Back in safe Nicaragua

I'm back, I'm back! Well, I was back on Monday already. We've been in Bluefields two days, and we're going to Pearl Lagoon to have a program with meetings there, before continuing on to Rocky Point. Pearl Lagoon is the closest town to Rocky Point, so I'm getting closer and closer to my second home.

Coming back from Guatemala, Nicaragua feels like the safest place in the world. Almost. And, as we've been told repeatedly, it (Nicaragua) is one of the safest countries in Central America. We have had our security routines here as well, but they don't differ that much from what I would follow in London or Oslo. Don't walk out alone after dark, don't walk down certain streets/areas after dark even if you are together, and so on.

Guatemala had a lot more security, and it stressed me out. I had some horrible dreams in Guatemala city. My mood changed rapidly, and even if everything looked nice and quiet on the surface, after all we'd been told, it was difficult to feel at ease. It might just be my imagination, but I feel a lot more relaxed after we came back to Nicaragua, and especially Bluefields, which is in an area with a lot of drug traffic.

I'm looking forward to being back at Rocky Point soon – my second home, where you only need to stay away from the mainroad, don't wander the woods after dark and maybe don't go alone too much as a woman.

Good harvest/good corn

 That's what Chabil Utzaj means - a sugar refinery/company in Alta Verapaz, near Panzós

 Looking very attractive from the road

With some black smoke enhancing the pretty view

The sugar cane plantations have taken over a lot of the areas we visited. Even while in the meeting, talking to people about the problems, there were trucks driving past, loaded with sugar cane. Later on, we drove past the ill-smelling, black-smoking factory. The sugar cane is a very obvious, very visible example as you drive through the countryside, but there are other, as bad or worse, companies in the area. The problem is the richness of the country in terms of natural resources, good earth, many rivers, petroleum and metal. Rivers can be dammed, earth used for African palm trees – which makes it unusable for anything else, and hills can be delved into for precious and/or other metals. The companies seem to take no responsibility whatsoever, whether about the environment, the people, or just following the actual contracts they have signed. Because of all this, rivers are drying out or getting contaminated. We have corn only growing to half its original size, and crops failing. We have children and adults getting gastritis, cancer, and unexplained illnesses and rashes.  

What is the solution? Meetings, meetings and more meetings. First the population needs to be aware of their rights. Second they need to be able to arrange meetings with the local authorities, with the local people, to have a dialogue about all this. Thirdly, the meetings need to be taken seriously, which they rarely are. Many of the people we have met have experienced that the authorities just walk straight over them, after having all these meetings and making agreements that will at least benefit the locals slightly more than the alternative. We also met a representative from charity church organisation Caritas, who had worked with these issues many years. And as she said, you can work for years without seeing any progress at all. You just need to keep on, informing people, going to meetings, and hoping that at some point it will work.

We have also met a few who have managed the impossible, and changed the outcome, and saved some of their own environment – but I can't even remember who, or when, or where, because we've met so many who have said the opposite.

This is also directly tied up with the film I posted the other day: Evictions in the Polochic Valley. This is in the Polochic Valley. The owners of the company are the Germans in the film.

Want to read two completely different views on this? My view is, as you can tell, much closer to the people's one, because that's what I've seen and heard as well. I also generally believe more in people's stories than those of employees in a for-profit company.

The company's view

The people's view

Alta Verapaz/Polochic Valley

 We went to the Alta Verapaz from Thursday to Saturday, with one village meeting on Friday

 Where we met many people from different villages

 And heard many stories about the war, and the evictions that are still going on

Like this man and his community, who were facing eviction only a few days after the meeting

Alta Verapaz, in the north of the Polochic Valley, was one of the municipalities in Guatemala that was greatly affected during the war, and is still being affected. Now, there are a lot of companies coming in with massive projects, be it sugar cane and sugar production, palm oil, petroleum, hydro power stations, or just mining, and taking over people's land. Funnily enough, some plans for hydro power stations have been leaked, and they were signed in the late 70s – just about the time the military started barging into the areas. The mostly indigenous population of the area were accused of being guerrilla soldiers or supporters, and then got rid of through an unimaginable amount of massacres.

There has also been released information about this strategy in the neighbouring municipality of Quiché, called Plan Sofia.

When people understood that the military presence wasn't there to protect them, but rather to get rid of them at any excuse they could find, they were more prepared. When they saw militaries advancing towards their village, they would run up into the mountains with everything they owned, while the army burned down the village and beat, raped, and/or killed anyone they could find.

People would stay in the mountain, meet up with each other, try to live off what they could find, while they watched their children die from malnutrition, or their parents from wounds.

This is one of the most common stories we've heard while in Guatemala. And again, it's incredibly sad when this becomes the normalcy. Everyone has a story about their family members getting lost or killed or just plain disappearing.

Now, after the peace accords were written in 1996, you would think at least some things had changed for the better. And all right, there is less of an open war. It is more quiet now, less massacres, more subtlety. But the large companies are buying or leasing land that has belonged to generations of indigenous people. Not necessarily from the people themselves, rather from their rich landowners, who use this opportunity to throw people out of their homes – or evict them, whichever you prefer. These people haven't had papers on their land before, because they have always lived on their own land. In addition to that, we have the waste from the factories, polluting and contaminating the water and the earth – and finally the people.

The state is on the side of the companies – companies that bring a lot of money into the pockets of the higher classes. The local authorities are soon on the side of the companies – they don't get paid very well to begin with, so why not accept a little side income?

We even met some people from a community that is going to be evicted (last photo) – they might actually have been evicted already, the past few days. They wanted us to sign a paper to complain to the local government – saying that we and some of the other organisations in the meeting supported them and their cause. And we couldn't. Partly because it's not how our organisation works, partly because if we did, the Guatemalan state wouldn't let our organisation work more in their country – a country LAG is very far into with different projects. It was very difficult, being there, meeting all these people, and suddenly realising that we have very different ideas about what we are doing.

What are we, after all, doing here? Just listening to different people at different meetings, different organisations, trying to remember who said what and not really doing anything to help them in the moment. The most important thing must be to get the information out to people, I guess.

Guatemala, goodbye

Somewhere on the road, one hour from Guatemala City

Sunday was our last day in Guatemala city, and today we're all going back to Nicaragua, tomorrow Bluefields, and this weekend we'll be going back out into our communities. I'm looking forward to something as safe, both mentally and actually, as coming back to Rocky Point.

We have met a lot of organisations, heard a lot of stories, and finished this past weekend with going to Polochic and meeting people from villages in this area. Both people who had been evicted in the past, and people who were just now in danger of being evicted from their earth. More about that later.

It has been a week full of roller-coaster feelings, from incredibly strong moments when listening to victims of the war, to ridiculously entertaining moments when sitting in a mini bus with eight other, just as tired, girls. It seems like we tell more jokes and do more silly things these days, like we are frantically trying to get away from the sadness and awareness that we're experiencing every day here.

I am very glad that we went here for this program, and that I went to Nicaragua with this organisation.

Evictions in the Polochic Valley

Another documentary, just for you

This is where I have been the past few days. This video was made two years ago though, and there's no danger for us (we're neither landowners nor indigenous people). After so much information and meetings, I'm still astounded by what people are capable of doing to each other. I shouldn't be, but I am. Hoping to have some photos soon (during my first four days in Guatemala, I took none).

And more to bring you down

On Monday, when we arrived in Guatemala, we went fairly straight to the trial I mentioned yesterday. In short:

"Jose Efrain Rios Montt, who ruled Guatemala for nearly seventeen months during 1982 and 1983, and Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez, his then chief of military intelligence, are on trial in Guatemala City for genocide and crimes against humanity. The charges arise from systematic massacres of the country’s indigenous population carried out by Guatemalan troops and paramilitary forces during this phase of the country’s long and brutal civil war, and the related mass forced displacement." Trial Background

You can also read more about it here if you read Spanish/use Google translate.

I thought Nicaragua had a dark history, but Guatemala beats it by far. We've already met countless people who've told us their story - and you know it's bad when you think "yes, yes, I know what's coming, the army killed your entire family, then you hid in the mountains, more people died, and now thirty years later, you're close to getting some justice". It's sad when this seems to be a common story among the people.

Before all that though: here are some of my notes from the trial:

• Rios Montt is laughing in the breaks and chatting with his lawyers.
• Earlier, there was a witness called Fernando, who cried when he told about his children, his daughter who died when she was eight because of the bombs.
• Now a woman is crying while talking about running, I think they lived in the woods, children, nephews and nieces, mother, uncle, brother, all died. No clothes no salt children died of hunger.
• If I think it's difficult to be here, how do they feel? Having to tell about something that happened a long time ago, about children they've lost because of the war. Having lived in the mountain fifteen years, seeing their children slowly passing away from malnutrition. And then, having to sit right across from the man who orchestrated it all.
• And still, I think it's incredibly hard to be here, and I just want to lie down under a chair and cry.

When the Mountains Tremble

Part 1 of 9, go to Youtube to find the rest

This is a slightly weird (esp. to begin with) documentary about the civil war in Guatemala. The best thing about it is that it was made in 1983, just as Rios Montt (one of the worst war criminals) was president. You get interviews with the people there and then - warning: very strong images and very strong stories.

Monday and Tuesday this week, our first two days in Guatemala, we got to go to this trial against Rios Montt and Mauricio Rodriguez, and hear a lot of witnesses. 

"This is the first time a former head of state has been prosecuted for genocide in a national, as opposed to an international, court. The trial is an important milestone in holding political and military leaders accountable for international crimes. For Guatemalans, it is hoped it will also contribute to an accurate historical account of the gross human rights violations committed during the civil war, in a process that will reinforce the country’s young democracy." www.riosmontt-trial.org

One to cheer you up

Sister Anna, brother-in-law-but-not-in-law-yet Erling and niece Dina Sofie

Because everything I'm posting seems pretty glum right now, because I'm experiencing many glum situations. I have also had a good holiday, as a charging-up of batteries before going to Guatemala and learning All The Important Things. This is a photo my sister sent me from their Easter holiday up in a cabin in the North of Norway, and it makes me very happy. 

How do you raise your children?

My sister Anna and I, trying to sell strawberries in the 90s (photo courtesy of my dad, John Harald Johansen)

I'm not saying that I have the best answer to how to raise children. I've never tried. Neither do I think anyone has the right answer. But surely, teaching your children that they will be hit or beaten unless they behave, is not the closest you'll get. From what I've seen, it works the same way as whipping your horse constantly: Without the threat of violence, they won't do anything.

We've been staying with some families now, and happily haven't seen much violence. We hear about it though, and in one of the families, we noticed it in the background. Not the serious, hard-hitting violence that leaves bruises and is urgently necessary for a person to report. Rather the smacking of children who swear, or who don't want to go to bed, or the constant threat of "if you do this/that, I will beat you". The first few days we spent a lot of time with the children, and played with them. Then they turned rude, running in and out of our room, taking down our stuff, and stopped listening to anything we said. The parents told us we had to stop playing with them, or they would lose all respect for us. Surely a four-year-old boy needs cuddling, and grown-ups who care about him, and...and. 

Before we went here, we heard about domestic violence, and we were told that we would experience it. Being here, it is so difficult to understand where it comes from. Surely, logic would tell you that as long as you respect your children, they will respect you? And that fear isn't the same as respect? But it's not as easy as that. And that's not how I've learnt how to be with children. I've learnt everything through my culture, my upbringing, and the people I know who are having children now. 

Before we went here, both Johanne and I thought we'd be able to tell a family what we thought about domestic violence if we experienced it. It's not that easy. We didn't tell anyone. And we stopped playing (as much) with the children.

Guatemala

I'm on my way now,

and expecting Guatemala to be very different from Nicaragua. Guatemala also had a civil war, but it lasted longer, and was only officially finished with peace accords in 1996. In reality, there are still a lot of problems. During the war, most of the victims were indigenous people.

I'll have a lot more to say after having been there, but read more here: Wiki on Guatemalan Civil War

Health

Yummy fresh corn

A lot of the farmers at Rocky Point are very concerned about ecological and organic farming. They talk about local produce, no use of chemicals, and how healthy it all is. And we, at first, talk about how these people are living closer to nature, working in a healthy way and how we should all live in the woods and stay self-supplied.

Yet there is no infrastructure for waste. Even the most organically, healthily-minded family we've talked to, (have to) burn their waste - food, tin, plastic and everything else - just behind their house. We've breathed in that toxic-tasting smoke too many times to count, and we've only stayed there three weeks. 

There is also little nutritional knowledge (just like many other places, including Norway and England), or people just ignore what they know. I've never had so much deep-fried food, or as much sugar, before. Even our those with diabetes were ladling sugar into their porridge, juice, tea, anything, before they complained of all the problems the diabetes gave them.

There are such opposites here. Incredibly healthy, fresh produce, straight from the organic farm, is accompanied with fatty, sugary side dishes. People work in the fresh air (unless it's rubbish burning day), but they work hard, and as they get older the younger ones don't want to take over the farm, so they just work harder. I had an idea about this before, but I think that's part of the reason we are here; to un-romanticize some of our ideas.

I want to break your heart because it's Easter

Choco (Kenneth), 21, host brother at Rocky Point

or just because I feel like writing this now, not later.

Do you remember Angelina, who I wrote about only two weeks back? I went straight from writing that post to going to Rocky Point, for my first homestay on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. Straight to Ms Connie, and her eldest son Choco, who got a fever when he was little, and got a brain damage, and now seems to be at about the same stage as Angelina. Only, she is three, and he is twenty-one.

My heart was seriously broken by staying here two weeks. Even though Angelina has her problems, she's still living very close to the capital, they've got their own school for children with special needs, and she has a good doctor who tells her family that she must go to dancing classes and she must meet more people.

As far as I know, Choco has never had anything like this, mainly because his family is from the Caribbean Coast, where offers are few and far between, even for regular schools. When they used to live in Pearl Lagoon, the nearby town, his mother wouldn't let him leave the house due to (a probably well-founded) fear that he would get into drugs. Since they moved up to Rocky Point permanently, four years ago, he hasn't really left the farm unless he's needed to.

Every day, Choco sits out on the veranda of the house, shouting "Ey! Ey!" at anyone who comes near. If you reply, he might wave, or pretend to shoot you, or just laugh out of happiness. Then, five seconds later, he'll start shouting again. Even if you're sat right next to him. Even if you reply twenty, or thirty, times.

In the night we could hear him in the room next door, beating his hands into the bed, or the wall, and shouting, a lot more angrily.

And I have absolutely no solution, except for being kind to him when we visit, telling him "no" when he pretends to shoot me, and comparing our long hair and laughing a bit.

Just because he lives far away from the capital, and in a historically ignored part of Nicaragua, he has no alternative.

Holiday description

Look at my undecided face, now 24 years old

We ended up in Isla de Ometepe, having gone Bluefields-El Rama-Managua-Granada first, and staying one night in Granada. I'll give you two descriptions of my holiday so far.

1) We came late to Granada, and couldn't find the hostel, and all the others we asked were very pricey. The next day, we went on a ferry to the island of Ometepe, trying to figure out where we could go on the island. We paid a ridiculous amount for a taxi to drive us to a random hostel in the wilderness, which had rats (they nibbled a hole in my backpack and ate my peanuts) and no aircondition. There are hardly any buses on the island, taxis are expensive, and we live far away from anything resembling a town. We just moved to another place, which seems slightly better.

2) I started my birthday with a breakfast of bagel, freshly pressed orange juice (without sugar! what a specialty in this country!) and black tea with milk (again! non-herbal tea! without sugar! with milk! what!). Later on we went to the island of Ometepe on a ferry. Just as we were nearing the island, the sun went down into the lake, the fish were jumping (not sure what you say in English) about and everything was beautiful. We've been staying in a tranquil hostel near the lake, with another wonderful sunset last night. We've already seen some monkeys (no, I can't tell you which type they were) and many birds we've only seen in zoos before. Yesterday I went on a bike ride past a tiny village, and later on had a fruit plate for breakfast. We also moved to another place, with a bigger room and internet (woop).

And they are both true. We'll see how this goes.

Johanne

 Johanne, Elise, Gro Malene on March 5th, Johanne's 20th birthday

 Johanne, having reached Ms Maura's house, found a bed

 Johanne with Jayson and Yeison, brothers

 Johanne with our first self-opened coconut, using our own machetes

Finally opening the nacatamal she's been waiting for

May I present to you, my travelling partner, Johanne? Johanne Veiteberg, 19 years when we set out, recently turned 20, originally from Oslo, but also lived in Trondheim and a tiny village in the north. Hardcore feminist, strong communist, strictly vegan (except when in Nicaragua), daughter of two pastors... We have lived together night and day through more than three weeks  - the first ten days we even shared a bed. We've had our discussions. We have also had some very good times, as you can see from the photos.  I am very happy to have gotten to know Johanne better through these weeks, and I am very happy that she was the one to go to Rocky Point with me. We have similar ideas about talking with people, and reading, and what makes us happy (opening a coconut on our own is high on that list). When Johanne is happy or busy or just not thinking about anything, she starts singing. In every family we go, she's the singing one and I'm the other one, unless we're talking with children, where I'm the big one and she's the small one.

We'll be going back together in April, but now, this Easter week, is our first proper split since February 25th. We're spending the holiday in completely different places. I wonder how we'll fare, and I'm already looking forward to seeing my Johanne again.

Ms Maura's farm

Aunt Pamela (Maura's daughter)

Jayson, my favourite four-year-old

Jayson, me, Adalia, and Johanne, taken by ?

Adalia cracking hibo nuts, or ibo, or eebo, or heebo, or hebo,

I've not been able to find anything written about this almondy nut

Our host mother, Ms Maura, mother, grandmother and great grandmother at 60-something

Johanne and I stayed at Ms Maura's farm the last week and a half of our stay in Rocky Point. Maura is married to Cloyd, and they have tended the farm together the past 42 years. The past 7 years, the couple have been Seventh Day Adventists.They have four or five daughters, many grandchildren, and already a few great grandchildren. They have some animals, a lot of vegetables, and a unique system for getting water for their plants (as well as another one to make gas for their little stove). While we were there, there was a big inauguration of the water/solar panel system, with representatives from FADCANIC, INTA, UNODI, the Ministry for Energy in Nicaragua, and probably others I've forgotten about. 

This system has been supported by all these organisations, and through FADCANIC by the Norwegian Embassy. More about this later. It is not to just support this one family, but to support a cooperative of farmers from the area, with their storehouse, and many vegetables, on Ms Maura's property. They also have a fridge and freezer driven by the solar panels. 

We didn't do as much on this farm as we did on Ms Connie's, but we had a lot of time to reflect, and write, and go out to make interviews with others. We washed our clothes in the creek, ate watermelon, experienced a Seventh Day Adventist sabbath and church service, picked corn and beans, played with the grand- and great grandchildren, and read a lot of books.

More about several of these experiences to come.

YAY I'M OLD(ER)

 I'm celebrating my old age by climbing all the scaffolds I can find
photo: Johanne Veiteberg

And by being with some of these ladies
photo: Line Bellingmo Johnsrud

Ok, I don't have that many photos of me from here, at least not ones I'm happy about. I do like to climb scaffolds though.

But the most important thing today is that it's my birthday, and I'm 24, and I'm starting to fear my quarter-life-crisis next year. I'm writing this two days ahead, because I don't know where I'll be staying during the holiday, but I hope I'm in a nice place with Malene and Julie, eating good food and only doing good things.

And of course, thinking about all of you, my friends and family, scattered in clusters around the world, mostly in Norway or England.

Holiday times

Johanne on the dory from Kakabila, about 0615 in the morning

We have a week's holiday from today, and by the end of the week, we'll be going to Guatemala for our political program there.

The plan right now, which might be changed due to chance, and happenstance, is to go with Gro Malene and Julie to Isla de Ometepe, maybe also San Juan del Sur, and maybe stopping in Granada.

I'll bring my laptop, so hopefully I'll have internet at times, and the same with Guatemala the week after. 

As nice as it has been to be in Rocky Point and meet a lot of new people and stay with someone with completely different cultures and beliefs, it will be nice to have a week of relaxing, not writing too much, and getting to know some of my co-travellers better.

Ms Connie's farm

 Coconuts, coconuts, more coconuts

 This is a view from the same window as the last post

 Ms Connie to the left, Daha with his machete and Devoran in the background

 I lack all the words for what you do with corn, but we're doing it anyway

 Connie and Daha tying up nacatamales (corn paste! meat! rice! onions! papaya! pepper! good things!) to cook

And yours truly, practicing her nacatamales hand

We stayed almost two weeks with Ms Connie. Connie is married to Kenneth, who works with FADCANIC, one of the organisations we cooperate with. So, while Kenneth leaves for Haulover every day, Connie stays at the farm and works with Daha, Kenneth's younger brother. They have a lot of animals to handle, they have a lot of vegetables, but what they spend most of their day on is making coconut oil, which is good business. Johanne and I have learned the process, as we helped a lot with this, and it goes a little like this:

1. Chop off the outside husk (?) of the coconut with your machete

2. Grate the entire coconut on a massive grater

3. Plaster your poor fingers

4. Repeat with 25-30 coconuts (daily)

5. Pour three bowls of water over the grated coconut

6. Squeeze the milk out of the grated coconut

7. Repeat step 5 and 6 twice more

8. Try not to step on any animals as you shoo them away from the coconut

9. Pour the coconut milk into a massive pot

10. Put massive pot on fire, keep fire low so the milk doesn't boil over, boil/simmer about two hours

11. Throw the grated coconut to the animals, dogs, hogs and hens alike

12. Skim the coconut oil from the top of the massive pot, put it in milk containers, sell

That's all. It's a lot of work, but a lot more money than just selling the coconuts, like they used to do. 

I have tons more to write, but I think we'll leave it here just now. 

Rocky Point

Is green, green, green

 People live in wooden houses, mostly, this is a very normal-looking small house

 And it's slightly more green, this from Connie's farm

 This is an improved oven, which more and more households are getting, usually in a shed outside the house

 And then Rocky Point is also a little bit green (view from my window in Connie's house)

 Connie recently built another kitchen further away from the house, to stop the smoke from always going into the building

Maura's house, where the smoke from burning rubbish gives the evening light that extra romantic feeling

Rocky Point is a Creole farmer community, about half an hour on bus from Pearl Lagoon, which again is about an hour on panga-boat from Bluefields. Johanne and I stayed there during the past three weeks. We stayed together the entire time, and stayed with two different families: First Ms Connie and Kenneth on their farm, with lots of animals and coconut oil production, then Ms Maura and Cloyd on their farm, with lots of daughters, daughters-in-law and grandchildren, and completely provided for by solar panels and a system which makes cooking gas out of cow's droppings.

There has been a lot of development on Rocky Point the past few years, both by the residents' initiatives and by different organisations, including the Norwegian Embassy (this was slightly embarrassing at times). Some families have a lot, which means solar panels (electricity), a new well, and a proper latrine, and some families haven't been prioritised, so they have less. It seems to be happening though, and I hope it continues.

We've been staying with the families, and although the idea is to live as normally as possible and help them in any work they need, there has been some difficulties in proving that we can work. We are, after all, two very light-skinned, fairly small girls from a rich country, so we have had that against us. Then again, we are weaker than the people who do this work every day.

Rocky Point seems, anyway, a very open community, where everyone knows each other, over half the population is related to one another. Of course, there are some feuds, as within any community. More about that to come!

Program/Itinerary

Cow and house in Kakabila, the village where my two friends Elise and Gro Malene stayed

• Saturday 23rd: Plan future blog posts, reply to emails and go to my first proper baseball game
  
• Sunday 24th: Travel up the Rio Escondido to Rama and beyond, hoping to reach the Pacific Coast by nightfall
  
• Monday 25th: Only do nice things, because it's my birthday
  
• 26th-31st March: holiday, hopefully relaxing/exploring/finding new amazing stuff
  
• 1st-8th April: Political program in Guatemala, meeting lots of organisations and talking to interesting people about autonomy and indigenous people's rights, in addition to a lot that is happening in Guatemala right now
  
• 8th-10th April: Political program/relaxing/working on our information work in Bluefields/Pearl Lagoon
  
• 11th April-10th May: Second Rocky Point-stay, no idea which farms we'll be going to, yet
  
• 10th-31st May: Political program/interviews/planning our information work for Norway, in Bluefields and/or other significant places
  
• 1st-26th June: Vacations + travel + learning all the Spanish I haven't learned since living with Creole English-speakers
• 26th-27th June: Travel home, arrive, meet my parents, eat waffles, sleep

That's a rough outline of the next three months. Some of the dates might change one day or two this way or that, but hopefully mostly it will stay the same.

And yes, I will write more about Rocky Point soon, but it's getting close to 1am, and for someone who's been getting used to going to sleep at 8pm, this is very late indeed.

Bluefields again

I've washed my hair! Excite!

We just came back to Bluefields today, and we've mostly been stuck in our hostel room, updating ourselves on the interwebz, friends and family, or we've been out for lunch and buying necessities, like toothbrushes, batteries and suncreams. Today I washed my hair in a proper shower with actual shampoo for the first time since we went out, and I feel pretty amazing. Until now I've only been ducking my head under in the creek or throwing some water over it from a bucket.

We're having a meeting soon, so I'll have to go, but I have a lot to tell, and a lot more interesting stories than how I wash my hair. Soon soon!

Gratulerer med dagen Mor Ninna

 My grandmother on her 85th, last year

My grandmother and my dad, last year

Gratulerer med dagen mor Ninna! Jeg håper du får en fin dag med sukkerfrie kaker og hyggelige mennesker.

My grandmother turns 86 today, and she is just amazing. She wears black sequins to her 85th birthday, she painted her cane black so it would look better, and she refused to get a checked suitcase to go shopping, because she didn't want to look like any old lady. She got a black one, of course. Mor Ninna (Literal: Mother Ninna, Northern: Granny Ninna) is an incredibly strong woman, who raised four children out on an island far out to the sea while my granddad was a fisherman. I like to listen to her stories, and have tried to record some, because they can be really incredible.

My sister in Matagalpa

Angelina - "little angel" or "God's angel"

Angelina is the youngest sister in my host family in Matagalpa. I fell for her the first time I met her, sitting on her dad's motorbike with her own little helmet, visor up, throwing me a kiss.

Today is her birthday (I realised after I'd picked the date for this to publish), and she will be three years old, just like my niece.

I was surprised to hear that her family, and the organisation we went through, Movimiento Comunal, were so open about her having Down's syndrome (all my prejudice is shining through, but this is why I'm here: to be challenged, also in my views). I would have imagined there was more prejudice linked to it. Apparently, there are a lot more children born with Down's syndrome in Latin America than in Europe - that's what my host family told me, and I have had others tell me likewise, but I haven't been able to find any information about it, or any reason why.

My new little sister was born into a good family, I think, as I've mentioned before, there are no men in this family, which seems to take down the stress that they've lived under before. There is no beating of children (I'm not saying that women don't beat children, just that these don't), Angelina's father visits her regularly, and everyone cares very much about her.

Gioconda, her mother, told me that the doctor has prescribed preschool, and later on, dancing classes for her, so she'll get stimuli from outside, both in meeting other people than her family, but also getting movement and challenges. She's already an excellent dancer. She starts dancing as soon as she hears a little bit of music, or even when she saw me wearing a skirt, because skirts equal dancing. In a few years she will also start her education in a school for special needs (I have no idea what words to use, since I've never talked about this before), which they have near their house in Matagalpa, luckily.

I hope I get to see my little sister again, if I return to Nicaragua in some years, as well as the entire family, and I hope she's still dancing all the time.

Hei, morfar

March 2012

jeg tenker på deg når jeg innser at jeg bare går på uansett om det er veiarbeid og traktorer og gruslegging og legging av brostein, fordi det finnes alltid en vei igjennom, sa du, spanjolene går rett igjennom, og akkurat det tror jeg de klarte å overføre til Latin-Amerika, og Nicaragua. Jeg går rett på jeg også, og det fungerer fint. 

Dina Sofie

 Dina and me, March 2012

 Her being adorable

 Dina and the old family dog of her dad

Dina and me on my birthday last year (yes, this was taken on March 25th)

Gratulerer med dagen Dina!

Today is my niece's third birthday, and I just realised I haven't been there for any of them. When she was born in 2010 I was in England, same in 2011, last year I was in Spain on her birthday, this year I'm in Nicaragua. I'll try to be home when she's older though, and she'll actually remember it. Please note that all the most adorable photos of her were taken around her second birthday, when she was old enough to pose for the camera, and young enough to still love being photographed. Nowadays, the elderly lady of three gets a bit tired of all these cameras and phone cameras in her face all the time.

Superglad i deg!

Feminism in Nicaragua

is completely different to feminism in Norway. There are women in high heels and lots of make up, there are short women, nice women, annoying women, there are men, working with men's attitude to women and children, there are ex- and currently-sexual workers, there are a lot of women who care about their looks, and who just want to be able to be women without all the hassle. I'm sure all these feminists exist in Norway as well, they are just not very visible there. Because our feminist movement is lagging behind, stuck in old ideas. We're not certain whether we can shave our legs and still call ourselves feminist. We're not certain whether we can talk loudly about make-up and celebrities without enhancing stereotypes of women. We're most certain that we cannot call ourselves feminist without people laughing at us or looking at us in disbelief. And again, I'm sure there are people in Norway too that ignore all these thoughts, but the general idea of feminism is very old in Norway.

It feels more fresh here. Probably because the ladies of Nicaragua have a lot more to win from being progressive and assertive, and a lot more to change.

I just wish we could learn this one thing, both feminists and non-feminists, men and women, and any gender or orientation you can think of: We can wear what we want, and look how we want, and this is all about equality.