ad astra

Do unto others...sometimes?

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:09:00 -0500

So I won’t lie. I basically have no real knowledge of what’s been going on in the GOP primaries for the past few months. I’m not even sure if I can name all of the candidates, or if I know who’s still in and who’s still out. But yesterday I saw a videoclip which really freaked me out. Not because of something one of the candidates said, but because of the audience’s reaction to it.

“My point is, if another country does to us what we do others, we’re not going to like it very much. So I would say that maybe we ought to consider a golden rule in — in foreign policy.”

That was what Ron Paul said in response to a question about foreign policy. And before he even finished his sentence, he was booed. He then continued:

“We endlessly bomb … these countries and then we wonder — wonder why they get upset with us? And — and yet it — it continues on and on.”

The response to that? More boos. I was literally sort of stunned, thinking I was hearing things or something. But I wasn’t.

How is that possible? Children are taught from the time they are toddlers “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.” It’s called the “Golden Rule” for a reason - because we supposedly highly esteem it. But does the rule only go as far as not stealing another kids toy? How can we expect children, or any human being to act that way, and then boo a politician for daring to apply it to foreign policy? Isn’t that a double standard?

(I feel like I should mention here that many Christians have a tendency to reject the Golden Rule for another: “Do unto others as Jesus would do unto them.” But I guess that one goes out the window too at an international level. Either that or some Christians believe that Jesus was a warmonger.)

I’m not endorsing Ron Paul. I have no real opinion of him, and would probably agree with very few of his policies if I looked into them further. But he won my respect with this episode. It’s a refreshing change from the “Terrorists hate us because they hate our freedom” narrative which we were force fed after 9/11, and I look forward to hearing more about what he has to say.

As a side note, if someone wants to explain to me why a Golden Rule policy deserves boos and hisses, I’d be glad to listen.

Oh, and another side note, I do realize that the crowd cheers at the end when he says essentially the same thing, which I don’t entirely understand. Maybe it’s different people? Or maybe he just has incredible powers of persuasion and won them over in under a minute.

"Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar..."

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:11:54 -0500

“Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”

- Cesare Pavese, Italian author

My favorite song from 2011. Sin duda.

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:26:39 -0500

My favorite song from 2011. Sin duda.

Feliz Último Año Nuevo

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:38:56 -0500

gentequeviene:

Por Regi Rivas

"Dios está en todas partes, pero convénzanse que está más cerca de los pobres que de los ricos. En..."

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:17:00 -0500

““Dios está en todas partes, pero convénzanse que está más cerca de los pobres que de los ricos. En eso se parece a los piojos, que están más junto con los pobres que junto con los ricos.””

- Leonardo Boff, Brazilian Liberation Theologian. “God is everywhere, but be convinced that he is closer to the poor than to the rich. In this he resembles lice, which are closer to the poor than to the rich.”

El cacique taíno

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 08:42:31 -0500

Excerpt from “Memories of Fire” by Eduardo Galeano

1511

Yara

Hatuey

In these islands, many are those who choose their death, hanging themselves or drinking poison together with their children. The invaders cannot avoid this revenge, but they know how to explain it: the Indians, so savage that they think everything belongs to all, Oviedo will say, are people who by nature are lazy and depraved, and who work little…Many of them in their free time, kill themselves with poison to escape work, and others hang themselves with their own hands.

Hautey, Indian chief of the Guahaba region, has not killed himself. In a canoe he fled from Haiti, together with his people, and sought refuge in the caves and mountains of Eastern Cuba.

There he pointed to a basket filled with gold and said:

– This is the god of the Christians. For him they persecute us. For him our fathers and brothers have died. Let us dance for him. If our dance pleases him, this god will order them to stop abusing us.

They catch him three months later.

They tie him to a stake.

Before lighting the fire which will reduce him to carbon and ash, a priest promises him glory and eternal rest if he accepts baptism. Hatuey asks:

– In your heaven, are there Christians?

– Yes.

Hatuey chooses hell and the kindling begins to crackle.

Don't talk to me about human rights.

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:17:28 -0500

“I always hear a lot of hypothetical examples. But do you think you could give me an example of how the blockade has affected you personally?”

“Easy. Try to imagine this. Your daughter gets sick – a thyroid problem. And it’s serious. But you live in Cuba, so you go to the doctor and they do the exams for free. They diagnose her for free. They operate on her for free. You’re so relived, and you’re so grateful for what your country has done for you. And then you hear the doctor say: ‘The surgery was a success. Your daughter should be fine. Except that her condition is chronic, which means that she needs to take medicine every day for the rest of her life. And unfortunately, that medicine is unavailable in Cuba.’”

“That’s my life. And that’s the blockade.”

***

I wish that conversation was fiction, but it’s not. It’s a conversation I had a few days ago with a Cuban woman. And it’s a conversation which can probably be replicated in 12 million different ways, because the effects of the blockade are as numerous as the people on the island.

As a result of this conversation, I’ve reached a certain level of frustration regarding US policies towards Cuba which I haven’t felt before. And not only frustration towards policies, but towards people’s criticisms of Cuba in general. I’ve said before and firmly believe that criticism from both sides is healthy and necessary, but the more time I spend in Cuba and the more I listen to Cubans, the less I understand certain claims that are made regarding the island. And I think the most frustrating of all is the discussion of “human rights.”

One of our friends in Cuba said this time around that the term “human rights” is the most abused term there is when it comes to talking about the world. And I think he’s right. “Cuba is a violator of human rights.” That’s what criticism of Cuba always comes back to. But there is so much wrong with that statement, and there is so much tied up in it, that I can barely even begin to form coherent thoughts. So this will be my poor attempt.

First of all, when people say that Cuba violates human rights, it seems to me that you have to ask what human rights actually are. And not only that, but who defines them. Because different people in different places will most likely have a very different understanding of the term. Am I wrong, or do people often fail to realize a) that no definitive list of human rights exists, and b) that different societies prioritize some rights over others?

The US press constantly talks about lack of freedom of speech, press, and assembly in Cuba. But why do they never talk about the right to food, water, health, and education that all Cubans have? Cubans have chosen to prioritize these things over others like private property, contracts, press, etc. Is that OK? Not necessarily. But it is no different than what the United States has done in prioritizing freedom of speech and freedom of the press over the right of their people to have access to food and water! What gives the United States the right to declare that their prioritization of rights it the Gold Standard which the rest of the world needs to adopt? I will never understand it.

On the last night we were in Cuba, someone asked our translator what he thought about the human rights violations in Cuba. I wish I had had a tape recorder so that I could do justice to what he said, but it went something like this.

“I get so tired of the United States criticizing Cuba for its human rights record. Who is the bigger violator of human rights? In Cuba, everyone eats. In Cuba, everyone has health care. In Cuba, everyone has access to free education. Cubans have the right to life. An example: the last time I was in the United States I was shocked to discover that woman are usually given four weeks of maternity leave. In Cuba, they receive a year with full pay. Because what is a more basic right than the right of an infant to have its mother!? In the United States, mothers are ripped back to work before their children even have the slightest sense of what it means to be alive!”

I agree with him that in the grand scheme of things, the United States violates more human rights every day (not only at home but abroad) than Cuba could ever dream of doing. But instead we punish and criticize the Cubans for choosing a prioritization different from our own. Should people be jailed for speaking out against the government? Of course not. But neither should a person be forced to live under a bridge because they can’t afford a house. Neither should a person be forced to starve because they can’t afford food. And neither should a person be forced to die because they can’t afford health care. Please, by all means, criticize human rights violations. But don’t forget the way that our country also violates human rights. And don’t for an instant think you’re superior because you have different priorities.

I am sorry if this is coming off as angry, but it stems with my frustration with seeing people in Cuba suffering because they made a decision which we didn’t like.

We had the chance to visit an elementary school during the trip, which was something I hadn’t done before. The talk with the director was enjoyable, but he caught me off guard with his response to his question about what he wishes his school had:

“Computers. We would love computers.”

I had to leave the room because his response made me cry. Why? Because as soon as he said that, the image of the Texas Border Patrol taking seven computers from our caravan last summer as we tried to cross the border filled me head, and I couldn’t get it out.

“You can’t take these,” they said. “It’s high technology which can be used by the Cuban government to foster terrorism.”

Foster terrorism? Or help a six year old learn to read?

I could go on, and I think that I probably will at some point. But this is probably enough for now. So, if anyone reads this, I would really love to hear what you think, whether you agree with me or whether you think I’m insane and unpatriotic. Really, I want to know. Gracias.

Viva Cuba Libre.

A few pictures from Cuba (you can click through them).

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:02:00 -0500

Across the bay from La Cabaña fortress

Outside the craft market

The beach in Varadero

A few pictures from Cuba (you can click through them).

Too much.

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 09:38:41 -0500

Too much.

I heard this song a few months ago, and it’s been stuck in...

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 09:23:52 -0500

I heard this song a few months ago, and it’s been stuck in my head ever since. There’s something about it that I really like…it’s like strangely sad or something…I don’t know. Anyways here’s my attempt at a translation of the lyrics.

Fernando Milagros - Carnaval

You left with the Carnaval
That arrived with the summer
To me it looked like a hurricane
That tore you to pieces

Pieces of you incrusted in me
Pieces of me, thrown out along the road

You wanted to stay and play
You had sand in your hands
Building castles of salt
You used to call me your vassal

You left with the hurricane
And left for the Kingdom of Maggots
If you’d like I’ll stop by and pick you up
I live on the street over there

Vamos acercándonos al fin...

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 19:48:56 -0500

Well, it was a good run, but like I predicted in August, I fear that my dedication to writing has faltered over the past month. And due to the fact that my mother seems to have blessed me with her talent of forgetting things rapidly, who knows if I’ll even be able to remember enough of what this past month has involved to write more than an introductory paragraph.

Basically for the last two weeks I spent a lot of time travelling around Costa Rica with Javier, one of the LASP professors. At this point in the semester all (or most…) of the students are outside of San José doing some type of “community project.” When I was a student, this was the time when I worked on a farm with the incomparable Roderick and spent my days planting, harvesting, and hiding from the mule. This experience is, in many ways, one of the most valuable parts of the semester. First of all, everyone is, for the most part, isolated and away from the swarm of gringos that they were with for the first half of the semester. This allows them to not only immerse themselves more completely in Costa Rican culture, but also allows most students to really make strides in their Spanish learning, as they often don’t have the option of speaking English. Secondly, it’s really great that students get to see life outside of San José. The blessed capital city is probably the furthest thing possible from any preconceptions you might have about “Beautiful, Green, Costa Rica,” and it also has a culture all its own; one that doesn’t necessarily represent Costa Rican culture as a whole. So as great as the city is, it can be nice, and even necessary (for the sake of one’s sanity), to escape it for a while.

Most students are either working on farms or in schools, the few exceptions working in orphanages or state run daycares. As I said, they are all outside of San José, but it’s funny when you think about what “outside of San José” actually means. Costa Rica is about the size of West Virginia, which means that even at its extremities you’re really not too far from the capital. However, what’s crazy about the country is how little you need to travel to feel like you’re in a completely different world. San José is located in the Central Valley and is completely surrounded by two or three mountain ranges. Almost as soon as you begin to get out of the valley, everything changes, and you begin to see why Costa Rica is supposedly the “Greenest Country on Earth.” Some of the places I visited literally seemed like settings out of a fairy tale or something, and I’m frightened of what my Dad is going to say when I admit that I did not take a camera to even one of the places we visited (maybe next year). The other crazy thing is how diverse the country is. One day we were shivering in the cloud forest, and the next baking on the Caribbean coast, both places not separated by more than a hundred miles. If I wasn’t convinced before, these last two weeks have convinced me that in terms of natural beauty Costa Rica is without a doubt the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.

So this weekend is the last one I’ll have free until the semester ends. The students return on Tuesday and we’ll have a few days of orientation before leave for Cuba early next Sunday morning. Obviously, I can’t wait for that trip, and I hope that the students enjoy it and as much as I did. We’ll be there for ten days and return to Costa Rica on the 14^th, when I’ll have to say a tearful goodbye to all the LASPers I’ve gotten to know this semester. And after that it will just be a week until the Dearstyne Family Costa Rican Christmas Extravaganza begins. I hope the country is prepared.

So I know I’ve already posted the music video for this...

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 08:57:00 -0500

So I know I’ve already posted the music video for this song, but this performance from the Latin Grammys last night deserves posting as well. I tried to translate the lyrics earlier this semester for class, so here they are.

Latinoamérica - Calle 13

I am
I am what they left behind
I am everything that’s left from what they took
A town, hidden on the mountaintops
My skin is leather, I can take any climate
I’m a factory of smoke
A worker’s hand for your consumption
A cold front in the middle of summer
Love in the time of cholera, brother
The sun that is born and the day that dies
And the best of afternoons
I’m development in living flesh
A political speech without saliva
The most beautiful faces I’ve ever seen
I’m the photo of a “disappeared”
I’m the blood in your veins
I’m a piece of land that’s worth the effort
I’m a basket of beans
I’m Maradona against England scoring two goals
I’m what my flag represents
My mountain ranges are the spine of the continent
I’m what my father taught me,
That he who doesn’t love his homeland doesn’t love his mother
I’m América Latina
A pueblo without legs which somehow still walks

You can’t buy the wind
You can’t buy the sun
You can’t buy the rain
You can’t buy the heat
You can’t by the clouds
You can’t by the colors
You can’t buy my happiness
You can’t buy my pain

I have lakes, I have rivers
I show my teeth when I smile
The snow decorates my mountains
I’ve got the sun which dries me and the rain which washes me
A desert intoxicated with beauty from a trago de pulque
I sing with the coyotes, I have all that I need
I have my lungs breathing in clear blue
The suffocating heights
I’m the molars of my mouth chewing coca
Autumn with its fallen leaves
Verses written beneath a star filled sky
A vine heavy with grapes
A cañaveral beneath the Cuban sun
I’m the Caribbean Sea which watches over its little houses
With its rituals of holy water
The wind which combs my hair
I’m all the saints which hang from my neck
The fruit of my struggle isn’t artificial
Because the compost of my land is natural

We go forth walking,
And by walking, creating our path
You can’t buy my life
And my land isn’t for sale

I work hard but with pride
Here we share, what’s mine is yours
Our pueblos don’t drown in their lies
And if something falls apart, I’ll rebuild it
I don’t blink when I look at you
So you’ll remember my name
Operation Condor invading my nest,
I’ll forgive but I’ll never forget

Here we breathe struggle
I sing so that you’ll listen

Here we’re standing tall
Long live Latin America!

2/3

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:03:12 -0400

We got back from Nicaragua two weeks ago today, and it already seems like an eternity ago. It’s crazy how quickly we can adapt to different environments - it’s like we flip a switch or something. I’m having trouble remembering what I’ve even done for the past two weeks; there seems to be some sort of black hole where that time has disappeared to. I did go to my first official soccer game and saw Saprissa play (and win!), and saw Paranormal Activity 3; both spiced up my usually horrendously boring weekends.

On Halloween we had a fiesta at LASP. All of us here had been lamenting the lack of fall flavors (pumpkin, apples, caramel), so we tried to imitate some of our favorite recipes with Tico ingredients. For the most part I would say it was a wild success - Laura even managed to continue spoiling me/us with a recreation (re-creation?) of Harvest Loaf (pumpkin bread with chocolate chips…there are no words). Some students even tried to make apple cider with hot apple juice, cinnamon, and caramel. We also embraced our gringo-ness and devoured 15 pizzas between less than 40 of us - I think some are reaching their limit of rice and beans (a limit which I will never possess nor understand) and needed a junk food binge to ease their suffering.

During these two weeks at LASP we have had a bunch of guest speakers as part of our Faith & Practice Seminar, which when I was a student was one of my favorite parts of my semester (it’s quite possible that I say that about every part of the semester). It seemed to go well this time around, although students were often (and not surprisingly) very resistant to some of the ideas presented. The toughest pill for people to swallow was Liberation Theology, a very Latin American theology which emphasizes life on earth as opposed to life after death. We read some things from Oscar Romero’s book “The Violence of Love,” and the following is an excerpt that I really like:

“Unfortunately, brothers and sisters, we are the product of a spiritualized, individualistic education. We were taught: try to save your soul and don’t worry about the rest. We told the suffering: be patient, heaven will follow, hang on. No, that’s not right, that’s not salvation! That’s not the salvation Christ brought. The salvation Christ brings is a salvation from every bondage that oppresses human beings.”

Because I’m a nerd and because I have an obsession with Steinbeck, the passage reminded me a part from The Grapes of Wrath. Tom, the main character, is talking to his Mom before he leaves and says:

“An’ I got to thinkin’, Ma, most of the preachin’ is about the poor we shall have always with us, an’ if you got nothin’, why, jus’ fol’ your hands an’ to hell with it, you gonna git ice cream on gol’ plates when you’re dead.”

I think that is still in large part true - our churches teach us that “life after death” is really the only thing that matters, so don’t spend too much time worrying about what’s going on down here. I wonder first of all how people ever pulled that message out of the gospels, but I also wonder why a message which contradicts this traditional narrative is so often viewed as threatening, or worse, heresy. One question that came up when we were talking about Liberation Theology is why it doesn’t seem to be a very popular theology today. I liked don Mike’s answer: “Because all the liberation theologians were murdered.”

Per usual, I have no solutions to offer to this issue. I’m not a liberation theologian, nor any type of theologian - these things are just what’s been rolling around in my head for a few weeks.

So now this part of the semester is over and next week all the students head out to their community projects. This is the part of the semester when I worked on an organic farm and experienced the strangest mixture of extreme happiness and extreme loneliness that I have ever experienced in my life. It’s definitely another fun and difficult part of the students time here in Costa Rica, and I’m looking forward to talking with them about it when they return. And in a month from tomorrow we’ll be off to Cuba, which is incredible. The semester is already two-thirds gone!

Thanks to Susan Carr for the best dog toy ever.

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:10:28 -0400

Thanks to Susan Carr for the best dog toy ever.

And just like that...

Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:43:25 -0400

…our Nicaraguan adventure is behind us. It’s weird – you spend so much time planning and thinking about a trip, and then all of the sudden your back home (“home”). I’m certain that I’m going to feel the same way come next May; whether it’s ten days or ten months, time always seems to fly when you look back on it.

We left Costa Rica on October 10 and made it to Nicaragua without any problems to speak of. While we did get delayed at the border for a couple of hours, anything less than four hours seems absolutely rapid to me, since when I was a student we stood in line for about that long. When we got to Managua I was briefly concerned that we had arrived to the wrong city, since I stepped off the bus and was not greeted by a blistering wave of heat. The two other times I’ve been in Managua I have barely escaped melting, so the cool air was a strange but not unwelcome surprise. Apparently due to the hurricane which stopped over Mexico a few weeks ago Central America has been getting a ton of rain, which has caused the temperatures to drop significantly (I mean, relatively speaking; it was still probably 70 or something like that). And although it is the rainy season which I have been living in for more than two months now, the nonstop day and night of rain we had in Managua still surprised me.

After a few days in the capital we all split up into smaller groups and dispersed into six different communities around the city of Masaya. I went to a town (I mean town probably isn’t the right word, but neither is city, nor villiage, nor hamlet, nor really any word I can think of to convey it properly) called Veracruz and stayed with an amazing women named Guillermina and her children. Five other LASPers and I stayed there for almost a week, not doing much of anything, which can be difficult for those of us accustomed to be busy all the time.

At about day three I told the students in my group that in a few weeks, they would look back on the Nicaragua trip and see it as some sort of strange dream. Sometimes when you are in a community so different from your own, the strangeness of it all just hits you, and you have to stop and think, “What on EARTH am I doing here?” During my last trip that moment occurred as I stood waist deep in a river holding live crabs in my hands and watching my host attempt to harpoon fish amongst the mangrove trees. This time it was speeding down the highway in a motorized tricycle device, sitting on the edge, seeing the gravel speeding by inches away from me, and picturing my certain death every time we turned a corner. Nicaragua es otra cosa.

The stated goal of our trip to Nicaragua is to form relationships with Nicaraguans, and that’s what the other students and I struggled to do over the course of six days in Veracruz. I say struggle because the trip is definitely not an easy one, and for many not even an enjoyable one. However, I love the trip because I do think that everyone comes back having learned something, even if that something is that they don’t particularly care for fried, hard, extremely salty cheese every morning (one of the many lessons I took away from the trip this year).

Another thing I started thinking about this time around is the tendency many people have to “romanticize” poverty (I don’t want to exclude myself from this category – I used to do the same thing and am still struggling to view poverty in a different way). I often hear people say things like “They might be poor, but they’re so happy,” or “It’s so beautiful to live such a simple life.” Some even claim that they wish they could stay and live like that forever. However, and it may just be my cynicism talking, I wonder if people say things like that because they know they have a round-trip ticket for their trip to Poverty-land. It’s easy to say how beautiful everything is when you know that you’re only there for a few days. But would people feel the same way if, like they people we lived with, they had no way out? I also think even more serious problem is that this romanticizing of poverty prevents us from recognizing the unjust global systems which make poverty possible. When we tell ourselves how beautiful the poverty is, we don’t have to tackle tough questions like “Why is it that half the world lives this way?” Unfortunately, as usual, I’m just stuck with a lot of questions and no answers.

So that’s our trip to Nicaragua in a nutshell. Now I’m back in Costa Rica and all the comforts which my Tico life provides: gallo pinto with black beans instead of red, coffee without sugar (hallelujah), (luke)warm showers, non-crazy (relatively speaking) public transportation, and hours of TV watching. It’s good to be “home.”

Happy Columbus Day

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 20:30:13 -0400

Something to think about as you celebrate the “holiday.”

*****

From “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn:

“When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, ‘there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it…

Thus began the history, five hundred years ago, of the European invasion of the Indian settlements in the Americas. That beginning, when you read Las Casas, is conquest, slavery, and death. When we read the history books given to children in the United States, it all starts with a heroic adventure - there is no bloodshed - and Columbus Day is a celebration…

To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves - unwittingly - to justify what was done.

My point is not that we must, in telling history, accuse, judge, condemn Columbus in absentia. It is too late for that; it would be a useless scholarly exercise in morality. But the easy acceptance of atrocities as a deplorable but necessary price to pay for progress (Hiroshima and Vietnam, to save Western civilization; Kronstadt and Hungary, to save socialism; nuclear proliferation, to save us all) - that is still with us. One reason these atrocities are still with us is that we have learned to bury them in a mass of other facts, as radioactive wastes are buried in containers in the earth. We have learned to give them exactly the same proportion of attention that teachers and writers often give them in the most respectable of classrooms and textbooks. This learned sense of moral proportion, coming from the apparent objectivity of the scholar, is accepted more easily than when it comes from politicians at press conferences. It is therefore more deadly.

The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks) - the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress - is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders. It is as if they, like Columbus, deserve universal acceptance, as if they - the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Kennedy, the leading members of Congress, the famous Justices of the Supreme Court - represent the nation as a whole. The pretense is that there really is such a thing as “the United States,” subject to occasional conflicts and quarrels, but fundamentally a community of people with common interests. It is as if there really is a “national interest” represented in the Constitution, in territorial expansion, in the laws passed by Congress, the decisions of the courts, the development of capitalism, the culture of education and the mass media.”

Dos Meses

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 19:59:27 -0400

Today is October 9, which means that I’ve been in Costa Rica for 2 months. It’s hard to believe - time has been flying. It feels like yesterday that I was waiting for the new LASPers to arrive, and now Core Seminar (their first class) is over and tomorrow we leave for Nicaragua.

For me, Nicaragua was an amazing trip when I was a student, and I’m hoping that the students enjoy it this time around. One of the most interesting things about visiting Nicaragua is the contrasts between it and Costa Rica. There is a tendency in the United States (and I would assume the rest of the world as well) to lump Latin American countries and cultures into a homogenous block (I’ve met multiple people who refer to Latin Americans in general as Mexicans). While obviously there are similarities stemming from a common Spanish heritage, assuming that all Latin American countries are basically the same would be like assuming that Alaskan culture is basically the same as Alabaman (is that a word?) culture. Similarities? Probably. Identical? Not so much.

One of the most obvious differences between Costa Rica and Nicaragua is the level of poverty. In 2005 the World Bank estimated that in Nicaragua almost 50% of the population lived below the national poverty line, compared to 25% in Costa Rica (using the international poverty line which defines poverty as less than 2 US Dollars per day, Nicaragua is at around 34% compared to Costa Rica at around 5%). This disparity between the two countries is arguably linked to historical factors. While Costa Rica has enjoyed a relatively stable democratic system since the 1940s, Nicaragua has experienced almost constant instability since the 1930s. Part of this instability was due to actions committed by the Reagan Administration in the 1980s (how many people know that the Iran-Contra scandal involved the United States illegally selling arms to Iran to help fund counterrevolutionary groups in Nicaragua? I didn’t until I went to Nicaragua.), but the Nicaraguan government also holds much of the responsibility for the current problems that the country faces.

Besides these more obvious differences, there are also striking cultural differences between the two countries. While speaking stereotypically doesn’t ever give the whole picture, I would say that Nicaraguans are generally easier to really get to know than the average Costa Rican. I’m not sure why that is, and I could be wrong, but it seems to me that it is much harder to achieve more than a superficial relationship with a Costa Rican than it is with a Nicaraguan. It’s something I noticed the first time I was there and is something that other people who have visited both countries have commented on as well.

Something that I think is really interesting about Costa Rica and Nicaragua is that, to me, both countries seem to be a microcosm of what is happening right now between the United States and Mexico. Costa Rica has a huge influx of Nicaraguan immigrants, much like the flow of Mexicans into the US, and because of this there is a growing xenophobia in Costa Rica regarding their neighbors to the north. I have heard Costa Ricans use all of the following (and worse) to describe the Nicas: vago (lazy), bravo (rough), sucio (dirty), engañoso (deceitful), ladrones (thieves). I would guess that most of you at some point have heard Mexicans described in a similar way. What usually surprises me about these comments is how casually they come up. Their often said in passing and like they’re stating a fact, as if everyone knows that Nicaraguans can’t be trusted. It’s a sad situation, but it seems to be a common one between rich and poor countries all over the world.

So that’s my unprofessional input on Nicaragua. Hopefully it was interesting to someone. And like I said, it could all be wrong. It’s just kind of a collection of things I’ve picked up during my brief experiences there.

I’ll be in Nicaragua until October 21, and I’m sure I’ll have stories to tell once I get back. Until then, for those of you in the zones where you’re lucky enough to experience fall, enjoy the best month of the year!

Aires

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:54:29 -0400

Last week I was ill. At night I would be struck by fever and spend the nights rolling around in sweat (while freezing at the same time), and during the days my head would throb upon standing, sitting, or looking at anything. Given the symptoms I think we all know what it was: an aire.

What is an aire, you ask? Well, if I really knew I would gladly explain. But I can only offer a vague description. However, hopefully you will learn enough to be able to effectively avoid them. Basically, forget everything you’ve ever learned about disease pathology. Colds are not caused by viruses. The flu is not transmitted hand-to-mouth. We’ve been misled for years. You see, what causes gripe is much more sinister: abrupt changes in temperature.

Skeptical? I was too. But ask any Costa Rican and they will tell you the same. Aires lurk at the border between hot and cold, just waiting to leap into your lungs the minute you cross the line. In light of this new evidence, the cause of my sickness last week is obvious. Last Wednesday I, in an unspeakable act of foolishness, let the gym without a sweater. I know - horrifying. But the deed is done and I paid the price. You see the gym is hot, and when you work out your body gets hot. So when you leave the gym you have to make sure your body stays hot by putting on a sweater. Otherwise, exposing yourself to the frigid Costa Rican air (read: seventies) makes you a prime target for the aires. I actually consider it a miracle to be alive, since I spent much of last winter going to the gym in Rochester and leaving from the gym into the Rochester air (read: teens) in my shorts and t-shirt. How I survived is beyond me.

This incredible danger which abrupt temperature changes pose is the same reason why, if you are holding a baby and need to open the refrigerator, you must cover the babies head with a blanket before doing so. Exposing such a defenseless creature to a blast of cold air could do unspeakable damage. This is also why it is easy to mistake Tico children for lost Eskimo babies, given their parents habit of preparing them for Arctic weather before taking them out of the house. You never can be too careful.

***

OK - I’ve been too harsh on the Ticos. Most of it stems from my annoyance with a thousand people telling me that I had a migraine because I didn’t wear appropriate apparel upon leaving the gym. But really, many Tico’s believe everything I just wrote (that baby thing is not made up), and after all, who am I to judge? I think that every culture probably has beliefs that would seem somewhat nutty to an outsider (in Romania sitting on pavement makes you infertile), but I think that’s what makes different cultures so incredible (Any example of beliefs from the US that make us seem insane?). So I think it’s OK to roll our eyes once and a while, as long as we roll with respect. At least that’s what I’m going to try and do for the next few months.

Coincidentally, I’ve decided to toss a sweater in my gym bag - just in case.

If I had to pick one song which, in between leaving Latin...

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:19:00 -0400

If I had to pick one song which, in between leaving Latin America in April 2010 and returning in August of this year, I had listened to the most, this song would win without a doubt. It’s called Latinoamérica by Puerto Rican duo Calle 13. I’m sure I’ve heard it hundreds of times and it still gives me goose bumps every time. Now with a video which just came out yesterday, it’s even more amazing. The lyrics of the song are incredible, and maybe I’ll post them all some day, but for now here is the chorus:

“You can’t buy the wind, you can’t buy the sun, you can’t buy the rain, you can’t buy the heat, you can’t buy the clouds, you can’t buy the colors, you can’t buy my happiness, you can’t buy my pain.”

I heard this song on NPR’s music blog AltLatino, which I...

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 09:51:00 -0400

I heard this song on NPR’s music blog AltLatino, which I have been listening to for about a year. The blog is fantastic if you’re into music in Spanish, but there is also the occasional song in English, like this treasure called “Sly” from Girl in a Coma’s upcoming album “Exits & All the Rest.”