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.