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.