Nicaragua (Summary Post)

So, I feel as if this is pertinent to my blog as well. This is what I posted on the SALT blog about the Nicaragua trip I took last May. It was posted on July 13:

Hola de Nicaragua!

Well...sort of. As you can see it is July, and though our group of 11 came back with much excitement and charged with doing what we could to help those we met and change the injustices we saw...we did meet the summer head on. We all went our separate ways without the chance to put into words a brief overview of our experience. So, it now seems appropriate that in the middle of July - often the lagging point in the summer when all of us SALT shakers are separated doing a wide variety of jobs needed some rejuvenation - that we take a minute to refocus by reflecting on this trip.

Below is a summary of our trip intermixed with quotes from my traveling cohortes.

To give a bit of a background: A group of 9 Valpo students, 1 VU Pastor, and 1 Hanover student (the VU Pastor's son) headed off to Nicaragua on May 17 to stay for a week to learn about fair trade on a trip designed and coordinated by the Center for Global Education. The trip had long been the idea of Kat Peters (recent VU graduate, former SALT staffer) who studied abroad with CGE on one of their semester programs and became possible with the help of CGE and the ELCA (who gave the sponosoring grants).

We were a diverse group -not all currently involved in SALT (many new members were recruited however), not all with Spanish skills (thank God for those that did), not all with previous knowledge of Central American/Nicaraguan history, and none of us knew everyone else on the trip. This dynmaic made it all the more interesting embarking on this adventure together and certainly allowed us to experience Nica through a variety of perspectives as we talked out about the issues that confronted us.

We arrived in Nica after a long day of travels and some pretty awful airplane food in time to stand in a really long line in customs to get our passports stamped. Our CGE leader, Vanessa was there to welcome us and we headed to our home-away-from-home, The James Mayer House.
The first day began our whirlwind adventure into understanding the issues facing Nicaragua and Central America with our first round of meetings that were probaly one of the most polarizing. Mark Lester (CGE) gave us a brief history about Nica and Central America to give context to everything we would learn later. For those of us who knew virtually nothing before that moment it was a lot to take in - Nica has been a VERY volatile place and the different political forces at play there are astounding! After lunch, (yay for Nicaraguan food!) we met with ProNicaragua, an investment promotion agency that painted a picture of Nicaragua that was very suprising for most of us. Their job is to show would-be investors why they should come to Nicaragua...and therefore some of the big injustices and controversial issues are sort of glossed over and left out of the picture.

Immediately afterwards, we visited a free trade zone (FTZ, the kind of zone that ProNicaragua promotes establising) where thousands of workers work inside factories of large multi-national corporations that have the incentives of no taxes, low wages, etc. We talked with a small number of workers who were suffering the consequences of working for one of these companies as they had tried to organize to improve conditions. When they worked to gain rights for themselves and their fellow workers they were blacklisted by the FTZs which makes it virtually impossible to find employment in Nica where unemployment is raging. (We heard estimates from 30-60% while we were there; the CIA Factbook reports 53.4% combined unemployment and underemployment.) The workers' stories were really hard to hear - being fired for attempting to organize and make conditions better in your workplace? women being fired for being pregnant? a judicial system that is so inefficent and expensive that it doesn't help its' own people? free trade agreements that blatantly favor the US? I think all of us ended the day with a lot of questions, and yet a sincere desire to understand more about this troubled country and its' people who are so strong in perserving throughout it all.

"I find my job really hard this summer, since 99.9% of the shirts sold in my store were made in central american countries. And after having met and talked with people who spend hours every day making these shirts and earning only pennies for their tedious, repetitive labor, it's hard not to inform every person who buys a shirt from me exactly how it was made. However, i asked my supervisor if i could tell people about it when i sold them shirts and she said absolutely not...I'm being forced to be silent so Americans can continue to enjoy their luxuries and remain ignorant to the injustices in the world." -Anni

Day Two included a handful or meetings that just continued to add more perspectives and questions into the picture. We met with two people who had committed their lies to working within a network of Chirstian-based communities and had met persecution just about every step of the way. We had the chance to hear a critique of CAFTA from a representative from the National Federation of Cooperatives (Fenacoop) and then visit the Jubilee House Community which has done a lot of work in the poor area of Ciudad Sandino, outside of Managua.

One of the workers in the worker-owned
FTZ sewing together T-Shirts...and wearing it.

Talk about committed people working for justice in this crazy world!!! This community has started the Center for Development in Central America and done a lot of work to get cooperative. We got to talk to some of the original cooperative members and hear abouits' mission underway! The helped some of the women of Ciudad Sandino get a sewing cooperative started and a few years ago that blossomed into the first ever (and still only) workers' ownedt their struggle to support their families with jobs at FTZs that had bad labor practices, and then all the hard work that they put into starting this cooperative. Now they are improving their business practices as they learn, and now getting the satisfaction of beginning to pay back their loans. It was so uplifting hearing them speak and getting to see the ways in which this cooperative has changed them and their families. We also had the chance to drive through Ciudad Sandino and see the medical clinic that the Jubilee House helped to build - another wonderful example of community development and empowerment!


"During our trip to Nicaragua, I learned so much about other countries and lifestyles, as well as coming to some realizations about myself and what kind of life I want to live in order to make positive differences in the lives of those who are less fortunate." - Liz

Day Three: With our brains so full, CGE wisely blocked in some good relxation time at Crater's Edge, which as you can see is blissfully beautiful. We also and went and checked out the Masaya Volcano...good times.

Day Four: Worshipping with Lutherans is fun wherever you are, even when its' completely in Spanish! ;-) Sunday morning we had the lovely opportunity to worship at a Lutheran Church in Managua and then talk to some of our peers who are working to bring awareness about HIV/AIDS to the Managua community. Talk about SALT sistas and brothers! They had just had a prayer vigil at the church the night before and it was obvious that they were doing really wonderful work in their community.

That afternoon, we headed out from Managua into the countryside; destination: Mira Flor, Sontula mountainside farming village outside the city of Esteli. I think this was one of the most profound and special times for everyone on the trip (of course they can fill free to disagree!), becuase we got to spend time in the homes of Nicaraguans and hear about this villages' experiences which was like opening a living history book (but so much better!).

Mira Flor is a nature reserve with lots if important microclimates whihc make for some very diversified farming -coffee, bananas, vegetables, as well as cattle. There are 13 cooperatives in Mira Flor within the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives and we were the guests of the sole women's cooperative who has an ecotourism project (where women in the community host visitors in their homes and then use the profits to help provide for their families). When we first arrived (ps. it's beautiful! I think everyone took about a thousand pictures while we were there so ask for pictures!), we met with about 15 of the women in the co-op and just had the chance to listen to their stories. Some of the older women reflected on their lives - growing up and raising families on the farms, the lack of education and access to food and supplies (the nearest town is hours away by foot, still today a bus only comes all the way to Mira Flor twice a week), the excitement over the 1980 National Literacy Campaign...and then the pain and fear of the counter-revolution and the damage that it caused their community.

That evening we all went in small groups and stayed with families. I won't even try to describe this experience, because I know it was different and special for all of us individually. But let's just say that their hospitality and openness was very touching. We also got the chance to stop by the school and play with the adorable children...

Day Five: The next morning we ventured out into the coffee fields and learned about coffee production. Whew! All you coffee drinkers, you don't know how many hands pass over those coffee beans before they become your Starbucks Grande [insert favorite drink here]. It was amazing to hear about the process and the care that goes into harvesting the crop and how hard they work to get just the right quality. We learned about the inbalances in the coffee market - coffee producers get the lowest part of the cut, where as roasters get more of the profit, except that all of the roasters are in first-world countries. So, when coffee prices took a big hit a few years ago the ones that really suffered were the farmers.

Getting depressed? Next time, you go to Starbucks ask for your drink to be made from fair trade coffee...

The farmers in Mira Flor are all working on achieving Organic certification and then Fair Trade certification - this brings in a bit more money, but requires special attention to virtually every inch of the process: planting, harvesting, drying, etc. I don't think any of us were experts by the end but we certainly learned another piece of the fair trade puzzle...and yet the visit also raised more questions. What's the best way to help coffee farmers? Buy fair trade? Or buy Starbucks (which makes direct agreements with farming coops on prices and such)? Or maybe Organic instead? Which part of the coffee market needs to be changed the most?

Day Six: Tuesday gave us the chance to ask some of those questions when we met with Bill Weaver of Lutheran World Relief who talked about some of the work the LWR is doing to help farmers and communities in Nica (click on the link for LWR's Nica page). He also helped describe the differences in certifications between Fair Trade, Organic, etc and show that all the certifications have their complexities and downsides - nothing is perfect. I don't think I could reproduce it everything he said, but for a brief overview: Fair Trade FAQ

I think at this point before I describe our last meeting, I should just say that at this point we'd encountered a lot of social justice issues in Nica - labor practices, sweatshops, economic imbalances, injust political policies (both the US & Nica), the injustices within the coffee and textile markets, relgious prejudices, and societal problems...just to name a few. The group had many discussions about how attempts to solve these problems seemed inadequate, how the complexities of the problem could/should/might be solved, what the best way for people of faith could respond, what justice really looks like, and how to be hopeful amidst an unhopeful world. Needless to say, we had a lot on our minds.

Well, if anyone could have picked us up and sent us off with a charge for change it was Father Fernando Cardinel, a Jesuit priest who has spent his life working for the power of Nicaragua and was the architect of the National Literacy Campaign. He was amazing. He talked about his sense of mission and how God led him to serve the Nicraguan people. He also shared the story of how he became a part of a political movement that got him expelled from the Jesuits, but resulted in him gathering 60,000 young people together to go out into the countrysides to teach literacy. In 5 months, the 50% rate of illiteracy went down to 12.9%. The UN awarded the effort their highest award! Let me just give some quotes...

Through his work when he was young, he "began to understand that the pain and sadness of the people [of Nicaragua] and concluded that, 1) poverty in Latin America was unbearable and unacceptable. As a human being I could not accept this suffering - it had to be changed. 2) Jesus came to reveal to us his father, the God of love and tenderness for the poor. God heard the cry of the suffering and acted...If I say that I love my brothers and sisters, but I do nto see my brothers and sisters [suffering], than I am living a lie."

"We are defeated soliders of an invincible cause, we only have one life! Do not waste it!"

"Do something important for your community, your family, your country, your world!"

"Commit yourselves to the holy, noble causes, so that one day your children can be proud of you."

"To serve is joy."


If this man can be hopeful after dedicating his entire life to the poor, than certainly we can too! It was certainly a blessing to hear him speak and to receive such encouragement as we prepared to return back home.

The next day we got up bright and early...got on a plane and left Managua for the good ole' USA.

I'd love to say that was the whole trip (especially because if you actually read this entire blog entry you probably think we were gone a month!), but I know I've left important things out. Which is why #1-you should totally show up to SALT meetings this fall to hear more and get active yourselves! #2-you should ask all trip members (Pastor Cunningham, Ben Cunningham, Eric Matul, Anni Metz, Liz Coyne, Marcus Chafee, Liz Skrocki, Amanda Kraft, Megan Schuette, Matt Weber, and me - Hannah Cartwright) for stories, pictures and updates. Because I didn't even have space to fill you on our adventures with Nica nightlife, shopping in the marketplace, the sights of Managua, or the food! #3-If you're excited by this point, interested in learning more, or just really bored this summer...check out the links throughout this post, and below to get some ideas about how we Americans can work for justice in Nicaragua and Central America!

And post your comments and ideas...let's get some SALT shakin' action going! Thanks for reading andI'll see you in a month or so!

United Students Against Sweatshops
Sweatshop Watch
Behind the Label (start checking your clothes, where were they made? how much do you think the person who made your shirt, jeans, shoes, etc got paid? We made a habit of this on our trip.)
The Campus Living Wage Project
Equal Exchange
Fair Trade Federation

God's peace be with you and all your summer endeavors!