myers@uwmacc.UUCP (Latitudinarian Lobster) (11/01/85)
Thoughts on Nicaraguan Organizations Sixth of an eight part series. In this article I would like to convey some general impressions of various organizations of importance in today's Nicaragua. The obvious place in which to start is the Catholic Church, as the overwhelming majority of Nicaraguans are Catholic. While I myself am not, I've attended a number of masses in the US because my sister-in- law is a devout Catholic. The only Sunday in which our group was in Managua we attended a so-called `popular mass' at the Iglesia de Santa Mari'a de Los Angeles, a recently built church in one of the poorer barrios of the city, whose contruction and decoration was done by Italians. The interior is beautifully decorated with colorful murals, including one of Saint Francis. My favorite was one with young Nicaraguans strug- gling uphill on a flagstone paved road between the figures of Sandino (hero of the fight against US marines in the late 20's and early 30's, assassinated by the first Somoza) and Carlos Fonseca (the most loved of the martyr's of the revolution and a founder of the FSLN). While the form of the mass was virtually identical to those in the US that I had attended, the content and the music was much dif- ferent, closer to the lives of the people of the barrio. The Latin music was of high quality and heartfelt, especially ``Nicaragua, Nicaraguita'', which reminded me alot of ``America the Beautiful.'' The mass which we attended was a special one in solidarity with the Chilean people, who haved lived under the brutal dictatorship of Pino- chet for 12 years. The guests of honor were Chilean women who had lost children and husbands to the dictatorship and were now living in Managua - many of the prayers centered on their plight and that of their country. Finally, the prayers for the living and the dead included Miguel Obando y Bravo, the archbishop of Nicaragua, and Pope John Paul II, in spite of the ongoing conflicts between much of the Nicaraguan church and the church hierarchy. Unfortunately, I was only in Managua for one Sunday - when I return to Nicaragua I would like to go to one of the more traditional masses given by the archbishop. Many are the popular organizations in the country - in the last article I discussed at length the CDS, but there is a strong system of workers' unions, a strong women's organization called AMNLAE (Associacio'n Mujeres Nicaraguenses - Luisa Amanda Espinosa ), and an educational system which utilitizes the schools for three sets of stu- dents a day, morning, afternoon, and evening. Managua has three news- papers, Barricada (the official paper of the FSLN), El Nuevo Diario (``A new newspaper for the new man''), and La Prensa (the paper with the editorial policy furthest to the right) - I liked all of them, especially the cultural / historical sections which they all have on Saturdays. Unfortunately, two of the Saturday papers that I have are from the day following the second of the major earthquakes which recently struck Mexico City - one of the headlines proclaimed: ``Mex- ico Like Managua in 1972: Apocalyptic!'' There are also quite a number of political parties, with signs and grafitti everywhere. Among them are the PSN (Socialist), PCdeN (Communist), FSLN (which has 60% of the delegates in the current national assembly), PLI (Liberal), PCD (Conservative), and the Coordi- nadora coalition of smaller right-wing parties. The National Assem- bly is currently working on drafts of the new constitution, which will have to be ratified by the people of the country. Managua is much like Madison in that there are a large number of people employed in the state sector of the economy; in the national ministries, in education, and in government owned companies. MIFIN (the Ministry of Finance) seemed well run, with high moral and friendly people - the bulletin board, for example, sported health notices, birthdays, and results of the recent chess tournament. One of the most impressive things which I saw while in Managua was organ- ized by the Ministry of Health (Ministerio de Salud, or MINSA), up to its neck in combatting a severe epidemic of dengue fever, which is spread by mosquitos. On one weekday, 20,000 young people were organ- ized to go around the city to sprinkle abate (for combatting mosqui- tos) in stagnant water in an effort to eliminate the mosquito from the city. Also, there were ads in all the newspapers telling people what they could do to combat the little buggers. Oddly enough, one common haven for mosquitos is a legacy of the Somoza days - let me explain. Before the revolution, the nice homes of Managua were all owned by members of the upper class, who could afford them. As they became more and more frightened by the growing outbreak of popular hostility to the regime upholding their interests, they took measures to protect their homes. One of those measures involved walling in their patios and putting a version of barbed wire on top of the walls - cemented in bottoms from broken glass jars and bottles. These little water traps now make excellent havens for mosquito young. For those of you interested in the Social Sciences, I ran into two institutes doing interesting work. INIES, the Instituto de Inves- tigaciones Economicas y Sociales, does general social and economic research on all of Latin America, including the Caribbean. They pub- lish a monthly bulletin, Pensamiento Propio , which should be carried by Memorial Library soon. The other organization is CIDCA, Centro de Investigaciones y Documentacio'n de la Costa Atla'ntica, which researches questions related to the Atlantic Coast, which has a large Indian and Black population. For instance, CIDCA explores questions about bilingualism for costen~os, how voting in the national elections differed from other parts of the country, and how regional autonomy for the coast can be effected within the Republic of Nicaragua. Their bi-monthly publication, WANI, has articles in all the languages spoken on the coast - Sumu, Miskito, Spanish, and English. Many of you may remember the visit to Madison last year of Ray Hooker, a representa- tive in the National Assembly from the southern half of the costal zone, who was kidnapped for a period by contras, and who is featured in part of an article in English discussing the relationship between Creole and English in the most recent WANI. COFARMA, a government owned pharmaceutical wholesale company that I worked for seemed to be organized in much the same manner that the University is here - everyone is paid directly by the government (only it's twice monthly, in cash), real money is shuttled between the organization and its customers, it is run on a non-profit basis, and people care about the quality of work for reasons other than personal advancement. An interesting, if trivial seeming difference is that all janatorial work is done during the day at COFARMA, while everyone else is working. The floors are swept everywhere twice daily, which makes a good time for a coffee break for the more technically oriented workers. All in all, I was impressed with the organization, friendliness, and diversity of the organizations which I came in contact with, but my encounters have left me with a voracious desire to learn more. Next: Computing in Nicaragua.