Proyecto CODESCO clases de inglés = va, Día de la Revolución

Between travelling on the weekends and what I have been doing at work, I feel like I am living two different lives. Last week at work was surprisingly slow. I say surprising because last Monday I found out that my organization and I would be receiving full funding for the grant I wrote to start offering english classes at the centre. When I enthusiastically told my co-workers this the didn´t have much of a reaction. They still seem to be confused about why full funding does not mean 1,000 dollars, and I had to explain yet again that we only needed 720.85 for our project, so that is all I had asked for. I am rather perplexed by the whole situation. Roles seemed to have reversed and while I am now anxious to get the project rolling, my co-workers seem to be a bit indifferent. It scares me a little because I don´t want to promise the youth of the centre anything that can´t be followed through with in the future. While I could go on venting my frustrations on the subject, I have a feeling that things are going to start picking up this week now that time is going to be more of an issue with me leaving in two and a half weeks.

My frustrations at work were easily forgotten as this weekend was a national holiday celebrating the success of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. After a FSD meeting in Managua on Friday I decided last minute to return with Tara to Chagutillo which is a town full of Sandinista enthusiasts. Chagutillo, located in the district of Matagalpa, is a small town concentrated on one street. The town has a strong sense of community which could be attributed to the fact that everyone seemed to be related one way or another. Friday night everyone gathered on the school basket ball court, a few people gave speeches in memory of the revolution, and the town band played for awhile. Tara´s host family was incredibly nice and had no problem with me staying for a few nights. Saturday was crazy to say the least. We got up somewhat early having been told that a few buses would be taking anyone who wanted to the plaza in Managua where everyone in Nicaragua would be gathering to celebrate the 29^th anniversary of the sandanista revolution. We were told to meet at 7; however growing accustom to Nicaraguan time we showed up 8:30 finally leaving at 9:30. Three vehicles left Chagutillo, two school buses and one flat bed truck that is typically used to carry cattle. The women and children went on one bus and the men spread out between the second school bus and the cattle carrier. Our bus was packed and Tara and I quickly found ourselves the entertainment for a group of four girls and a little boy. Pulling out of Chagutillo onto the main road that heads for Managua the enthusiasm that Nicaraguans had in celebration of the revolution was overwhelming. We joined a brigade of 500 or so vehicles that were shuttling people to Managua from the district of Matagalpa alone. People in shirts displaying Che and Sandino hung out of windows waving the Sandinista flag, two big stripes of black and red. Everything was black and red and people held up two fingers in the sign of peace which in this case also represented the two colours of the Sandinista party. Traffic was slow but everyone was alive in celebration chearing and shouting as other vehicles passed. We were finally starting to make some ground when our bus had to stop short, the bus behind us was not as quick to stop and ran into ours. Besides a few young kids who were startled by the impact everyone was fine and we kept on going. A few miles later the bus driver became concerned with the state of our bus and had us all get off and onto the cattle carrier that had also left from Chagutillo. Twenty or so minutes later we got word that a leak in our bus had caused it to catch on fire. We entered Managua three or so hours later. As we left the truck in Managua Tara and I suddenly found ourselves responsible for the five kids that we had been talking with. This proved to be a struggle throughout the rest of the day, trying to keep track of them in the massive crowed and keep them happy searching for bathrooms and food. The major plus was that having them with me made me stand out a little less especially since I was wearing a lime green shirt that didn´t really blend well with the red and black of everyone else. Throughout the day I was never able to suppress a level of discomfort for experiencing in a celebration that I really had no place in. The US was one of the main sources that led to the foundation of the Somoza dictatorship which is what this revolutionary celebration was against. Among the speakers at the celebration was Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, the president of Guatemala, the president of Paraguay, and others. Hugo Chavez was the key speaker and spoke for around an hour praising Fidel Castro, talking about issues that exist with the US, and about how the Latin American states are becoming increasingly united toward the dream expressed by Simon Bolivar. After Chavez spoke we headed back toward the buses and put the kids on a crowded bus heading for Chagutillo and decided we would prefer going in the cattle carrier that was much less stuffy. We started out sitting on the boards spread across the top of the carrier being soaked by rain, dodging tree branches from the top and avoided a drunk man yelling about some guy named Simon from the bottom. Not too far into the ride an enthusiastic revolutionaries started throwing rocks into our truck. Everyone quickly got off the top boards huddling on the floor for protection. One kid was hit pretty hard on the cheek but there were no other significant injuries. To sort out the affair we pulled into a bus station and there was a lot of arguing and I was pretty scared that a fight was going to break out. In trying to get out of the scene Tara and I moved to the far end of the truck but were called back by Joel (the other FDS intern in Chagutillo) who saw some guy attempting to rob another friend of ours. It was pretty crazy, the rest of the ride Tara´s guy friends from Chagutillo were pretty protective of us and we arrived back to Chagutillo at 1am drenched and tired.

Sunday Tara and I decided to take some time to relax and reflect in Matagalpa which is a beautiful city home to a lot of Sandino pride, a classy humble white cathedral, and some great cafes. I left at noonish for Jinotepe. When I arrived home my host family could help laugh at me because I was visibly filthy and they couldn´t understand why I would every have wanted to go to the plaza on the dia de revolucion.

Well, these entries seem to be getting longer and longer. I am on my lunch break and am writing this is kind of a rush so I hope it makes sense. I only have two more weekends to explore Nicaragua. I really want to check out Estelí in northern Nicaragua but am thinking I should probably be spending time with my host family one of these weekneds, vamos a ver.