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.

Rocky Point

Chonky's house from here

I've been trying to find information about Rocky Point, and the page I found most from was this: BlueEnergy, who have sent people to install solar panels in Rocky Point. They've actually been working with our main cooperating organisation here on the east coast, FADCANIC. I'm not sure how big the community is, or whether I will meet these people and see this house. I just know that it is a Creole community, where the houses lie far apart and everyone tends to their own little farmlands. There is a community council and there is a group who works with arranging a Farmer's Market in Pearl Lagoon twice a month.

Oh, and I'll need a machete.

When you read this, I'll have been there four days, together with Johanne. Any posts from now on until March 21st will be preplanned and prewritten, but I'll try to post about some other interesting things, and you'll hear more about Rocky Point by the end of March!

A short story about autonomy

 URACCAN Campus, Universidad de las Regiones Autónomas de la Costa Caribe Nicaragüense

 People in the street, hello

More people in the park

I've written a far too long text in Norwegian about this, I'll try to keep it short. First about the name of Bluefields: There was a lot of piracy here, often sanctioned by the British Crown, since they looted Spanish ships. One of them was a Dutchman called Blauveldt, which turned into Bluefields, as the city was named after him. 

Spain colonised the western coast of Nicaragua, and England took the east coast, the Caribbean coast, where I am now, as a British protectorate. The indigenous miskitoes of the north collaborated with the British, receiving weapons and goods as a thank you for keeping the Spanish away. There has been a lot of back and forth between the British and the Spanish, and in the end the British signed a treaty saying that they would leave the Nicaraguan coast to Nicaragua, and go up to Belize. So they left, leaving behind plantations with suddenly-free slaves, in addition to the Creole and Garifuna (afro-descendants), and the indigenous peoples of Rama, Mayagna, Ulwa, and Miskito. None of them with a good relationship with the rest of the country, and never having been a united country before.

Almost as from any textbook on how to suppress the indigenous tribes of a country, the government went on to forbid indigenous languages in schools, and impose Spanish language, traditions and property owners on the east coast. The different ethnic groups on this coast were all seen as inferior. There is still a lot of prejudice from people living in the west and north of the country. Even I was told to be careful of people in Bluefields, because they are apparently a lot more likely than anyone else to steal all my things. 

Finally, after the revolution and civil war, there was a lot of will to change in the country. A lot of leaders from the Caribbean worked hard to create a new autonomy law, and they managed to finish it in 1987. The autonomy law is quite progressive, even today. It states that there are two autonomous regions in Nicaragua, the northern and the southern autonomous regions: RAAN and RAAS. They cover about half the country. The forwardness of the law exists in it saying that all ethnic groups are equal, and they are all autonomous, whether they are of Spanish or African descent, or indigenous people. This is pretty strong in a region with so much history about race and origin.

The autonomy law also speaks about the demarcacion (is this a word in English?) of land. The land that was once given to rich friends of those in charge, is supposed to be shared out as communal land between the different communities. No personal ownership. There are a lot of rules and regulations though, a lot of different traditions to consider, and even places where this is impossible to go through with, like Bluefields, which is a city where people have owned their land maybe hundreds of years. Others have their deed scrawled on paper, without witnesses or proper signatures. 

We are going to learn a lot about this (I have learned some already, as you can see from my actually quite short summary). I am already comparing it, and finding that others have compared it before, with the indigenous people of the Nordic countries: the Saami. More about this to come!