. Although Managua can be dangerous (and I’m aware of that), I feel safe in this neighborhood and there are always people around, watching out for each other.

Our days this week have looked like this: the bus picks us up at the cultural center and brings us to the Center first thing in the morning, we have class in the morning, eat lunch at the Center, take some time in the afternoon to study and use internet, return to Batahola around five, chill with our host families, eat supper, do homework, sleep. The conversations and interactions that fill our time in class, with each other, and with our families are priceless.

I am falling in love with yet another country. Nicaragua’s people are beautiful, intelligent, and very warm. People keep asking me how Nica compares to Guatemala and El Salvador, but honestly, all I can say in regards to comparison is that it’s different. I’ve loved all three countries, and all in different ways. I am truly embarking on something new: exploring topics, questions, and themes I’ve never explored, seeing “poverty” in a new way, and learning more about politics than I’ve ever wanted to learn. But beautifully, I am gaining a deep appreciation for politics, history, and their complexities, and I am become ever more exposed to the thread that binds every topic together.