Nicaragua is an overwhelmingly religious country. The Spanish brought Catholicism in the sixteenth century. Since then it has been joined over the years by every sort of religious sect. There are now Evangelists, Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Moravians, Mormons and Anglicans to name but a few. As you walk through any of the cities of Nicaragua, you are surrounded by churches, meeting halls and other places of worship. During the day and in the evenings you are likely to hear singing echoing from many of these buildings, as the faithful sing and clap their way to salvation.
In the catholic churches, images of the Virgin Mary are everywhere. Sometimes she stands alone, but often she has an infant Jesus in her arms or by her side. What you never see is a pregnant Virgin Mary. I googled pregnant Virgin Mary but there were very few results. Pregnant Marys seem to be rare. There is a pregnant statue in Pangil (the Philippines), called Virgin de la O. There is a pregnant Mary in the Portuguese city of Evora. There is another in the cathedral in Leon, Spain (but not in the cathedral in Leon, Nicaragua) and another depicted on a column in the cathedral at Santiago de Compostella. Once upon a time in medieval Tuscany there were many images of a pregnant Mary but as fashions changed they started to disappear in the fifteenth century. There are no doubt others, but they are significantly unusual.
Why this reluctance on the part of the church to show Mary as a pregnant woman? It was a question I had in mind when visiting Mama Licha in Esteli, where she helps inform pregnant women, some as young as 14, about sexual health and childbirth. For many young women in Nicaragua the mysteries of sex seem to have remained mysteries and girls have no idea why they become pregnant. Could it be that the catholic church's wilful sentimentality about the Virgin Mary which specifically leaves out the messier side of women's fertility is to blame? This absence of engagement with women's sexuality is not unique to Nicaragua, of course, but in churches all over the catholic world where statues of the Virgin Mary stare down from pedestals with a dreamy look in their eyes. No thought of sex there. You are left with the impression that Mary was not only a virgin but never went through pregnancy either. One can only come to the conclusion that until and unless the church reconciles itself to human sexuality in all its forms and stages, the tragedy of ignorant, pregnant teenagers will continue.
Thursday, 13 February 2014
Friday, 7 February 2014
Sex education?
At El Barrilete there is a small child, no more than a baby really. This is Fabien, aged one and a bit, brought to the centre for Maria to care for. He came with his brother, who is not much older. Their family has completely imploded. The mother is a drug addict and the father, for reasons we do not know, burned down the family home. Homeless and without parents to care for them they are now, for the moment at least, Maria's responsibility.
They will certainly be looked after very well at El Barrilete. There are little bedrooms for the children, with bunk beds and small bathrooms next door. It is basic but clean and well thought through.
But it does pose the question about what is to happen to these children, so many of whom are looked after by extended family members - aunts, grandmothers, even older siblings. It is clearly a question that goes well beyond Nicaragua. That are stories of the baby trade in which babies from poor countries are sold to childless couples in rich countries, but that cannot be the answer. Children must not be for sale like produce, but they do, ideally, need families. Furthermore, unless they are very young, remaining in their own cultural environment would seem to be the best solution. But where poverty and an uncertain life on the streets is the rule, that solution is also fragile.
Perhaps there are no answers, except better birth control. But in a Catholic country like Nicaragua, government sponsored sex education in schools is virtually non-existent. True, there are some private sex education initiatives beginning to appear, made available via NGOs and some enlightend local organisations. And for the first time we have seen condoms on sale at the checkout counters of the local Leon supermarket (now owned by Walmart). However they are only for the comparatively well off who can afford to shop there. So it is very early days and until government policy changes and/or NGO work in this area becomes wide spread, that solution also seems far off.
This all adds up to only one thing - children like Fabien, the children at Los Quinchos and all the other children in Nicaragua living in difficult circumstances - will continue to need help for the foreseeable future.
They will certainly be looked after very well at El Barrilete. There are little bedrooms for the children, with bunk beds and small bathrooms next door. It is basic but clean and well thought through.
But it does pose the question about what is to happen to these children, so many of whom are looked after by extended family members - aunts, grandmothers, even older siblings. It is clearly a question that goes well beyond Nicaragua. That are stories of the baby trade in which babies from poor countries are sold to childless couples in rich countries, but that cannot be the answer. Children must not be for sale like produce, but they do, ideally, need families. Furthermore, unless they are very young, remaining in their own cultural environment would seem to be the best solution. But where poverty and an uncertain life on the streets is the rule, that solution is also fragile.
Perhaps there are no answers, except better birth control. But in a Catholic country like Nicaragua, government sponsored sex education in schools is virtually non-existent. True, there are some private sex education initiatives beginning to appear, made available via NGOs and some enlightend local organisations. And for the first time we have seen condoms on sale at the checkout counters of the local Leon supermarket (now owned by Walmart). However they are only for the comparatively well off who can afford to shop there. So it is very early days and until government policy changes and/or NGO work in this area becomes wide spread, that solution also seems far off.
This all adds up to only one thing - children like Fabien, the children at Los Quinchos and all the other children in Nicaragua living in difficult circumstances - will continue to need help for the foreseeable future.
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
Hanging out at Las Salinas Grandes
A long bumpy dirt road leads to Las Salinas, the Sampson family beach house on the Pacific coast south of Leon. Kate has spent week here and Maggie and I caught up with her for a night. It's basic, fronts onto the beach and is a long way from a proper road. There are a few houses up and down the kilometres of beach and a small fishing community. Small boats go out from the beach at night, bringing in the catch early in the morning. The catch is meagre, some small fish and one or two large ones. They don't make a fortune, just enough to feed a family and pay for the petrol for the outboards. We bought fish, no more than 10 Cordobas for a small fish, about 35 US cents.
At night we slept in hammocks, my first experience of this. I suspected it would be profoundly uncomfortable but I slept remarkably well.
Kate and Maggie brought gifts for Pedro and his family. Pedro is the caretaker. Kate has been helping him for some years to buy a plot of land, dig a well and start to build a house. This means that Pedro now has something to pass on to his sons Isaac and Jonathan. In the evening we had a little party with a pinata for the children. This involves hanging up a paper figure with a hollow inside filled with sweets. The children take turns to whack the figure with a stick as it is jerked around on a rope. As it is whacked about, the sweets gradually spill out and the children scramble all over the floor gathering them up.
Behind the house, some 200 metres inland, are the salt works, Las Salinas. In Europe salt works are mechanised, with diggers and tractors to lug the drying salt around. Here men work in the full sun, scooping up the sand from the drying pans with shovels and bare hands into handcarts. It's hot, unremitting labour, but it's work and keeps families.
Swimming from the beach is more about jumping around in the waves. There is a vicious undertow and unless you are a strong swimmer going out beyond the breakers is dangerous. It's a surfer's paradise, however, but so far there are few surf dudes. We walked a long way down the beach and only saw a couple.
Later we are going back to Leon for the last few days in Nicaragua, then it's back to France and the rain. Oh well.
At night we slept in hammocks, my first experience of this. I suspected it would be profoundly uncomfortable but I slept remarkably well.
Kate and Maggie brought gifts for Pedro and his family. Pedro is the caretaker. Kate has been helping him for some years to buy a plot of land, dig a well and start to build a house. This means that Pedro now has something to pass on to his sons Isaac and Jonathan. In the evening we had a little party with a pinata for the children. This involves hanging up a paper figure with a hollow inside filled with sweets. The children take turns to whack the figure with a stick as it is jerked around on a rope. As it is whacked about, the sweets gradually spill out and the children scramble all over the floor gathering them up.
Behind the house, some 200 metres inland, are the salt works, Las Salinas. In Europe salt works are mechanised, with diggers and tractors to lug the drying salt around. Here men work in the full sun, scooping up the sand from the drying pans with shovels and bare hands into handcarts. It's hot, unremitting labour, but it's work and keeps families.
Swimming from the beach is more about jumping around in the waves. There is a vicious undertow and unless you are a strong swimmer going out beyond the breakers is dangerous. It's a surfer's paradise, however, but so far there are few surf dudes. We walked a long way down the beach and only saw a couple.
Later we are going back to Leon for the last few days in Nicaragua, then it's back to France and the rain. Oh well.
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
Back to Leon
It has been a lovely week, first in San Marcos, then on Ometepe and finally in Granada, the most stylish of old colonial cities, now being refurbished from the centre outwards. We have met generous hearted people, seen children and young people benefitting from the money funders provide and had a chance to understand the concerns people have as Nicaragua develops.
Some of the most interesting conversations have been with Diego Gene, who runs the Escuela de Mimo y Comedia in Granada. Diego speaks impeccable English, having attended an English language school in his native Venezuela, then having lived in London for several years. He is a convinced Chavez and Ortega supporter, having seen at first hand in both countries the poverty and social misery that existed before they came to power. He accuses the developed world of double standards in their criticism of both leaders (though Chavez is now dead). As he says, some leaders in the west can stand for reelection time and again, but if a Chavez or an Ortega do the same thing, it's called dictatorship. Why the different rules?
And there is no doubt that life has massively improved for the poor in both countries. There are health clinics springing up all over the place, electricity is being run out to more and more rural communities and education means less and less illiteracy.
But as usual there is a cost here which causes even Diego to grumble. Ortega's deal with the catholic church led to a significant diminution in services for women, particularly in the area of pregnancy and childbirth. And although the poor are being lifted out of grinding poverty, the rich and middle classes are certainly also on the rise. The shiny new cars and large, gated houses tell you that. And yesterday I saw a slogan scrawled up on a wall, which said "Menos propaganda, Mas informacion" - Less propaganda, more information.
I will take away a lot of hope with me from my visit, but I am not blind to the terrible problems that still remain. In particular galloping urbanisation is doing nothing for the problems of drug addiction - glue sniffing is a major addiction among street children, as it depresses appetite and leads to temporary oblivion - and prostitution which is virtually the only way street kids can earn money. And as the government cleans up in one place, some of the problems simply migrate to another. La Chureca, the massive rubbish tip outside Managua, may have been covered over and turned into a resource of methane gas, but the families and kids who made a living there are still there, now tucked into concrete boxes but with nothing to do as their living at the tip has disappeared.
Win
some, lose some, same old story. The need for aid is still present but the recipients of aid are changing and will continue to change over time as the country develops.
Some of the most interesting conversations have been with Diego Gene, who runs the Escuela de Mimo y Comedia in Granada. Diego speaks impeccable English, having attended an English language school in his native Venezuela, then having lived in London for several years. He is a convinced Chavez and Ortega supporter, having seen at first hand in both countries the poverty and social misery that existed before they came to power. He accuses the developed world of double standards in their criticism of both leaders (though Chavez is now dead). As he says, some leaders in the west can stand for reelection time and again, but if a Chavez or an Ortega do the same thing, it's called dictatorship. Why the different rules?
And there is no doubt that life has massively improved for the poor in both countries. There are health clinics springing up all over the place, electricity is being run out to more and more rural communities and education means less and less illiteracy.
But as usual there is a cost here which causes even Diego to grumble. Ortega's deal with the catholic church led to a significant diminution in services for women, particularly in the area of pregnancy and childbirth. And although the poor are being lifted out of grinding poverty, the rich and middle classes are certainly also on the rise. The shiny new cars and large, gated houses tell you that. And yesterday I saw a slogan scrawled up on a wall, which said "Menos propaganda, Mas informacion" - Less propaganda, more information.
I will take away a lot of hope with me from my visit, but I am not blind to the terrible problems that still remain. In particular galloping urbanisation is doing nothing for the problems of drug addiction - glue sniffing is a major addiction among street children, as it depresses appetite and leads to temporary oblivion - and prostitution which is virtually the only way street kids can earn money. And as the government cleans up in one place, some of the problems simply migrate to another. La Chureca, the massive rubbish tip outside Managua, may have been covered over and turned into a resource of methane gas, but the families and kids who made a living there are still there, now tucked into concrete boxes but with nothing to do as their living at the tip has disappeared.
Win
Sunday, 2 February 2014
Clown Aid
This is a slightly ambitious title because what do I really know about circus in this country? The answer is not much, but what I do know is that it is an important art form here. In my childhood circus meant the annual visit to Bertram Mills big top. I remember the animal acts - lots of horses I seem to recall and of course the lions - and the various high wire acts. But naturally I really liked the clowns. There were two sorts of clown. There was Coco the Clown, dressed in a white satin suit, with a pointy white hat. He wasn't funny. Then there were the slapstick clowns in baggy trousers and jackets, looking a bit like tramps, who often performed with a ladder and buckets of water. I longed for them to appear because they made me laugh.
Ever since then I have related to the word clown in terms of those childhood experiences. But now I am learning about a different kind of clown, much more like the Fool in King Lear. Jung recognised the clown as the Trickster archetype. The modern clown, with the painted face and baggy clothes, sometimes the red nose, is part of this tradition. A clever character, masquerading as a simpleton or as a naif, but always underneath very smart, even scheming.
Diego Gene at the Escuela de Comedia in Granada was inspired to learn clowning at the Knebworth pop festival back in the 70's while he was in England. At the back of the huge field there were a whole gang of clowns and he was was hooked. He's been honing his skills ever since and passing them on to a new generation of young performers here in Nicaragua, where the clown is recognised as a representative of the poor and oppressed, a character who gets the better of the powerful.
So my trip here has really taught me something, that clowning is much more than buckets of water and ladders, though they are a part of the tradition. Clowning is the human response to the unpredictability and cruelty of the world, a response that involves both laughter and sadness, anger and acceptance. But ultimately clowning is subversive, a revolutionary response to human existence. How appropriate that clowning is such an art here, that groups of young people like Performers without Borders come here, to teach and to learn. They do just as much to feed the spirit as the Mayagna Children's fund does to feed the stomach. Both are a vital part of the help all of us can give. So, do send in the clowns please .....
Ever since then I have related to the word clown in terms of those childhood experiences. But now I am learning about a different kind of clown, much more like the Fool in King Lear. Jung recognised the clown as the Trickster archetype. The modern clown, with the painted face and baggy clothes, sometimes the red nose, is part of this tradition. A clever character, masquerading as a simpleton or as a naif, but always underneath very smart, even scheming.
Diego Gene at the Escuela de Comedia in Granada was inspired to learn clowning at the Knebworth pop festival back in the 70's while he was in England. At the back of the huge field there were a whole gang of clowns and he was was hooked. He's been honing his skills ever since and passing them on to a new generation of young performers here in Nicaragua, where the clown is recognised as a representative of the poor and oppressed, a character who gets the better of the powerful.
So my trip here has really taught me something, that clowning is much more than buckets of water and ladders, though they are a part of the tradition. Clowning is the human response to the unpredictability and cruelty of the world, a response that involves both laughter and sadness, anger and acceptance. But ultimately clowning is subversive, a revolutionary response to human existence. How appropriate that clowning is such an art here, that groups of young people like Performers without Borders come here, to teach and to learn. They do just as much to feed the spirit as the Mayagna Children's fund does to feed the stomach. Both are a vital part of the help all of us can give. So, do send in the clowns please .....
Off the beaten track in Granada
Chris and i had supper with three clowns, a small dog and a tame capybara last night.
Saturday, 1 February 2014
Men with Guns
One of the startling aspects of life on the streets in Nicaragua is the proliferation of armed guards outside shops and other commercial premises. The variety of weapons is huge, anything from a holstered pistol to a huge shot gun. I suppose that they are all actually carrying ammunition, but very few of the guards look particularly menacing. In Leon many of them are old men, perhaps veterans of the revolution and the Contra War. Some of them are a lot younger. It does remind you that this country has seen a lot of violence in the past eighty years.
That said Nicaragua feels remarkably calm and peaceful today. Nowhere have we felt threatened and besides making sure money and valuables are kept safe from pickpockets, we take no specific precautions. This is quite different from what I expected to find in a Central American country and that is a very happy surprise. Maggie says that this is in stark contrast with Honduras, which she describes very edgy.
That said Nicaragua feels remarkably calm and peaceful today. Nowhere have we felt threatened and besides making sure money and valuables are kept safe from pickpockets, we take no specific precautions. This is quite different from what I expected to find in a Central American country and that is a very happy surprise. Maggie says that this is in stark contrast with Honduras, which she describes very edgy.
The Bottle House
There is an architectural wonder in store for us today. As part of his commitment to a sustainable environment, Diego Gene has built an entire house out of discarded plastic bottles. I have seen a photo of this before but I am greatly looking forward to seeing this surprising building in the flesh, so to speak. There will be photos and a report here later.
Granada
The centre of Granada is startlingly beautiful, sumptuous old colonial architecture all restored and elegantly painted. The road down to the port area which was a dirt track when kate and i first came here is now a broad boulevarde with cafés and restaurants competing for business, which is lively in the evening. The customers include Nicaraguans as well as foreign tourists. This is a city which would not look out of place in old Europe.
Today we are going for lunch with Diego who runs an organisation using theatre and circus arts to help kids from the barrios to focus and build self confidence. The organisation currently feeds lunch to 65 kids who otherwise might not have any, every day.
Progress for some means that a lot of people get left behind. A long way behind.
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