The guide who took us through the Museum of Heroes and Martyrs this morning had fought in the Sandinista front during the revolution here. He led us with fierce pride along the walls of tattered and yellowed newspaper photos of Sandino, and Somoza, all the faces we´ve read about. (Or, more truthfully, that Bob has read about… I´ve goofed off reading thrillers and chick lit while he´s gone through a whole history of Nicaragua as well as the personal journal of one of the Sandinista leaders, Omar Cabezas.)
We wanted so much to talk to the museum guide more fluently, because he was there — he represented living history — and we wanted to know more about how it has been for him in all the years since. The museum is poignantly minimal: old black and white photos of battles in the streets, a homemade rifle, a Molotov cocktail, a few small items left from the triumph of people who owned nothing.
We walk the exact same streets where those battles took place, the terribly young guerrilla fighters looking almost ecstatic in those photos. We´re moved more than we can say by the effort of these students who began with nothing but hope and overthrew an entrenched, brutal dictatorship. Even though the current Sandinista government is fraught with imperfection, the blazing eyes of those young fighters still reflect something crucial about this country.
Onward today, a steamy 4-hour busride about to start in a few minutes, up to the mountainous area in the north, near Matagalpa. More from there tomorrow.
Matagalpa, the German neighborhood of Nicaragua
The bus helper collecting our fares yesterday had blue eyes and fair skin, and the doctor who owns the little hotel we´re staying in has blonde-brown hair. Even before we´d noticed this, though, or read the history of this region, we sensed a faint northern European flavor in the streets. Many of the buildings have balconies and wood-framed windows, and there´s a certain modern hustle which feels different from the time-standing-still quality of other Nicaraguan cities we´ve seen.
Apparently back in the gold-rush days, when Nicaragua was the easiest route between New York and San Francisco, some Germans were en route to the American gold fields. Discouraged by reports from returning prospectors, they decided to settle here and look for gold in these mountains. That was never found in large quantity, but along the way they tried planting some coffee. It flourished beyond their expectations, and an association developed between Germany and Nicaragua. More German farmers came, and the coffee production rapidly became one of the economic mainstays of the country. The Germans made their lives here, married into the local population, and 150 or so years later have simply become one part of Nicaragua´s historical patchwork.
Yesterday we strolled through one organic coffee finca which has evolved into an ecotourism destination, and learned that it sells its beans through Whole Foods. (The young local guy who gave us a ride in his pickup truck asked us in Spanish if we had heard that Whole Foods is also known as “Whole Paycheck”.)
The folks here are gregarious and outgoing, which is fun. A few minutes ago I ended up in conversation with a primary school teacher, standing behind me in line at the bank. She was interested in my hair, curious if I´d dyed it to make it be this white. That made us both laugh, and we went on to talk a bit about her school; she said she has 43 students in her class, and that she wishes it were easier to meet with parents, but they´re all really busy. She says almost all the city kids are able to go to school, but for the ones growing up in the country it´s much harder because they have to work on the farms.
After the long winding bus ride up into these open hills, we´d expected Matagalpa to be a sleepy little rural city — and instead it´s bustling with banks and commerce, bright lights, shiny stores and busy people. The computers in this little internet cafe are state-of-the-art. Today we´re weary from bus rides, and my main goal (besides finishing the latest worthless paperback I´m engrossed in) is to visit the Castillo de Cacao, or Cocoa Castle, which is some sort of chocolate factory in this region.
Email makes the world smaller, and having had news from a few friends and neighbors of difficult times, our thoughts are much with our people at home. Five more nights in Nicaragua, and we´ll be on our way back. We´re already getting excited at the thought!