Playa Hermosa

He´s just a lil guy!

playa hermosa!
Signs of good surf
I´m at the beach!



Tomorrow I will write. Tonight I want to get pictures up from my beach time. I am now at my hostel in Aljeula (near San Jose, Costa Rica) after spending time at a surfer stop called playa hermosa.

Me, the tree & the toucan...

There is an incredible tree outside of Santa Elena that I hiked to with three friends from the hostel where I stayed. What makes the tree so great is that some kind of parasitic vine type thing got to it and created a hollow center that you can climb up and up and up until you exit the trunk and are standing in a cluster of branches up in the tree tops. In my opinion this is way better than paying to walk on a suspension bridge in the tree - tops, especially after my friends headed back and I got a chance to journal up in the tree. Just as I was going to leave a beautiful toucan landed in a branch to my left, INCREDIBLE. It was one of the Kelle billed toucans with all the bright colors on it´s beak. I didn´t take any pictures of it, I was afraid of scaring it away. But I did take time for a shameless self-portrait photo shoot before climbing back down, enjoy!

It´s a long way down

Climbing up, view of the hole you climb through to get onto the branches

The tree!

Jake took this picture of me climbing out of the tree

View from the tree

Before the night hike where I saw 5 sloths, 4 of which were mom and baby duos, a tarantula, tiny frog, strange bugs... and so on.
The hike before the hike, getting closer to the falls

Anna, Ida & Emma swimming in the falls!

Santa Elena Reserve

Very thankful for this day

This was her favorite page in my journal

Painting flowers next to the bucket of dulce leche she is selling.

Thank you Montenegro family for treating me to the concert at the National Theater of Nicaragua and the incredible dinner and flan de coco after, you truly are my Nicaraguan parents and I promise to return!

Thank you Blanca Lucia for the bracelet and the impromptu spanish lessons!

Thank you Marlene for the bananas and water for my journey, and for the conversations by candlelight on the porch with your daughter when the power went off for the evening.

Thank you carol for writing the note in spanish to the bus driver so he knew that I was going to Monteverde and not San Jose. I felt like a kindergardener with my bus number pinned on the back of my shirt, and it felt good.

Thank you woman on the bus from china, we both had limited spanish, but you knew enough to help me through customs.

Thank you little girl selling dulce leche at the bus stop that came over to watch me paint, you brightened my day and I hope you have a paint set of your own some day, the flowers you painted in my journal are beautiful.

Thank you young man and your mother for buying me a sandwich and coke and being patient with my limited spanish. A wonderful thanksgiving meal. I didn´t have small enough bills or even the right type of currency to eat.

Thank you everyone on the bus for making sure over and over again that he needed to stop at a place where I could transfer to monteverde.

Thank you Huber for the exciting drive to monteverde, the best hitchhiking experience ever.

Managua: Today

Masaya Volcano!

Day after I went to see the University

Universidad Americana Managua

Architecture students are funny

I´ll keep this brief. Today I visited the Universidad Americana de Managua and met Georlene Garcia, an international studies student and basketball player with stunning eyes and a very fun personality. She showed me around campus while we conversed in spanglish and learned some knew words from eachother. She introduced me to her coach and two more of her college basketball teammates. We went out to lunch together and I enjoyed getting to see the interactions between the girls and their goofy coach.

You have no idea how much I enjoyed being taller than the college basketball team.

More feelings than travel stories, skip ahead for real Managua news.

Here I am back in Managua and with a computer and internet access all to myself for as long as I want tonight, and for free. Being on a computer is so different when A) you are paying for it B) you are surround by people C) people think nothing of coming over to see what is on the screen in front of you. Now I am relaxed, I have my cup of cold calala juice next to me and have plenty of time to wander around the web. This is actually kind of making blogging more difficult, I do just about everything at the last possible minute and the time pressure of internet cafes may be optimal conditions for good blogging, but here it goes...

Yesterday I exchanged hugs and kisses with my friends at CEDEHCA before taking a taxi to the airport. I was sad to be leaving so soon and was a little on the grumpy side. So I had much less patience for my airport experience. First, while I was simultaneously being hit on by the taxi driver and trying to pay him, a man opened the passenger door to pick up my bag and carry it 20 steps over to the front desk. I hate that, I really hate that. He got enough of a headstart that I couldn´t stop him and he had my bag long before I was out of the car. It´s MY bag, I can carry it just fine and I certainly don´t want to pay anyone to carry it for me. But I did. So I got my boarding pass, something I do like about this tiny airport is they have reusable boarding passes, basically a large rectangle of plastic that says your destination and airline. What I don´t like is that they nearly sent my bag to Corn Island. Then the TSA where I felt they searched my little backpack out of pure boredom. The woman said, we are going to search your bag and paused in such a way that I think they were leaving me plenty of room to slip them some money to avoid the hassle. I smiled and told her to go ahead and take her time. What did I have to lose? A dozen or so safety pins apparently. Oh well, I still have the rest of my life-time supply pinned in various locations and I have no idea how safety pins made it onto the list of dangerous items. Clearly it was the littlest things that were getting to me, so when my one and only Pilot Precise V5 pen exploded from the pressure change in the plane I started laughing. I had spent the last couple days distressing off and on about how my pen was running low on ink and I only brought one Pilot Precise V5, which has been THE ULTIMATE PEN brand and model for me since my sophomore year in highschool when Molly and I first began making our dream travel adventure composition books. I was aware of the danger I was putting my pen through, both Rebecca and I had our V5´s explode on the way to Arizona, I am rambling. Suffice to say that these little irritations were part of something looming in the back of my mind.

Both the latter part of yesterday and part of today I was suffering from a bout of traveler´s remorse, something I thought my good time in Bluefields would make me immune to, but unfortunately did not. On top of being sad about leaving, a very evil little voice in my head kept on prodding at the need to see everything, do everything, and spend less. This sort of mentality creates a lose-lose situation, and fortunately today I found a remedy for it thanks to a suprise from my parents. I knew they were sending a package to me, but I didn´t know it´s contents or the impact it would have on me. The package included: raffia and yarn for the cedar hearts I am making as gifts, pictures from the summer (my parents, anthony, stampede parade, dad´s artwork), two different types of bug spray, a cute old spanish phrasebook, an article on Ometepe from the Seattle Times, a purple pencil top eraser, a gluestick, two little wooden fish carved and woodburned by my father, a bag of dried camas (something I greatly miss), peanut butter cups (THE candy I have been missing, although not usually my favorite, way to go psychic parents), and two lovely notes. Tears came to my eyes as I went through the pictures and the rest of the package, but I needed to set these things aside for the time being and go to see the Universidad Americana. Later, when I was back at the home I am staying at I was tempted to eat the peanut butter cups right away.

Instead, while I was writing in my journal I decided (journal excerpt) "No, I´ll wait. I will make this a into a sort of celebration or maybe more of a ceremony. I will go sit on my bed, listen to ¨waltzing with jesus¨ (A instrumental song from a CD that my mom played her upright bass on) on my ipod and put all of my photos in my photobook. I will think of mom and dad and let go of any of my doubts about what I have done in my travels or what I am going to do." This is something that, now that I think about it, is common in my family. Making small events into more significant ones. The idea was also semi-inspired by part of a story my mom told me where she was instructed to really savor a chocolate candy in a meditation class.

My journal entry afterwards:

¨I don´t think mom and dad knew how much the chocolate and everything would mean to me. They probably didn´t know I would be eating the chocolate with a spoon either. I sat on my bed, with the combined breezes from the air conditioner and the open door calming me and boosting that ´oceanic´ feeling (freud reference, had very strange reading material in Bluefields). I put on my headphones, made a pile with the pictures and played waltzing with jesus. From the first sound of my mom pulling that low note on her bass, my eyes began to water. I rearranged all of the pictures, and placed dad´s letter adjacent to my picture of aunt Jeanette. All of the pictures are in the perfect order now and I have a feeling of completeness, contentment... -I am never alone. In my mind I called mom and dad to me, asked them to think of me at that same moment. I have their prayers and hopes and we are in eachothers dreams. I chose select pictures of mom and dad to look at as I opened the candy wrapper. The contents were clearly melted, so I grabbed my spoon and remembered the day we bought it a rei, a family shopping trip. I looked at the pictures as I savored small spoonfuls... -and the chocolate was better than chocolate, because it was more than chocolate, those moments were my nourishment. Now I am very happy, bubbling with joy and feeling. Why mope about not getting to do this or that, it´s the people that matter. The article mom and dad sent me is a good reminder, the last line was ´But, as with all the best trips, it really was the people that made the place´.¨

With my new energy I visited with both Marlina and Blanco Lucia, the mother daughter duo that takes care of the house that I am staying at. I came out of my room and Blanco was drawing a picture from a comic (making fun of pilgrims - which makes more sense now that Margo has informed me that thursday is Thanksgiving day) and I was excited to see that she likes to draw. Her pencil had no eraser left on it and so I went to get the pencil top eraser mom sent me. Coincidence that I had no idea why my mom sent the eraser? I did some watercolor painting in my journal at the desk next to her, she speaks a little english, she is 15 and learning it in school, and I speak a little spanish so we can communicate pretty well. I spent time with Marlina as well. She gave me a glass of my favorite Calala juice and understood what I was saying when I told her that in Hawaii Calala is called Lilikoi. She laughed.

I was excited and ready to make the most out of any experience here in Managua. I think I´ll end this very long and emotional blog to move on to Managua news.

I am sure I will have many more moments like the ones described in this blog, but I don´t know if I will record them here very often. Hope you enjoyed a peek into my journal and some idea of how truly, in the words of my grandfather, ¨Mushy¨ I can be.

Almost Hawaii and almost gone

Almost didn´t notice this part of the mural across the street from my hospedaje

My shirt from CEDEHCA and the birth'papers campaign

Autonomy is...

I feel like my current travel adventure really began with Hawaii. I´ve been thinking about this for a while, especially after I received a comment on the blog from James, Ty & Amy. I spent two amazing weeks in Hawaii over the summer, spending time with Steve, James, Ty & Amy and house/dog/chameleon/eel/rockfish/chocolate plant-sitting during the time that my hawaii family left to visit the mainland. I essentially lived there, met people, adapted to the flow of life there, and was constantly mistaken for a local because of how I look.

Steve and I had many great adventures, but they weren´t really typical visiting-hawaii activities. We helped with church fundraisers, picked coffee, went to local art get togethers, poetry slams with men singing jewel tributes, met local celebs, was invited out of the blue to a beach clean up effort, nearly died in the ocean a couple times, caught shrimp to feed the rockfish, learned how to use an airbrush, the list could go on and on. I really love that we lived there for 2 weeks, rather than visited there for 2 weeks. I like that feeling, I think that is part of my philosophy for travel...if I ever fully develop one. In Hawaii I was able to experience the process of learning a new environment with another person, which has both benefits and drawbacks. The major benefit being that I had a smooth transition into solo travel because I built up confidence and a myriad of instances when I wanted to do what I wanted to do and realized that during these 8 months that won´t be an issue.

Nicaragua reminds me of Hawaii in that this is basically the same humidity, weather, fruits and flowers, but also in that I had similar opportunities to meet great people, learn about local/regional political, environmental and social justice issues, and experience everthing in a very unplanned and incredibly coincidental way. At one point while I was here I thought to myself what it would have been like if I stuck to the tour-Nicaragua-trinity and only visited Grenada, Ometepe, and Corn Island. I was especially wondering what it would be like if I went to white sand beaches, spent my days in the water. I love the beach, marine life, and am really excited for the parts of my trip that will allow me to take a day for myself in the sun. What I think about though, is that I have already had the opportunity to have many days on the beach while I was in Hawaii thanks to James Amy & Ty, and my time here in Nicaragua was meant for entirely different experiences. The unexpected was a very pleasant surprise.

A less pleasant surprise: the godzilla of all cockroaches that was crawling on something I picked up while I was packing this morning. I am soo thankful that it didn´t actually crawl on me for more than a second and that I discovered this unwanted roommate while I was moving out of my room rather than moving in. I had my share of interesting bug-bedfellows here in Bludfields. Gecko lizards, tiny tiny ants, bigger ants, slugs, mosquitos. My first reaction to all this was to sleep entirely inside of my sleepsack, cinch off the clasp and spend eight hours in my cocoon each night. I thought my hospedaje was, well, gross. I switched rooms once, I think out of overall shock at the living conditions. I was very confused about the lack of shower water, and wondered if I really was supposed to wash with the giant bucket-tub thing of water that had both mysterious floaties and mosquito larvae swimming laps. I got a good squat workout from the lack of a toilet seat, and dreaded my first couple minutes in my room while I could still notice the muggy and mildew smell. After a couple days though, I relaxed. I saw other peoples homes and realized many of the little things that I thought were bad about my hospedaje were really just standard living conditions. I realized I was being a snob, and I really am not that picky of a person, I like roughing it, but still this situation brought me out of my comfort zone. I think my comfort zone has now permanently shifted. I curl up plenty comfortable in the questionable sheets and sleep without the usual personal towel barrier between my face and the pillow. I get excited about finding slugs and geckos and only mildly annoyed at the tiny ants crawling all over me. Atleast they don´t bite right?

Ofcourse now that I am more adjusted and can understand creole much better, I am leaving. I have a one last regional food that I HAVE to try before I leave and I want to go the small museum at BICU. Today is the rainiest day thusfar, downpour after downpour. Which is kind of nice because I feel less pressure to run around and do everything I can with my last couple hours. I came into this internet cafe to be out of the rain, and may not even make it to BICU. Next time, I´ll go check it out. I really think there might be a next time, I would like to come back to the autonomous regions of Nicaragua and be here long enough to meet more people and be involved in one of CEDEHCA´s projects, or help in some way. I would go back and see Oaxaca again, especially if I could travel there with my mom, but Bluefields, this coastal region, I would come back here for a few months or years. I don´t even know if I can explain all the reasons why, I really haven´t even done a thorough job of sharing all my experiences here. It´s hard to come here and see the difference that could be made if the $20,000 check came here for social programs/projects rather than to me for travel.

The rain has let up, I am off to lunch to eat a dish that may or may not be made of hog´s head. Then at 4pm I´ll be flying back to Managua where I greatly look forward to a shower and to uploading pictures to beautify these blogs.

Good Morning Blue Fields

I am sitting in my favorite (of the three total) cyber cafe, nibbling on a fresh large cake bread I bought a block away from here. Í just got off the phone with my mom and dad, first phone call to home since my last day in Oaxaca (or second to last day I forget) and the first time I have heard my father´s voice in over three weeks. The line was breaking up a little, which is frustrating, but it´s good to hear their voices and give my mom the peace of knowing exactly where I am for one moment in time.

I woke up this morning, much like every morning here, to a multitude of sounds. Water running upstairs, dogs barking outside, the family that owns the hospedeja where I am staying yelling from room to room. I usually get to hear a muffled version of the mother´s long speech to whoever is listening outside my walls. I have noticed this a lot in different places I have stayed in both Mexico and Nicaragua, mother´s have these long speaches throughout the day, often beginning with ¨Este dia...¨ or ¨Este ano...¨that their children listen to while they are cleaning or doing some other task that requires their sustained presence. I usually can´t follow much of the lecture, but I have this very childish reaction to the entire situation. I want to plug my ears and say ¨lalalala¨ to drown out sound of these mini-lectures. The disrespectful rebellious child within me flares up out of no where.

However, this particular morning what got me out of bed was the sound of drumming. I could hear drum rolls coming down the street so I threw on my shorts and ran out of my room to peek out between the bars of the hospedeja with two other little girls who were just as curious and excited as I was. I got a better view the second time the group went by, and this time they were followed throught the streets by a long procession of people. Towards the back of the procession I recognized baseball uniforms and someone mention that its the baseball organization. There must be a game here somewhere today, which will go on my to do list of things to track down for the day. I have also heard rumors of a domino tournament going on in Old Bank or Cotton Tree, two of the oldest and primarily creole neighborhoods here. I have no idea how you play dominos, I only wish I had asked Ashley T. to teach me at her family bbq last 4th of July. The game is really popular here, I see groups of men play on makeshift tables near the sidewalk when I walk to the CEDEHCO office. I am meeting with the office´s younger crowd in an hour to visit Danilo´s mom´s bar-restaurant and then meeting with some of the only-slightly-older :) crowd at 4pm to go eat and visit. Then, to my great excitement (!!!) there is going to be a reggae concert-performance at BICU tonight, and I wouldn´t miss that for anything. This entire plan for the day developed last night when I went with Jaime and Danilo and (insert forgotten name here) to a bar to try toña, the Nicaraguan beer. I´m not a big beer fan, but I tried it after Danilo made a toast saying, ¨Welcome! Welcome to the OTHER Nicaragua¨. Being an Anthro student at UW has made me a fanatic about the different uses of the word other, and I was delighted at the many meanings of this toast. I have been promised a t-shirt from the safe-sex campaign, and was gifted a shirt and hat from the other major project CEDEHCA is working on, getting birth papers and registration to the huge-unknown number of young people that never had this done when they were born. Without birth papers they cannot vote (voting age here is 16) and they essentially don´t exist as far as statistics and records go for this region. So they are getting people registered in all the atlantic coast communities, a very large task.

One thing I would like to mention that have been thinking about is the definition of youth and who falls into this catagory. In my mind, when I hear the word youth I think of a rather limited range of ages compared to the legal definition here. I believe I was told that in the laws, the catagory of youth is applied to persons between either the ages of 16-30 or 18-30. So when I talk about JENH you have to keep in mind that this is people between this broad range of ages working together. This just kind of sticks out in my mind, especially since Robert Hudason JR pointed out to me how common it is for youth (sons and daughters of 28 etc) to live with their mother´s still, he was comparing this to the individualism and independence mentality in the U.S. Which reminds me of something Miss Lizzie said, she was talking about how much kids today are influenced by TV and that they don´t mind their parents. I asked her why she thinks that change has taken place. She told me she thinks that in the U.S. they have some laws about what you can and can´t do to you children in terms of punishment, and that youth have developed the attitude that they can protest to higher officials if they feel they are being mistreated because of the littlest spank. I asked her if those laws exist here and she smiled and told me ¨No, only on TV¨.

A little about Blue Fields in general while I have time. The town is located on a lagoon of very brown murkey water. The CEDEHCO office itself is right on-over the water. There are shops and restaurants painted in bright colors similar to pictures of mexico, but I am able to take a breather from colonial architecture here (as Cullen mentioned in his blog, the delight of the beautiful architecture wears off rather quickly, especially with my own feeling on the colonial presence overall). There are no tourists here, none, and there is really no particular reason why they would be here. There are no places accomodating tourists either, so I am getting a break from the tourism industry as well. The only cars on the streets are taxis, which spend all day speeding around giving people rides mostly from one easy walking destination to another.

Behind the wheels of these taxis are some of the men that I partially despise here. I don´t take very kindly to disrespectful acknowledgements of my presence. I am not your amorcita, I am not your preciosa, I am not your baby or good looking girl and I will not give you the satisfaction of my eye contact no matter what you say or what obnoxious way you choose to make noise that might make me look in your direction. Blue Fields is probably the safest place I have been to so far and is my favorite destination for so many reasons, but this place is the worst as far as unwanted attention goes. In mexico the most that was done to get my attention for innapropriate and annoying reasons was the ¨psss-psss¨ that men would whisper, which is better treatment than I receive walking around in Seattle. It would have been a totally different experience if I were a blonde girl walking around in Mexico, but that´s another story entirely. In Blue Fields, when my patience is limited from the heat/the bit of a cold-bug that I had earlier this week, I am irrate at the comments that follow me with every couple steps I take. I am disgusted by the stares. At one low point in my self-control I contemplated flipping people off, yelling at them, glaring and hissing out a ¨Respeto Las Mujeres!¨, but I have decided that I am probably better off just wearing the stern glare I learned from my father and not giving any visible response. I don´t want anyone to have the satisfaction of knowing that they got to me in the slightest. Whoa, okay time to move on.

I have traveled around blue fields mostly on foot, a little by taxi (which was really only neccessary when I visited URRCAN university), and by motor bike. I am very thankful Justin gave me the chance to learn how to be a passenger on a motor bike, because it is now my favorite way to get around Blue Fields. Danilo gives me rides here and there and I get to catch a much needed breeze and whiz past any potential harassment I could have walked through. Mom: this is sooooo not dangerous. There is so little traffic here that I am not worried about riding the bike and you shouldn´t be either.

I was warned over and over again by people in Managua that Blue Fields is nothing but rain and mosquitos. There are deffinately mosquitos, but I don´t have any in my room (now that I switched) and I don´t go anywhere without my bug spray. The rain is great! It downpours, I mean rains harder than I have ever seen before, but only for 5 to 10 minutes and then it´s sunshine and puddles.

Oopps gotta run to meet my friends, I´ll add more later!

1, 2, 3, CONDOM!!!

1,2,3 condomMiss Lizzie, she won all the charleston competitions in her day and I can believe it!

This was the prompt for the most recent photo I have taken, a great group photo which I unfortunately may not be able to load onto a computer for a while. I went to the meeting of the youth action group JENH (youth setting new horizons is the english translation) and they watched two documentaries by MTV on HIV in latin america in preparation for a community festival they are going to create to raise awareness and education about HIV. The group is made up of girls mostly, and the outspoken ladies won my heart right away. I think it takes guts to talk about sex and sexual health in peer groups, and these young ladies and gents are on a mission to make sexual health something that is brought into discussion in homes and in the community. They plan to play the videos and prepare songs, poems and art that focuses on the issue rather than the standard informational pamphlets. One girl made a comment about language and the way that they present information, that a pamphlet might have language that is too scientific OR that the pamphlet couldn´t replace the way that they communicate information in a mix of spanish, creole and english. The whole meeting was a public health major´s wet dream.

Earlier today I met with Miss Lizzy Forbes Nelson (insert great picture of this beautiful woman here). We sat on her front porch and I heard stories mixed with laughter and really insightful suggestions on identity and culture. She is the kind of elderly woman that possesses such grace, warmth and humor that you feel as though you have known her your whole life. A school teacher and past cultural delegate for the region, her specialty is dance and sharing the history and stories about dances that have been popular here in Blue Fields.

The internet cafe is closing in a couple minutes (it´s only 8.30!) so to some up the past two days or so:

Other Highlights: Holding the cutest most outgoing baby girl I have ever met! Sitting at a bar right on the lagoon with an eerie screen-saver like night view of the water. Eating bananas cooked every way imaginable, eating gallo pinto, eating pinapple pastries, I swear I do more than eat here. Going to BICU (Blue Fields Indian and Carribean University) checking out and reading the oral history of Blue Fields by Hugo Sujo, the local historian I met. That was on my take-it-easy day, when I was resting because of a cold that miraculously has vanished after only 2 days of coughing. Spending time with Kenya, Jaime and Danilo. Learning how to get the toilets here to flush (that´s what the bucket of water is for!). Journaling journaling journaling. I can´t remember if I mentioned this before but I discovered while I was sitting in the airport in Costa Rica that the paper in my journal can withstand watercolor painting so my sketches are now brought to life with color.

I think the real highlight of the last couple days has been reflecting on the last three weeks of travel, it´s officially been three weeks now. What I have learned about myself so far, my comfort levels, my energy levels, and how thankful I have become for certain life-saver items that I have packed. So much more to say on my three week reflections. To be completely honest I was incredibly homesick at the very thought of leaving my parents for eight months. But the energy that was going towards tears and sadness has transformed into a profound respect for my family, the support they give me, the unconditional love I receive and the lessons they have taught me that I am thankful for more now than ever.

Blue Fields and Rama Cay (pronounced Rama Key)

These pictures are kind of in the opposite order of event, but the internet is so slow I don´t really want to take the time to reload them. Yesterday, my second day here on what is known as both the atlantic coast and carribean coast, I went on a boat to visit Rama Cay. Rama Cay is a small island were Rama people live, I am told that Rama are the smallest indigenous group here on the coast. Rafino came to greet me as soon as I got off the little boat. I later found out that he was a member of the first regional parliment.
I spent most of my time on the island talking to Rev. Cleveland McCrea, the Rama Reverand of the islands only church. He has gone all over the world for different indigenous conferences. I found this out when I showed him pictures from the UW powwow and he said that the outfits looked like Sami things because there were so many bright colors. Turns out quite a few Sami have come to Blue Fields and Rama Cay because they wanted to work together on language revitalization projects.
Rama Cay basketball court...
Clevelands Grandchildren, they had fun telling me what pictures to take, looking at them and giggling. Their mom was busy making corn cake on the fire when I visited their home and she offered me some. It was soo good! Basically just finely ground corn, sugar and coconut.
Rama Cay from the water, I have more pictures of the island, houses, pigs dogs and chickens that are everywhere you look, but this is by far my favorite.

View of blue fields from the porch-balcony of the carribean dream hotel where I stayed my first night.

I really can´t imagine what my perspective of Nicaragua would be if I hadn´t visited the atlantic coast. An entirely different country, and as I am learning more about the history (Thank you local historian Hugo Sujo Wilson) people here on the coast never wanted to be a part of Nicaragua in the first place. There is so much emphasis here on the multi-ethnic multicultural identity, I feel like I could stay here for years and see a different aspect of the complex coastal identity and life each day.

This is also the first time in my travels that I have been in that slightly awkward uncomfortable position of being reminded that I am an American and what the United States involvement has been. I was sitting down today with 80 year old Doc. Roberto Hudson and he quoted the U.S. Gov. response to civil war in Nicaragua by saying ¨have peace! have peace! put out your arm and we´ll give you a dollar each have peace!¨ He had many things to say about the U.S. in terms of Nicaraguan history and current events, but it was very interesting how much his conversation with me, the way he was speaking to me changed when I told him that I am from a tribe in Washington state that is in a similar position of having natural resources, but difficulty in maintaining sustainability and economic success, and also having plenty of horrible experience with the good ole u. s. of a. Our conversation shifted into what it means to take action, what it means to make an effort to organize and to work towards equality. How fighting often means struggling, struggling together.

He described himself and the people of the Nicaraguan coast as not being poor, ¨Can´t be called poor because we have all these things (natural resources), we are miserable because we let someone else take what we have¨

Hugo gave me an old copy of the Autonomy Statute for the Regions of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua (known as Law number 28) and I will really treasure this little crumbling booklet for as long as it lasts.

Page one, article III:

That the multi-ethni identity of the Nicaraguan people is greatly inspired by the exploits of Indian-American heroes like Diriangen, Cuauhtemoc, Caupolican, and Tupac Amaru who never backed down, and by the deeds of Augusto C. Sandino who gave hope and determination to the Indians of the Rio Coco with their agricultural and mining cooperatives, and who proclaimed proudly to the world ¨I am Nicaraguan and I am proud because, more than anything else, Indian blood course through my veins which atavistically contains the mystery of being patriotic, loyal, and sincere.¨

I think I´ll say goodbye fore now, or in Rama: Mick-tamaskey

Nicaragua: the land of steaks and rocking chairs (formally known as the land of lakes and volcanoes)

The procession
2nd oldest church in Americas... yep

Quick note while I am in Blue Fields. Yesterday I went to Grenada and saw the two oldest catholic churches in south america, so much to be said about them and the tunnels underneath them to transport gold. I really don´t have to much time to write, but I really loved seeing the family evenings in Grenada with everyone sitting outside their doors on the sidewalk in rocking chairs with the doors open to the living rooms behind them. Reminded me of summer nights in omak when I got to stay up late while mom and joan would talk for hours on the porch. The living rooms were full of more rocking chairs, a tv, and most had christmas trees up already. I happened to be there during a procession for the virgin, many children and adults involved were dressed as monks or priests. It must be easier to get into the Christmas spirit earlier when you have religious celebrations relating to the virgin already going on. So that covers the rocking chair portion, the steak portion of my title is really just about menus here and dinners I have been treated to the past two nights.

Now I am over in Blue Fields, completely different than managua or anywhere I have ever been. People are still very friendly and I am getting to meet people involved in a civil rights-atonomy organization focused on the indigenous and afro-carib decendents in the northern and southern autonomous regions of this atlatic-carib coast. So much more to say, I will journal extensively on the people I meet and try to get the blog totally updated when I return to managua. Tomorrow I am off on a boat trip to visit a Rama community.

Honestly, at the moment I need to run back to my hotel because my stomach is not doing so good. Maybe it´s the ham sandwhich I had, maybe it´s the heat, but I sure hope this doesn´t last long. Thanks for the good thoughts and prayers being sent my way, love you all.

La casa de Frida (& Diego... but no one really cares about that)

On my last day in Mexico city I went to see the Museo de Frida Kahlo. A little back history on my obsession with Frida Kahlo: I fell in love with Frida's work in highschool when I had the opportunity to go to the Seattle Art Museum with Senor Smith and other students to see both Diego and Frida's paintings. The museum exhibit also included extensive biographical information, and Frida really had quite an interesting life. Then later my Auntie Phyl gave me a copy of the Frida Kahlo movie and I watched it a million times. I remember staying up late painting while watching the Frida movie in my dorm room. Inspirational. This all went hand in hand with my love for dia de los muertos art, the colors and adorable skeletons were really what made me interested in painting. So with this in mind, my trip to Frida's house was like a pilgrimage.

One whole section was the doodles and sketches she had done on envelopes, on pages of books, everywhere. I really liked this section because it is a good reminder that the greatest of artists also do little scribbles like I do in my notebooks. I stood in the room where Frida was born, now dedicated to letters to and from Frida and Diego. One letter in particular was really inspiring. Alejandro Gomez Arias (I think?), a boyfriend of Frida's, wrote her a letter in which he was talking about her talents and personality and he told her that she was an "uncommon woman." I am not sure if I can adequately describe my reaction to this statement, but it struck me that this was not only very true of Frida, it was also something that I hope will be true of myself. To me, being an "uncommon woman" is to be independent in thought, creative in expression, and to live inspired and passionate about all that one does, among so many other things.

Moving on, I was really just shocked that I was walking through her home, seeing her childhood toys, her mirrored bed, her cast that she painted on after the traumatic accident. After the museum I went to the Coyoacan post office to send my mask and a few other things to my parents. What an interesting experience that was. My initially reaction was "why the heck are these people being so nosy?!?" I really wasn't annoyed by the situation, it was just very different than the overall 'ignore everyone around you in public institutions' attitude that there is in the city. The idea that certain things are and are not ones business. They probably thought nothing of openly staring at everything I did, everything I put in the box and asking questions. Jen was helping me figure out how to send the mail and she said that she felt like the other post office patrons (upper class mexicans who tend to be lighter) looked shocked when she spoke to me in english, as if they didn't think a brown person would ever speak perfect english. I am sure both Jen and Rafa have had very interesting experiences being mexican-americans back in mexico. I thought I was almost out of the place when I didn't have brown paper to wrap the box, after a few moments of me looking totally confused a guard/postal worker wrapped the box for me which was really kind.

I am behind in the blog because I haven't had much time to be on the internet and haven't had a chance to upload photos. I have been going back and adding pictures to old blogs, something I will probably do from time to time... So be on the lookout for more pictures. This seems like a good time to announce that I am in Nicaragua, the land of lakes and volcanos! I am currently in Managua (which so many people have noted is a city without a center...very interesting that this is so often mentioned), but I will be flying to the atlantic coast on monday morning. I am really not sure if I will have internet access for the next week or so but I will be back in full swing with pictures and stories soon (I hope).

The pyramids and I

Dad: this guy reminds me of the never ending story movie you videotaped for me and watched a billion times with me when I was little. I promise I appreciate the figures more than their resemblence to creatures on my favorite childhood movies, I just couldn´t help myself.
The most impressive element to me was the different colors of the stones and the detail work of pressing smaller stones into the mortar. Beautiful.

...
Can you believe it!?!That´s the moon pyramid behind me. I got time to sit and sketch it in my journal. My journal sketches serve as a better reminder of experiences than actual photographs, maybe I´ll take pictures of my scribbles and post them here sometime. Thanks auntie hellen for the fancy scarf/buff wear, I was bound to get an earache from the wind but this kept my ears happy.

Rafa and I on top of the world. It´s a breath taking view looking down from the pyramid and we had already lost our breath hiking up the stairs. So we were especially confused by the people that walked all the way up just to light a cigarette at the top.

Mexico City is Crackin'

I am in Mexico city, I took the bus overnight and arrived here Monday morning. My friend Rafa met me and we spent the day 1) dropping off my stuff, 2) going to Coyoacan (a colonial area that is probably the closest thing to Oaxaca here), 3) going to the Zocalo and seeing the Catedral Metropolitana and other major sight-seeing areas. Outside of Palacio Bellas Artes I got the lovely view above. Turns out we had caught the "tail end" of a protest, I am pretty sure it was about the elections.

Then we went to walmart. Yes I went to Walmart in mexico. shame on me. It was really interesting though to see some of the differences. Having to hand over my little back pack to the attendant, to prevent theft. The demographics of people shopping were different. I suppose you would consider them "middle class" if there is a middle class. Walmart is more expensive than markets and street vendors so it attracts a wealthier crowd. Rafa reminded me to tip the baggers because they are unpaid teenagers.

The subways here are quite an experience. My first day here Rafa and I tried to take the subway from the bus station, but it was way too packed with people from northern mexico city heading to southern mexico city to work. We split up so I could use the womens car, and kind of stood there dumbfounded as I watched women struggle to get out of the subway car as packs of women shoved the women infront of them onto the car. I mean physically pushing and cramming as many people as possible into the car. I believe all the cars were that way at that time and trying for the womens cars was a better idea than being groped on the regular cars. We ultimately took a taxi to Reforma and walked through zona rosa (the capitol hill/broadway of mexico city) to take the subway to Rafa's from there.

When we visited the Zocalo I really enjoyed seeing the churches and buildings that are crumbling to bits. Catedral Metropolitana seems to be standing strong, although I hear that different parts of the structure are sinking at different rates which seems problematic. I have a very mixed reaction to these colonial churches on any given day, but Monday I really was disgusted by the Catedral. The very walls of the place include stones removed from the Aztec Templo Mayor. For me, the Catedral is the poster child of the physical and spiritual genocide that took place on this once sacred ground. These are things I will be thinking about througout latin america, it's just as challenging for me to understand the religious syncretism in this context as it is for me to sort out my own conflicting views between my identity as a Native person/traditional ways of knowing and my experiences with Christian churches. I have a feeling I will be writing more about this soon. For now I need to hand the lap-top back over to Rafa and work on my plans for tomorrow, which I have pretty much decided will be "Diego Day".

Just one little thing

There was really just one little thing that really upset me during my time in Oaxaca. In one of my Spanish lessons there was an activity where we were with partners making orraciones or Q & A conversations using information listed on a handout. When it came time to read them out loud, I read our first sentence: "Quien hacer las tortas?" and the teacher ofcourse corrected me because I left out the "va" between Quien and hacer. This is all good and useful, but then she went on to say (in spanish, Spain Spanish with the thhhhhhh sounds) that when I leave out the va I sound like an Indio. She then proceeded to repeat the sentence in the same voice that people use in the U.S. when they structure sentences and words into racist crap like: "Chief likum go big huntum."

I couldn't believe what was happening. Worse though, was that I couldn't explain in Spanish that I was offended that she would say such a thing (she doesn't speak English), so when my face fell she just went on to explain further. After a little of the shock wore off I was able to ask her why she used the word Indio, if that was a joke to her, and basically that I was offended. She apologized... I switched classes... problem solved? As it becomes more and more popular to be less and less politically correct I am sure more (white) people will tell me that I am too easily offended by this sort of thing. Part of me tells myself I am too easily offended sometimes. I cannot accept that perspective. It saddens me that behavior like this is considered acceptable, especially in an atmosphere that I assumed to be more professional. For anyone who doesn't know, Indigena is the appropriate and favored term by indigenous people in Latin America, Indio is a term that comes with many negative connotations.

This was really nothing compared to the racist verbal assault I experienced in Arizona over the summer, but it reopened some of the same wounds.