Thursday, I woke with the sun. Juan pounded on my door. ‘Megan! Megaaaan! Time for the show!’. I stumbled out in my pjs to see Manuel chopping wood and assembling a nice campfire. And then Jamie brought out the two turkeys that had slept in the bodega, sqwaked all the morning long, and were now fighting against their anticipated fate. Thanksgiving preparation had begun.

Happy thanksgiving. That’s right: if you want to eat turkey in Nicaragua, you go find yourself a farmer that has one to sell, you buy it for 350 cordoabas, and kill the darn thing. At Brio—go big or go home—we got two turkeys for the feast. I am thankful for Hanz and Franz, our two Brio chompipes that stayed with us from an early morning beginning to a seasoned and buttery end.

Before there was to be any be-heading of Hanz and Franz, the turkeys were given one last cocktail. Apparently drunk turkeys have more tender meat and are easier to cook, so Jamie went and got two of the cheapest bottles of rum made in Nicaragua, stuff that would melt your stomach, grabbed the first turkey by the neck, opened its mouth, and poured the booze right in. The second got the same treatment and soon they were stumbling around like drunk old men, eyes drooping and heads sagging.

Manuel tied Hanz to a tree, a machete was found, and several whacks later, Hanz became headless. (And yes, I watched the whole thing. And yes, Juan took a picture of Hanz’s decapitated and bloody head, eyes still open. Sick.) In the meantime, Manuel had his fire roaring and two pots of water boiling atop, water that they poured on the turkeys to help in the de-feathering process. A bag of turkey feathers later, to get Hanz and Franz looking a bit more… supermarket ready, Ixolina stepped in wielding her kitchen knife and gutted them outside the kitchen and then… there they were. Nestor came by at 2 to bake Hanz and fry Franz, and well, season ‘em a bit. And that’s how you make a Thanksgiving turkey in Nicaragua.

All the gringos in town came to Brio for a potluck dinner, which was a lot of fun. I made mocha chocolate chip cookies, which turned out okay (I think I added too much flour) but were still amazing to me, since well, I really miss chocolate chip cookies. Everyone else pulled out all the stops—we had mashed potatoes, green beans, pasta salad, homemade bread, and stuffing—and, of course, Hanz and Franz, who were delightfully tasty. I shall never look at a turkey the same way again. I expected that the whole ‘show’ (as Juan put it) of killing, gutting, and cooking a live turkey would dissuade my desire to actually consume it as part of my meal, but honestly it really didn’t. This is not because I’m a blood-thirsty animal eater. Rather, it’s nice to know where your meat comes from. Even though I named the turkeys as a joke, I know that Hanz and Franz weren’t raised in cages, are defiintely hormone free, and didn’t travel thousands of miles in the back of a crowded truck. We make such a fuss over organic food–what’s more organic than buying live turkey and eating it? As I recounted the story of Hanz and Franz to several of our dinner guests (which I guess is not very host-like, but they seemed to enjoy it), one said “you’re so western”–which I am. Coming from a vegetarian household, it’s good for me to see how meat gets from farm to plate. Animals do generally start out alive, so logic dictates they must…be killed. This is not a radical concept for most. I ate said turkeys, and honestly, quite enjoyed them (although, I’m noticing that I’m using the personal pronouns rather than object pronouns, which is creepy). I’ve come a long way from those childhood Thanksgivings with my vegetarian parents… and it doesn’t look like I’m going back.

Our Thanksgiving dinner was actually the second dinner party of the week at Brio. For my birthday on Monday (happy birthday to meeee) we had a taco dinner party, which was really just splendid. I was happy to be back in Brio by the beach, in any case, to start my twenty-second year, but I was so pleasantly surprised by the community of people that showed up to start it with me. Four months after I took off totally on my own, tacos and mojitos with a really sweet group of people was the perfect birthday. And also I got to dance bachata, so what else could a girl really ask for. And now I’m 22… hmm.

Last Friday, I announced to all three rounds that class was cancelled on Monday and Tuesday in preparation of my trip to Granada to do newspaper layout. And then I got an email from Darrell saying that “all was shit” and that we weren’t going to put out an issue this week. Now, in newspaper land, missing an issue is bad news bears. But, with all that’s been going down in Managua, people are nervous. By people I mean foreign investors who are understandably worried that this newly antagonistic government will screw them over—by taking their land, making ridiculous tax laws, or most importantly, slowing the flow of tourists due to their ridiculous behavior. The government’s done it before and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they’d do it again. Thus advertisers, concerned about survival more than expansion, are simply not buying ad space. And since our entire revenue stream comes from advertisers, this is not so smashing for the future of the Nicaraguan Post. And also for my job as designer of said newspaper (since apparently you can’t design a paper that doesn’t have enough money to be printed).

So, at this point, I’m waiting, fingers crossed, to find out of the future of the paper. Last I heard, Darrell was still planning to put out an issue in the coming week, so we shall see if the coming Sunday finds me once again in front of the computer, playing the layout game.

Although I had a fantastic week in beach land with the birthday and turkey, Nicaragua did not fare so well. The United States froze a $175 million aid program through the Millennium Challenge Corporation because of “deep concerns” over the state of democracy in country. (The actual amount cut off is unclear, ranging from $64 to $175 million, but suffice to say… it’s a lot of cordobas). Sucks to be a poor Nicaraguan this week, since they are the ones that will ultimately be affected by the budget cuts—not Ortega or Managua’s new mayor, Ortega’s crony.

Here’s a nice press-conference blurb conversation:

First, the ambassador of the frozen fund gives justification for the termination of aid: “We had hoped, for the sake of the Nicaraguan people, that the government would continue the country’s trend towards peaceful, democratic and credible elections. I am afraid recent evidence shows that this is not the case.”

The president of the Nicaraguan-American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) César Zamora says that the aid cut is “a nuclear bomb for the economy in Nicaragua…We are in a profound crisis, and to be honest, I still don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. But cutting off aid would make any light at the end of the tunnel impossible. They need to give a window to the politicians to see if we can get out of this crisis.”

And then President Ortega says: Nicaraguan feels “a little bit freer” without this $175 million in aid. Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez concurred, saying that it was like “taking the chains off.”

Classic. Foreign aid is so constraining. Millions of dollars are like shackles. Nicaragua has enough money to go around without it, thank you very much. Who needs $175 million dollars from the imperialist United States when you’re a poor farmer in northern Nicaragua struggling to survive everyday and when your government is paralyzed with corruption so it can’t help you. Sweet.

Far more articulate than I am. 

Democracy in peril

Tuesday, the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for Nicaragua. The capital is a bit in turmoil and democracy hangs in a precarious balance between traffic rotundas, the epicenters of national protests. Indeed, Nicaragua’s having a rough time at this point due to the municipal elections of two weeks prior which were, according to most news sources, rigged. Given that two of six million Nicaraguans live in Managua, and therefore the position of mayor holds a great deal of power, the outcome of their election is important. But, it’s important more so because it’s symbolic of the health of the institution of democracy in Nicaragua. In Leon, a city up north, bags of uncounted ballots were found in the cities dump and more than one person has claimed that they were turned away from the polls. More so than pitting one party against another, the election demonstrates some pretty serious cracks in Nicaragua’s democratic foundation–and perhaps that it’s all a charade. 

The election carries with it echoes of the 80’s. I, for one, thought that this was long past—and indeed, it is, from all signs around the country—but this election is showing that what seemed like a stable democracy, born out of war, is perhaps not so stable after all. I chatted with some gringos with run a hotel down by the beach who were quite concerned about the distress in Managua. Now, especially being in Gigante, I don’t feel remotely unsafe. Although it’s certainly troubling for Nicaragua and Nicaraguans, I don’t feel like these protests in the capital affect me too much. But, understandably, those who have invested in Nicaragua and live here full-time are made nervous by such volatility in the government, especially since the president has been accused of returning to “dictatorship”.

I’ve made a Nicaraguan friend besides the folks at the hotel, a fellow who works at a resort a couple of kilometers away. He comes by Brio most nights to use the internet and is super nice. Originally from Managua, he’s always full of updates and information about what’s going on. Yesterday, he blew into Brio as I was preparing for my 6 p.m. class and said “Megan, Managua’s on fire.” No, no, no, not literally on fire. But, he has friends there calling him to update him on the people protesting in the streets, information which was then passed along to me. Juan is, as always, a fantastic source of information: “Juan what happened in Managua yesterday,” I asked this morning, and got up half-an-hour later after Juan passed his news-gathering wisdom along. So, I’m actually quite proud of myself for being in the know, not because I’ve been reading the news (which I have) but because I’ve been talking to Nicaraguans.

My friend sent me a forward he got from a friend in Managua about propaganda posters all around Managua of President Daniel Ortega. Ortega’s got his fist raised, a standard gesture, and below says “More power, more democracy!” Apparently, the shadow of his hand is the in shape of a serpent, mouth stretching over Sr. Ortega’s heart. The email is attempting to demonstrate some relation between the Sandanista’s and Satanism, how and what I didn’t take the time to figure out. But, what impressed me about this email of, essentially, political spam, was that it was in powerpoint form: some lonely Nica somewhere went through the trouble to make a fourteen-slide powerpoint about subliminal messages in political advertisements; the craft alone impressed me.

He also shared with me an email his brother sent him in which a friend recounts his attempt to march peacefully through Managua on Tuesday as part of an organized demonstration against this incredible backwards slide in Nicaragua’s political well-being. From all accounts, it seemed to be a pretty chaotic and unnecessarily violent affair. 

On an interesting side-note, quite on the opposite end of the powerpoint spectrum, all votes in the election are hand-counted. My friend had a purple stain on his thumb, which is how they control that you vote only once. My first reaction was surprise at this primitiveness of it, and then realization that a computer system to count votes in every county of Nicaragua—including those who’s results were delayed because they had to cart bags of ballots into cities on horseback—is simply impossible. Obviously, the stained-thumb thing only works if the person staining the thumbs does so for every person who comes to vote, and doesn’t ‘forget’ to stain his party-friends.

So amidst all this Nicaraguan fun, Sunday evening Juan, Jackie and I made a trek over to Iguana, a resort just up the coast. Iguana is a fancy-schmancy gated community of apartments, houses, a golf course, and a restaurant—basically, a bubble, a little self-sustainable world within itself. I didn’t actually know it was so close… it’s a forty minute rough and tumble drive, along rutted and wrecked roads, but is actually located at the end of a beach that I’ve run to before from Gigante.

A security guard unlocked the gate for us, noting the car’s license plate number, and we entered into Iguana-land: or, what happens if gringos ruled Nicaragua (I’ll resist the temptation to say anything besides ‘if’ there). We turned onto perfectly smooth road, smoother even compared to our bumpy journey, and tooled along next to groomed fields and crops. Already feeling removed from some sort of reality, we pulled into the restaurant parking lot (which is already a sign of what to come, as parking lots are generally non-existent) and walked into to gringo-land. It’s like a little U.S. Embassy right on the coast. The menu, in English first then Spanish, listed pricey options, in dollars, for us to enjoy in an air-conditioned restaurant, watching American football on a plasma-screen TV. ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ asked Jackie; ‘Where it says, Restroom’ I said. ‘After the door that says Kitchen: Employees only.’ We ordered outrageously priced beers and pizza and chatted with the bartender, a friend of Juan’s and had a lovely time; that is, until the place was swarmed by gringos screaming over football and tequila shots. It was bizarre, and made me so appreciate the accessibility of culture at Brio.

On a side note, it’s a little hard to be concerned about the election when you’re swimming in the Pacific Ocean at sunset, like I did this evening…

Gar!

The police station finally re-opened on Wednesday morning, and after finishing layout for the Post, I popped over for what I thought (stupidly) would be a quick and easy visit, only needed a police report for my insurance. I obviously had forgotten that I was, in fact, residing in Nicaragua. Now, the Nicaraguan government is generally acknowledged as corrupt and rather inefficient. I don’t know why I didn’t expect this incompetence to  manifest itself in such government limbs’ as the police force. They were closed for a week, for goodness sake, which should have been my first hint. But, alas, I arrived bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to get a basic report and be on my merry way. Instead, I walked out two hours later after getting into an argument with a police officer.

A shortened version of my visit:

Arrival, 9 a.m. Wait in line at the Oficina de Denuncias.

9:30: Enter la Oficina de Denuncias; chat with friendly woman police officer

10:00: Still chatting with friendly woman police officer who is very chatty with everyone except me. I’ve already listen to her make lunch plans and ask about the health someone’s uncle. Professionalism this is not.

10:05: We finish the report. I ask for a copy. She looks surprised. I’m told that she will make me a copy of the police report. I wait for it.

10:30: I’m told that I don’t get a copy of the police report. Why? Because I just can’t.

10:45: She sends a male police officer out to chat with me.

Argument commences:

“I just need it for my insurance.”

We can’t give it to you. It’s politics.

What?

Pooolitics, he says slower, thinking I didn’t understand the word.

Okay. What do I need to do to get a copy of this report?

We have to do an investigation, he tells me. You don’t get the report until after the investigation. 

Sigh. Okay. What do you need to do that? They need a copy of the transaction from my bank detailing when and where 152.42 cents was depleted from my account.

I don’t know how to get that, I say. My bank is in the United States.

Have them mail it to you, he says. We need it so we can look at the video cameras where they used your card.

But, I’m telling you they used it on Friday morning, around 2 a.m. 

He shrugs. 

That is the only way I can get the copy of the police report?

Yes.

I tell him that I’ll print out my online bank statement that shows that said amount was charged to the Granada Esso station.

11:30: I return with printed bank statement. I wander around the station for awhile looking for someone to help me. Surrounded by a sea of short Nicaraguan police-people dressed in blue, I am in a green sundress, yet somehow invisible. I find the fellow who I talked to before, and give it to him. He wanders off with it.

11:45: I’m now talking to a senior police officer who doesn’t believe my debit card was stolen.

“You said it was stolen on Thursday night. This document shows that you spent money at the Esso station on Monday.”

No. This is when it was posted to my account. My bank is in the United States. It takes several days to post to my account. It was stolen Thursday, used Friday morning at 2 a.m., and I cancelled late Friday morning.

I don’t understand. It says here you spent money on Monday. That’s impossible if your card was cancelled on Friday, as you say.

No. That’s when the transaction arrived to my bank, I say.

We go around and around and around. They have the transaction number of this transaction, per my bank statement. Go to Esso, and have them look up what time it took place, I tell this policeman. He does not understand.

Okay, I just need a copy of the police report for my insurance, I tell him again and again. I can’t give it to you. I just need a copy of the police report so that my insurance will reimburse me. I don’t need you to do anything, I say. I can’t do that, he says. I just need a copy of the report I already filed. You don’t have to do anything. “It’s politics,” he says. What does this mean? 

If this recounting is frustrating to read, image me standing in a Nicaraguan police station, dripping in sweat and barely concealed anger, attempting to reason with a senior police officer. I finally walked out of there, steam blowing out my ears, sans police report.

I’m so very happy to be a United States citizen where the penal system functions. Yes, yes, I know it has its share of problems. But I am generally confident that police offers can follow through on their pledge to protect. I’m normally a person who follows the directions of such individuals as police officers, but these blue-uniformed individuals just weren’t being logical. Nicaragua, if you really are interested in being a tourist destination—and hey, it’s cool if you aren’t—you need to make sure your police force knows how to respond to foreigners who get robbed. And the first way is to believe them when they say they were robbed. And secondly… what’s the point of filing a report if you 1. won’t do anything with it anyway and 2. won’t give me a COPY!?

I am still sans police report, although on my way out, I was told to ‘come back later’.

As further evidence of things being a little off kilter in the Nicaraguan government, the battle over municipal elections of last Sunday is still raging, a number one topic of conversation. At least two people have died in Managua as a result of protest violence. The election is getting world attention because, well, it’s a grand example of election fraud in a country that supposedly moved into ‘democracy’ in 1990. Even The Economist is giving this coverage, which is for me a fascinating read because I’ve heard all about these goings-on directly from Nicaraguans. 

How to steal an election:NICARAGUA may be a small country but it is an emblematic one. In 1979 the leftist Sandinista movement overthrew a corrupt dictatorship. In response, the United States organised the Contra guerrillas. In 1990 the Sandinistas agreed to hold free elections, which they lost. But their leader, Daniel Ortega, has returned to power, having won a presidential election in 2006 against a divided opposition. Now, armed with an alliance with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, he seems determined to snuff out Nicaragua’s young democracy.

The Granada police station has been closed all week, and will remain closed until Wednesday. This is presumably due to today’s municipal elections, much anticipated, protested, and surrounded by violence (see my article below). My reaction to a police station closing is much as if they were to have closed, say, the hospital or, let’s say, the jail. Seriously. What is the point of a police station if it closes right when you would probably need it the most? (To be fair to the Nicaraguan police force, the logic must be that one less person manning the office is one more person on the street, thwarting the plans of troublemakers and hooligans.)

This little fact would normally have escaped my attention. However, the Nicaraguan inevitable happened and my wallet was stolen on Thursday evening, right out of my little zipped purse. Now, I will allow that I was in a crowded bar, of which there was much dancing and general festejar-ing. But, I walked in with wallet and walked out sans wallet, and have not the slightest clue how this transpired. It’s incredibly frustrating to be robbed as such because it’s just so sneaky and out of my control. Yes, yes, I know: that’s the point.

Nary do I bring out more than 20 dollars in cash, nor my debit card or any other valuable identification. However, on this fine evening, I was wandering around loaded with 60 dollars cash and a debit card that, at 2:30 in the morning, found itself buying 150 dollars worth of merchandise at the Esso station outside of town. Firstly, what on earth are these people buying for 4,000 cordobas at the Esso station? Secondly, my debit card has my picture on it. In case your memory is fuzzy after three months—I don’t look remotely Nicaraguan, so Mr. Cashier Man obviously knew the card was stolen.

Anyway. That’s life. Not really catastrophic, just annoying and mostly, incredibly ironic after my little “optimism vindicated” rant and rave.

Let’s see. On a happier note, I’m moving back to Gigante on Wednesday. I’m really quite excited, to see my students and my Brio friends, to eat breakfast overlooking the green and blue, to run on the beach, and to get away from Granada, which is wearing on me a bit. Additionally, I told my students I’d come back, and gosh darn it, I’m gunna. I’ve made thousands of worksheets and will bring some goodies back with me, so I feel immensely more prepared to efficiently teach than when I was fresh off the plane from los EEUU and a bit perturbed about the crab in my backpack. (I found a cockroach in the cabinet this morning, so never fear, Granada is not without its wildlife adventures, too.)

Every bit as beautiful of a city as when I first arrived, Granada is now, however, overrun by tourists. Who are obnoxious. I realize that, at the heart of it, I myself am a tourist. But, I like to flatter myself to think that firstly, I am not obnoxious, and that secondly, I sort of live here. I therefore do not appreciate all the Nicaraguans assuming that I am a tourist who doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish and would also like to buy a maraca for 18 dollars. I shall be back within two weeks, however, to design the newspaper, and then back again two weeks after that. And then, I shall be in the United States of America, which is all too soon, unbelievable, and sounding better and better every day. I interviewed a woman who moved here permanently from Ventura, Calif, and four years later, says she still occasionally needs to go back to the States to reboot. This coming from a woman who lives in a beautiful home overlooking the beach. This is to say…yeah, Nicaragua is still challenging. I’m hoping that Gigante shall be a nice respite from police stations that close (given as they don’t have one…) and all the Granada Nicas, who are not the norm and who have lost all sense of curiosity for foreigners and instead just like to yell at them in the street. I keep reminding myself not to let them get to me, that there is nothing I can do about the eighteen cat-calls I get round-trip to and from work.

I’ve quite busy with my third layout of the Nicaraguan Post, today and tomorrow, and frustrated because Darrell did not have his crap together for this issue, which is doubling my work. However, I when he’s not looking over my shoulder and chain smoking, I quite enjoy layout. It’s like a giant, 16-page puzzle. (And working with Darrell makes me feel so… competent.) 

I pass my days still accompanied by this particularly stubborn mushroom fungus. It’s getting better, but not as quickly as I had anticipated. It’s still there, and I ain’t happy about it, not necessarily because it’s really noticeable, but because one of the lovely sideffects of the drug I’m taking. I googled said oral anti-fungal medicine and learned that a common side effect of the drug is hair loss, and indeed—my hair is falling out. This may be TMI (too much information) but oh well. Loss of hair does not contribute to my general mental well-being and cheerfulness when, in addition to all challenges Nicaragua (getting robbed) and with work (a frustrating boss), I have to worry about going bald, or the very least, leaving half my hair behind in Nicaragua.