Wi wie a livin (our way of life)

Fishin' trip with my Caribbean host sister

I feel like I just got back from another country. And if I'd made this journey 116 years ago, I would have. What do I mean? Well, just because I think it's fascinating, indulge me in a brief(ish) history lesson before we get to the rest of the pretty pictures. (Also, my album is up here on FB, and my friend Ryan, who takes gorgeous pictures, has a blog here)

Before 1894, the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, about 50% of the land of Nicaragua today, was the Kingdom of Mosquitia, a protectorate of the British Empire. While the Spanish conquered the Pacific side in the 1500s and proceeded with traditional conquest procedure (horrific decimation of native peoples and culture), they left the marshy, less-accessible Atlantic coast alone. The Brits sailed in and established a relatively healthy relationship with the ethnically diverse peoples of the Atlantic, helping the Mosquitia people share their abundant natural resources with the world. The costeños prospered and their cultures thrived. Unlike the Pacific coast, which is mainly populated by mestizos (mixture of Spanish conquistadores with Pacific indigenous groups), the Atlantic coast still has a wide variety of surviving indigenous groups and a large population of afro-descendents, such as the Garifuna and the Kriol (Creole).

Then in 1894 Name Zelaya, the left-of-center president/dictator of Nicaragua at the time, waltzed in and decided to "unite" the country. Which, according to him, meant exploiting the natural resources of the Atlantic while denying its residents equal rights and forcing them all to learn Spanish and abandon the cultures they'd managed to maintain for so long. From enjoying a relatively high standard of life, the Caribbean coast quickly became the most impoverished part of the country. And so it went for 80 years.

Then came the Sandinista Revolution. After overthrowing the Somoza dictatorship, they promised the Atlantic Coast "autonomy." But what did "autonomy" really mean? It took 8 years to come up with a satisfactory definition, but in 1987, the Atlantic Coast legally became an autonomous region. Although still a part of Nicaragua, they would have control over their own natural resources, judicial system, administration of education, etc. "Unity through diversity," they declared. It sounds really lovely. But then the Sandinistas were defeated in 1990, and the more conservative governments of the next 16 years had no real interest in helping a bunch of Indians and Black folk take back control over valuable land they lost almost 100 years before.

So we arrive at today, with a legally autonomous Caribbean Coast that is still immensely dependent on the Pacific and that still finds its natural resources exploited by "the Spaniards," (that's what many costeños still call their compatriots from the other coast). They are an immensely proud people, who are fighting to reclaim and maintain their cultures and finally execute the "autonomy" they won 23 years ago. Still, of all the histories we've learned about so far, theirs is perhaps the happiest. Yes, they suffered a massive blow during 80 years of oppression, and they still have a huge way to go to return to the position of prosperity they deserve, but the reality is that theirs is the rare case in which a group of relatively powerless native people managed to resist colonization and keep their communities and cultures largely intact to the present day. Their dedication to the preservation of their culture is truly inspirational.

Transportation to the coast: 6 hour bus ride + 2 hours in a panga. So fun. I felt like I was playing Amazon Trail (hmm, that reference was probably lost on most of you...). Zipping down a huge river, passing tiny little huts and canoes with smiling fishermen. Oh, but I lied in my previous post - there is a road that connects the coasts we could have taken. It just sucks.

Bluefields. Capital of the Southern Atlantic Autonomous Region, where the horses eat watermelon. This year's afro-descendent Miss Nicaragua winner was from here, which, according to her, means that racism no longer exists in Nicarauga. Hooray!

Pearl Lagoon, another hour's panga ride from Bluefields, and our home for 3 nights. We were here on our own, staying with Mr. Wesley, who also organized the chats we had with local leaders here.

There's a huge debate among residents of the autonomous region about the proper language in which to educate their children. Many people in Pearl Lagoon speak Kriol, a modified/simplified English, that we could understand when we read, but was totally incomprehensible in speech. Some in the community want their kids to be educated in their "native tongue," while others say that Kriol is just a bastardized version of English that won't help their kids in the work place. Of course, they also have to learn Spanish to communicate with the rest of the country. Unrelated: We ran into the 25-year-old delegate from the Ministry of Education who spoke with us this first day in his official tucked-in Ministry polo shirt at a local bar the last night in a wife-beater. He danced drunkenly with a bunch of us and loudly shared his rather passionate views about the lack of true autonomy on the coast.

Oh my god. The food was amazing. Everything drenched in coconut. It's a good thing I decided to give up on vegetarianism this semester though - everything had seafood in it. A 5 pound bucket of shrimp in Pearl Lagoon costs 25 córds. That works out to about 25 cents/pound.