For 20 years, the UCA Miraflor has been helping the families of these cooperatives become economically and politically stable while improving their quality of life, through microfinance programs, agritourism programs, organic coffee production, and now a Belgian funded program called, Huertos Familiares, classically my next calling. These northern hills were a Sandanista stronghold during a very bloody war that anyone over the age of 35 could recall with clarity. It is obvious from the character of the families who live here, that they rallied their cooperative (and socialist) spirit to fend off the Contras coming over the hills from Honduras, on their way to overthrow the government in the capital.
Back in January and February, I was working with Grupo Libertad Bluefields on the Caribbean Coast; a drug rehabilitation center set on a one acre farm in barrio San Mateo. Though I was in the midst of finding my way through this new work and enjoying the deep relationships one builds in such an intense setting, I was still aware of certain goals I had set at the onset of this trip to Nicaragua. So, I wrote a friend doing agriculture work through a Fullbright Scholarship in the Northwest. I had an idea that I might like to work with cooperative farmers (of coffee or cacao, most likely), learning more about the intricacies of international trade of organic and fair trade commodities and the advantages of Central American farming cooperatives while putting my own skills to use helping these farming families establish diverse kitchen gardens of fruits and vegetables to feed the land and their families, many of whom statistically live on less than two dollars a day. She pointed me in the direction of a project she had recently visited in the UCA Miraflor doing just that.
Deciding when and how to leave Bluefields became incresingly hard as I was building stronger relationships each day with the guys in the program; the goal of the program being that these guys come daily and continue to come through the months, and sometimes years, of their rehabilitation. I had formed a special relationship with one 16 year old whose mom had left with her lover for Panama the Christmas before, leaving him and his 6 siblings in Bluefields. We would take daily walks to the docks before we set off in opposite directions for home.
Another guy my age, whom I worked closely with each day to pass on some projects I had started, had sworn off drugs as of New Years but had hit a terrible hurdle when his older sister was accidently shot in the neck walking through her barrio one night, nearly escaping death. I had deep respect for the methods we enlisted at Georgina´s Finquita as I saw how much the guys depended on this sanctuary during some of their hardest struggles. I also felt especially grateful that in a culture where I was so bothered by the male- female dynamic, I was able to cultivate positive and healthy relationships between the guys and myself; a necessary social education among families of drug addiction in the coast. Ironically, the house of four women, in which I had been so excited to invest my energy, soon took on a visitor, my friend Randy, who had been working with Grupo Libertad Bluefields for 7 years, first as a youth in need of assistance, and then as a promotor and co- coordinator of the program. Some relationships formed (and others were fractured) within the house that were unexpected, which I was expected to accept at home and cover up at work. The balance we had struck combining work and home had dissolved overnight and my decision to leave was made easier when, on the night of my birthday, my good friend and roommate Berlin had packed her belongings after seven years and we were exchanging tearful goodbyes. A week later I was hopping the waves in a panga headed to the Pacific Coast, having hosted a goodbye dinner, exchanged goodbyes with my family in San Pedro, hand delivered letters to the youth at GLB, and parted ways with my housemates in Santa Rosa. I left behind a bag of belongings that I will return for to help celebrate the first rains in May by dancing the Maypole, a month- long Bluefields tradition. On my last day at GLB, I tried my best to honor these guys who had opened up to me, spoke freely about their struggles in our daily circles, and fought a daily battle of staying put to face their problems rather than run away; Bluefields is no easy place to grow strong and keep faith.
With my sister's visit cancelled due to snow, my first stop on the Pacific Coast was the city of heroes, martyrs, and poets; Estelí. I took to the atmosphere of the UCA Miraflor office as soon as I walked in the door for my interview. As well as the way my Belgian coworker, Siska, (who left today) had been pulled into the folds. I am working as assistant to the tecnico brought on to direct the Huertos Familiares project. We are in our second year of the program, embarking on an ambitious goal set at the onset to increase the number of participating families from 70 to 170 (with an overall goal of working with 200 families over three years and insuring 80% retention beyond the program´s completion.) Among the unique and somewhat complex layout of the UCA Miraflor, its communities and cooperatives, we organize ourselves by working directly with 20 promotores among the 11 cooperatives, who, in turn, oversee the successful establishment and implementation of these 170- 200 huertos of the productores. In the midst of the dry season, some families without access to water are unable to plant and so we take this time to construct beds and build up abono, the various methods of fertilizing and composting. As we sign up the 100 new families and 10 new promotors, we will also engage them in the second set of capacitacíones, (I dare you to say that 10 times fast) or workshops. I am writing this on the heels of our first successful capacitacíon, and am most impressed by the strong female spirit among our group of promotores. stay tuned for the manual, Establecimiento del Huertos Familiares.
And so, like my ideal world, we bounce back and forth between the campo of Miraflor and the city of Estelí. In the office, I indulge in, if not at times rip my hair out, at the classic Nica office culture. This involves entering the office at 8, greeting evey person with a handshake and an upbeat exchange, slowly enter offices, turn on lights and computers and wait for the chatty 70 year old assistant, Doña Tina, to make our delicious organic coffee before we attempt to work. During meetings it is common for the facilitator to stop talking to answer his or her cell phone by saying, Diga me, tell me.
At the Junta Directiva´s meeting I relished in the bickering, poublic nose picking, and the way each of them constantly cut off the other. The outcomes of these meetings are entirely unrecognizable to the foreigner. After a lunch break long enough to walk home and back, and a lazy afternoon, the joke among foreigners is that at 5 pm, everybody jumps up from their conversations to stay late and do productive work for a final hour.On my last moto trip to Miraflor, I counted 14 families whose homes we passed by throughout the day, some a twenty minute hike uphill. These trips to Miraflor are a true lesson in rural hospitality, which I recognize as far friendlier and less inhibited than my experiences in the campo outside Bluefields. We pass by the homes of promotors to drop off seeds or an invitation to a workshop that will take place the following week. We are offered a seat at each home, and we sit to chat. Many of our promotors are women and they converse from the kitchen as they prepare our refreshment. Days in the campo are a constant negotiation in being a good guest by accepting the fresca, warm milk, experimental hibiscus wine, coffee, lunch, or whatever happens to be sitting on their clay stovetop at the time, hoping the collected rain water used to make my drink will not make me sick, or that the host will not be offended when I return a half finished glass.
It seems mandatory that we sit 20 minutes, regardless of whether we were due at a meeting down the road 5 minutes earlier, that will likely start one hour late. If we arrive at someone´s house at noon, we sit until a steaming hot lunch arrives on our laps. There is no embarassment in this exchange, as it is a complement to the cook whose house we arrive at in time for lunch. Each visit includes a farm walk through their huerto, examining discolored leaves, stunted saplings, harvesting camote or yucca to examine their size and the size of the harvest, and then accept a portion of the harvest to bring back to the city, offering suggestions and complements on their work.
Now that I have learned how to comfortably ride the moto, sitting behind Modesto, and have added the luxury of listening to music on the hour and a half ride to and from Miraflor, I relish these adventures. I am coming to recognize turns in the road and changes of scenery. We drive up out of the dusty, dry lowlands, and into the high zone where the air is cool and fresh and the forests of pine and barbaro del viejo (nickname for a tree that looks like an old man´s beard) drip with the moistness of the cloud forests. We pass vistas, waterfalls, streams, orchid forests, zopilote and quetzales, children hiking to school, young couples walking hand in hand, and groups of college students engaging in service opportunities and bathing in the sun during their spring break. We pass one productors house on our way back down to buy eggs and tomatoes, and always time our return trip to the colorful sunset over the canyons, which keeps a smile on my face even as I begin to lose feeling in my legs. We come down the final hills with the view of our city all lit up.
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