Mariposa Spanish School’s Weblog

La Mariposa has never looked so green….the trees, plants and flowers that we have been planting in every conceivable space are now giving us their full glory. It has got to the point where it is almost impossible to plant anything which requires full sunlight as we have put in so many trees and they grow so ashtonishly fast that La Mariposa now bears no resemblance whatsoever to the vast dusty building site of only 3 years ago – now unregconisably shady, green and lush.

Of course the wet season which started a couple of months ago has brought everything on enormously – it is mostly raining at night so the mornings are cool, sunny and totally delightful. We have apparently just had our first passing hurricane (Andrea or something similar) but it just gave us a short, but torrential downpour last night.

We have rented a small piece of land way up in Palo Solo (up on the ridge behind us) and have planted – naturally enough – beans,  some corn, a root veggie called quesique and we are going to put in a couple of different kinds of squash. I am battling to disuade the guys from fumigation, and succeeded in persuading them to instead give employment to a group of local men to weed the land  It is on an incredibly steep hillside, I tell you I have so much more respect for the utterly backbreaking work that campesinos have to do here and in other poor countries. But we shall have our first (almost) organic bean crop at the end of July – just about two months. Amazing.  I am planning to save up and buy some land in the same place to set up a totally organic farm, maybe even with a small amount of livestock. On the same subject we seem to be doing well now with our chickens, getting between 7 and 10 eggs per day which is very exciting……they are called here “huevos del amor” literally love eggs!! To distinguish them from battery eggs.

The Mariposa animal population is generally stable now – at 5 adult cats, 6 dogs – we did take in Foxy from the streets of Granada but she is no problem. Unlike Molly who is still the toe-rag of the group – if she isn’t jumping at someone she is chasing chickens and/or ducks. And we have built large (and I mean large) cages for the 4 capuchin monkeys who are now so tame that we probably can’t release them. And of course the very noisy parrotts. One of the monkeys amuses everyone by living outside the cage but he likes to stay close to his friends so he doesn’t go far. Just destroys any tree or plant he can find – he loves to hide in the orange tree and throw down baby oranges just for fun!! So apart from the fact that two of our mares are about to foal (I am rather nervous as one of them, Coralee, lost her last foal in birth so fingers crossed for her), we have no current plans to increase the number of animals. People-wise all is good – we had a very hard time in May, a disastrous combination of events which even those of you with top-notch business degrees would have had difficulty foreseeing! Our microbus blew up and had to be replaced (took every dollar we had saved) and the numbers of students just collapsed on us. Whether because of the dip in the world economy or because its the first month in the rainy season, I have no idea. But we do seem to be recovering and the workers I had to lay off for a while are now almost all back at their posts!! The Nicaraguan news now is full of doom about the forthcoming loss of jobs here, clearly the collapse of capitalism will hit poor “Third World” people harder, just as its rise did! Which, on the tiny scale of the Mariposa, makes everything that we can do even more important.

PANAMA PRE-SCHOOL UPDATE – 5^th October 2008

Last Friday was a very special day – the current group of guests at the Mariposa helped to organise the inauguration of the little (but perfectly formed) pre-school extension which we have built (well, Bismark, whom many of you know actually did the building of course) with the help and donations of a number of friends of Panama School and ex-Mariposa students. The extension has been painted in a number of very bright colours, chosen by the pre-schoolers. We had enough paint to do the already existing pre-school classroom as well, so the whole area looks really bright and cheerful now.

 The extension has been fitted out with soft, washable, flooring (consisting of yoga mats which a few of our guests donated); and Bismark has constructed some terrific shelves. They are made out of the same cane which we have used in the hotel bathroom doors and small cupboards – cane instead of wood as it is much more sustainable (and somewhat cheaper) and also we can buy it from a local farmer. The group of current Mariposa students had arranged all of the donations of stationary, pencils, paints, toys on the shelves  – it looks really great. Hector, looking stunning in a blue flowery shirt – not at all his usual school uniform! –  said he had no idea I had been secretly amassing such a lot of stuff in the Mariposa library!! 

The opening ceremony itself was, as you can imagine, very moving and I just kept wishing that you all could have been there too. It was quite formal in the Nicaraguan style of doing these things; with various dignitaries saying their  few words; the kids singing the national anthem several times; all interspersed with music and folkloric dancing, all arranged by Hector I think. It was just lovely and I don’t think I was the only one with tears in my eyes. My contribution was to cut a piece of blue crepe paper with a pair of kid’s scissors and declare the whole thing open for business.

Then everyone traipsed off for a nutritious meal, donated by the current group of Mariposa students, accompanied with a fresco of Mariposa organic papaya…..

NOW……we are not quite finished yet!!!

·        Hector has asked if we can help extend the rainwater collection system which has been installed. Rainwater is one thing there is no shortage of right now…..and we will happily send over a bit of tubing plus Bismark for a day or two.

·        The plan is to put big, squashy, comfy cushions in the new area for kids to sit around informally in a circle – we have purchased the materials and will get them made up this week.

·        We are going to try and buy some more second hand stuffed toys, tennis balls etc. in the Jinotepe market so the kids get to play sometimes as well as read.

FOR THE NEXT TWO ITEMS WE STILL NEED MORE HELP…….

• We can purchase stationary etc here in Nicaragua – what we CANNOT GET IS SPANISH BOOKS FOR YOUNG CHILDREN. We need more of those – you do not need to send a huge parcel (actually better not to use the big transporters like DHL as it costs a fortune to get the boxes out of customs), just a package of one story book, or picture dictionary, BUT SIX COPIES……so the kids can read the same book together in small groups. You can send packages of up to six items to me via the normal post perfectly well. Maybe instead of a Xmas pressie you could send me six Spanish language children’s books……

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL…….

• I have arranged with MINED (the Ministry for education) and the head teacher of the school that they will employ a full time pre-school teacher or, more likely, two part time teachers. We will pay the cost of this. Which will be in the region of $80 per week. So any contribution to this would be gratefully received….I will send my UK bank details to anyone who wants to contribute.

The address for parcels is;

La Mariposa Escuela de Espanol

San Juan de la Concepcion

Masaya

Nicaragua

Once again, many many thanks to everyone who has contributed time, energy, fun,, money, donations, goodwill to the Panama School. Hector and the kids send their love!!!

Municipal elections are due to be held in Nicaragua in November. On the global scale they won’t register as of much importance but actually they, as everything here, reflect the international imbalance of power. Within Nicaragua, they are arousing a level of passion in some parts of the country leading to a degree of violence with Sandinista supporters recently in Leon attacking some members of an opposition march and burning a couple of the oppostion leader’s vehicles. It is a real shame to see this because mostly the democratic political process is pretty good here and certainly no more (or less) corrupt than in many parts of the world (including so-called developed countries). Here in La Concha the worst effect so far has been the dreadful, and very loud, music which accompanies the campaigning groups, riding around advertsing their party from the back of a pick up truck. But it is not simply a Nicaraguan issue – as the situation is made much more volatile by the fact that the US government still channels funds to several oppostion parties/groups, as it has done since at least the 1980s, which incenses both Sandinista fanatics and many “ordinary Nicaraguans”. People with whom I have discussed the issue here in La Concha are firmly of the opinion that, whatever else, Nicaragua should be able to work out its political processes without the interference of the world’s superpower and  Nicaragua’s too close and overbearing neighbour.

It will of course be important to us at the Mariposa who is elected Mayor of La Concha – the Sandinista candiadate has a good reputation of anti-corruption and I am hoping he will be sympathetic to the idea of promoting the benefits of a (genuine – there is a lot of the fake variety around)) eco-tourism. When the Mariposa is full (and we are now fully booked for most of November and January next year with a number of bookings in December and Febuary – October is proving to be our hardest month, I think) we can employ over 25 people which means economic help to them and their families, plus the money that they and the Mariposa directly spend in the community. We have just, as a small example of what we try and do, started buying milk from a local cow via a middle-woman which means a few pesos/pence/cents more every day directly into a poor family and via them, into the local community. Not much, in the grand scale of things, but better than a slap in the face!! That all makes us the largest local employer after the Town Hall. So we have some clout and I am hopeful we can work together with the new mayor (as we have been able to some extent with the existing mayor) to work on strategies for increasing employment and conserving the environment – without which there could be no eco-tourism in its real sense!!

Not to be confused with eco-tourism, sex tourism has hit the Mariposa. We now have experienced two examples (that I know of) of aging women quite deliberately approaching one or more of the guys who work at the Mariposa with the intention of having (paid though not neccessarily in money) sex. I don’t think we have had any men yet – they seem to prefer the city ambience of Granada and San Juan del Sur where the sex trade, including child sex trade, is flourishing. Though maybe they are better at operating clandestinely! One woman actually told me what she had done. I do not know her motivation for telling me of her exploits, I think possibly she is racist enough to think I would not care and would collude with her. Actually I threw her out. Some time later, she sent me an email saying she had just wanted to know she was still desirable! It never, for one moment, occured to me that this would be one of the problems here – but it seems as if the ways the developed world has of taking from the people of the so-called “Third World” is never-ending in its variety of objects of pure theft, from natural resources to cheap labour to sex. I have a feeling I will get some comments re this!!

I recently received a newsletter from the excellent Nicaragua Network with the following information -  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced on Sept. 11 the release of the first US$28.4 million of its loan agreement with Nicaragua and increased the total of US$120.4 million by an additional US$10 million citing its approval of Nicaragua’s performance. In the communiqué, Takatoshi Kato, one of the Fund’s managing sub-directors, described the macroeconomic policy of Nicaragua as “prudent” and the economic program as “generally satisfactory.”

He did note, however, that growth has slowed and inflation has reached double digits, principally because of the rise in the price of food and oil, while the trade deficit has widened. “It will be crucial,” he said, “to control public expenditures during the upcoming electoral period.” He also repeated the IMF’s neoliberal agenda advising the government to “contain wage pressures” and not to cede ground in current discussions over the national minimum wage. Nicaragua’s wages for essential public service jobs continue to be the lowest in Central America. On Sept. 12 El Nuevo Diario reported a shortage of nurses whose US$200 monthly salary is causing them to migrate to higher paying countries.

Those of you who have visited the Panama School with us will know how much Nicaragua can afford to cut its public expenditure!!! I wish I could show the IMF around!!!

Translation By: Camilla Born

In the small village of San Juan Del La Concha, Nicaragua, tucked somewhere between the winding road to La Concha and the community park, is a small dirt road that leads to La Mariposa, School of Spanish. Daniel, an employee, rocks slowly back and forth on the patio. His skinny body is tossed to one side of the chair. 

He feels quite comfortable here now, “among friends.” He peers up, his baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, smiles, then quickly covers his face with his fingers as he talks in rapid Spanish. Every other sentence he breaks into a smile and brushes his head to the side. 

In his life, he is not used to people asking him questions. He is not used to this kind of attention, for people to be interested in his story. 

It wasn’t but a few weeks ago that another employee caught Daniel stealing plastic off the grounds that was covering some earth. When the owner Paulette Gouge, a thin British woman with a who-the-hell-do-you-think-you-are attitude, came to inquire why he was stealing, she found he had a rather good answer. 

“He told me that he needed the plastic to fix his roof because, when it rained, he couldn’t seem to keep his children dry,” Paulette later said. “I said, ’screw the earth, take the plastic.’”

Daniel now recounts the incident with much delight.

“She told me I could have a job,” he said. “I didn’t think she would give me an opportunity like that. I hadn’t had one like that before.” 

Paulette told him to be there the next morning at eight. He was there by seven. 

Like Daniel, 28% of the population of Nicaragua live below the poverty level. He grew up in a poor family in Managua, with little chance to attend school. He got to the fourth year of secondary school and had to quit to start working. 

“When my daughter turns six, she will go to school. I want her to be what I wasn’t able to become. I wasn’t able to succeed at what I wanted to do in my life.”

Daniel has two daughters, four and two, with his wife and one son with another woman. His two daughters live with him and his wife in Managua, while his son lives in La Concha. He provides for all three. 

Daniel’s conversation is interrupted by another traveler gathering around him. He blushes and turns his head to the side but says its fine. They all have questions for him.

One points at his tattoo — a red tear drop outlined in black.  Daniel reaches up and touches it. 

“This is for my uncle, to remember how much I cried when he died.”

Daniel then says that it was his uncle who raised him. 

Another asks if his life has changed since working at La Mariposa. He smiles and says yes a few times, as if in unbelief. 

“Yes …” He paused for a second and lifts his hand to his face. “Since the moment I started working here, things have been better.” 

Daniel says he’s bought new shoes for his kids and food for his family including rices, beans — the regular Nicaraguan fare he says — and many vegetables. He also bought his wife bread to sell in Managua. 

When he came to La Mariposa, Daniel was desperate for work but he knew with “God’s help,” he would find something.

“With human beings, if its not one thing, its another,” he said. “Now, my problem is not money.”

His problem is that his house, made entirely out of Zinc, is deteriorating. He says the extra money he is saving is to buy new Zinc for his home. 

“But,” he adds, “when I wasn’t working, I was always wondering when I would be working again.”

Forty-seven percent of the population of Nicaragua are under-employed, while another 4% are unemployed. Daniel makes more than 50% of the population — who less than two U.S. dollars per day — but still falls short of the basic standard of living. 

“My girls have more food now. Its better and sufficient but its still not enough.”

Daniel was out of work, and now, even with work, he has many debts to pay back. For him, no work means no food for his family. Here, he has no kind of protection such as social security, when he finds himself suddenly out of work, which he says can happen at any moment. But not just work, he could be out of house and land at any moment, too. Two weeks ago, Daniel’s land lord sold the land he was living on and gave him a few days to move from San Marcos to Managua — a hour trek — with all his belongings. 

He packed his house into the bed of a small two door pick-up truck, tarp, logs and all. In it were two beds, a small book shelf, three logs that made up the frame of his house and the pots and pans he owned, plus the family pig. Almost all of his belongings fit into the small bed frame of the truck, while he, his wife and his two daughters rode on top of the stuff down to Managua. 

“It would have been expensive to move, to hire a truck, but Paulette let us use hers.”

Daniel fears for the same thing in Managua. He paid a one time cost of five hundred Cordobas or twenty-five U.S. dollars — almost a week’s pay — to live in the house that he is in now. But the downside is that Daniel and his family do not own the land. They could be forced to move out if it was sold. 

“I hope we can stay there a long time,” he says.

As for now, Daniel has a good job at La Mariposa, where he feels he is among friends and spends his weekends taking his girls to a park with his wife. 

“My dream is to keep working as long as I have the opportunity.”

The last two weeks at the Mariposa have been thought provoking to say the least. We just had our first tropical storm – Alma was its name –  ie not so serious as a hurricane but pretty bad nonetheless. The effect in this locality was mostly rain – 24 hours of non-stop tropical downpour, makes me worry especially when I am in bed at night! that the entire building is going to be washed away and I am always surprised to emerege and find the structure still more or less in place. The rain sounds particularly loud because of the zinc roof – you would think I would be used to it by now……Fortunately we planted our seeds after the worst of the downpours, and I have now, thanks to Marlena the gardener, discovered the system that is used here of banking up the earth and then making little channels across it so the excess water runs away without taking the seeds with it! So we are hoping not to lose too many this time - having planted loads of different types of lettuce (yum), brocoli, herbs, peppers, etc and we are going to make another separate garden for the many kinds of squash seeds which I have been sent…..

Back to the storm for a moment - it is of course a little scary to say the least that storms are already hitting in May that really should not be here until Octrober. Ismael, who was on duty here during the worst of the rain, commented that the resaon we did not get the high winds here is that we still, have some lovely (my word!!!) big trees acting as breakers – yet another reason to continue with our reaforestation efforts…..and I am also very grateful that my neighbors haven’t completely denuded their land so we dont get massive erosion around here. There was some serious flooding – San Marcos, Jinotepe, Masaya were all on the TV news with flooded streets and houses but the worst hit were towns on the Pacific coast which got strong winds as well as the rain. It was heartbreaking watching pictures of children and elderly folk being carried out of their homes in the barrios of Managua by the army - as Guillermina says “why do the poorest always seem to get hit the hardest”!!!!! Answers on a postcard please…..

The other big news is of course the ongoing food prices crisis – I am sure everyone has noticed prices going up but imagine the effect when you already spend 80% of your income on food…..thanks to long term factors such as the outrageous agricultural subsidies in the US and Europe which have put many a “Third Wolrd” farmer out of business and now, on top of all of that, is this unspeakably unjust (I cannot find words strong enough) favouring of bio-fuels over the production of food. ENCA (Environmental Network for Central America) says;

The case of Guatemala, a country targeted for big biofuels production, is an exampple of what is happening in the region. Ten years ago it was self sufficient in food production…..Sugar cane (for biofuel production) increased by 99% from 1990 to 2005 while …beans , corn and wheat – basic food staples – decliened dramatically; beans by 26%, corn by 22% and wheat by 99%.

 And the same is happening, albeit somewhat more slowly in Nicaragua. Thank goodness some of the nastier capitalists of the world still believe this beautiful little country is run by a bunch of socialists (oh,were it only the case!!!) and so don’t like to “invest” here. How can we put the needs of the West to transport itself hither and thither – often without a thought for the consequences – above the lives of Marlena, Ismael and their children, And they, of course are at present anyway the lucky ones with incomes to still be able to buy food.

However, I remain optimistic. The mariposa is flourishing, there is so much happening here that it will need another blog……a less polemic one I promise!!!

Its been a good while since I did my first blog and I am not convinced I remember  sufficient of the technology to manage it again…..life in the Mariposa continues to mirror what happens in and to Nicaragua in general as well, of course, as having its own idiosyncrasies. Still one of the hardest things about being here is talking to the people who turn up at the gate looking for work, pretty much at any price, and having to turn them away. A young man came by this morning, he has been working in a Zona Franca – the enormous factories which now exist all over the so-called “Third World” and which produce the T shirts and pyjamas you can buy for a couple of dollars or so…….they may seem cheap but actually they are hugely expensive in terms of what it costs people here to produce them (health and wellbeing, plus a totally crap wage). Anyway, he couldnt make ends meet and wanted to know if I could employ him to do anyhting…….on the positive side some of you will remember Francisco who worked here last year, and left because of generally not great and sometimes completely pissed behaviour, is going to come back on a trial period. I cant really afford it but I cant leave him destitute as he has his first child, has given up the booze and is desperate.

We are now into the third week of May and a total transport strike lasting a couple of weeks has just finished. The bus drivers couldn’t afford to pay the rise in petrol prices and they, and most of the press, blamed the Ortega government for being so inept that they couldn’t solve the crisis. Ortega actually offered them petrol at cost price, thus saving almost 30%, (all Nicaraguas petrol is imported, some of it from Venezuela at cheaper prices) at the beginning of the stike but this was refused; though it was pretty much what everybody settled for in the end. The whole thing of course hit the working poor the hardest – the rich and the international elite drove about in their cars and pick ups and only noticed that the roads were much quieter but, for example, people who are dependent on the buses to get their produce to market really suffered. And of course the price of basic foodstuffs (at crisis level anyway) went even higher. Our weekly market shop to Jinotepe was interspersed with comments from Ismael, who accompanies me to buy fruit and veg etc, about the ridiculous price of tomatoes, at four times their usual value. However the bus drivers returned to work this Monday, following an excellent speech from Ortega – well, actually it was terrible in terms of delivery as his pauses are often longer than his sentences………but his analysis of the international situation leading to the rise in petrol prices was, in my view, spot on. He talked about the whole range of international impacts on the situation here – including the international rise in oil prices, obviously, but also the use of crops for biofuel and the effect of this on the price of food. Predictably much of the press responded to this as Ortega admitting he had no power to influence the stikers. The next day they accepted the 30% offer (mas o menos). I have a sinking feeling that this will inevitably mean cuts elsewhere and it was saddening to see that, when I went to the Panama school yesterday the government donations of food (part of the Zero Hambre campaign) seemed to have come to a halt. I don’t know if there is a connection.

More to come!!