Grammar, conversation, politics

Wednesday July 13

The grammar lessons are important but a little tedious; I knew I would enjoy the conversation classes more. Two hours going through the uses of ser vs. estar or por vs. para: just not my idea of a good time. Then I get to help Zoe with her homework, which helps me see how much I’ve actually retained of the lesson. It’s hard for Zoe, because the grammar lessons are given in Spanish, so she’s having to encounter all kinds of terms in Spanish that she hasn’t even learned in English yet: infinitivos, tiempos progressivos, etc. But conversation class can be fun: Alba yesterday talked me through the medicinal uses of various plants: rue warmed over a fire can be used for toothache or earache; a “soup” made from cilantro cooked in water is good for upset stomach; three small leaves of salvia can be put on the forehead to treat headache. People say, “Tenia fiebre porque la hoja está quemada.” (I had a fever because the leaf is burnt—it turns to a grayish dark color.)

We also talked about the politics surrounding the a recent assassination in Guatemala of an Argentinian songwriter, Facundo Cabral. It was a drug-dealer hit, supposedly aimed against the Nicaraguan accompanying Facundo, a guy called Fariña, who owns a lot of nightclubs and seems to have been involved in money-laundering.

Today I had Elisa for conversation again and she walked me through some recent politics. We got onto this partly through talking about the Guatemala killing of Facundo, which led first to a discussion of which writers in English could stack up against Ruben Dario for Nicaragua, and then to a discussion of the great songwriter of the Nicaraguan revolution, Carlos Mejia Godoy. His songs—about the revolution, but also about family, women, love—have been the most popular in Nicaragua. But in the mid-90s, he broke with the Daniel Ortega, perhaps because the Sandinistas didn’t help him when he was in trouble. It’s not clear what was wrong— possibly throat cancer?—he kept singing, but he definitely was in a rough patch and Ortega didn’t help. So when Daniel Ortega ran for re-election, Carlos Mejia said his songs could not be used in the campaign—only one song written specifically for the party FLSN. Next Tuesday, July 19, is the annual celebration of “the triumph of the revolution.” In the old days, Carlos Mejia would always sing as a part of the celebrations, but not anymore.

Elisa, being a science teacher in training, comes to conversation with a notebook full of facts and figures drawn from recent newspaper articles, and a mind stuffed with Nicaraguan history. Under Somoza, illiteracy rates were at 80-90%. The Sandinistas started a campaign to end illiteracy, and with mandatory adult education, they managed to bring illiteracy down to about 10% (despite the US economic blockade, Elisa notes). Then came 15 years of conservative governments. When Violetta Chamorro (CIA backed, I think) came into power, she cut adult education programs but maintained children’s education at Sandinista standards. She was followed by Arnoldo Alemán and Enrique Bolaños. Alemán introduced the idea of “autonomous schools,” which means the parents have to pay a monthly fee to support the school and mandatory school uniforms; Bolaños maintained these policies. The education rate (I think this means literacy) fell 70% over those ten years. When Daniel Ortega came back into power, he reinstituted adult education programs and made education and health free. “It’s not much education,” says Elisa, “but it’s something.”

Politics overall are a little depressing for Elisa. She thinks Daniel Ortega’s heart is in the right place, but his representatives are corrupt. There are some aid programs—all coming from Venezuela, and Hugo Chavez is struggling against cancer—but the aid is not equally distributed. In the local municipality, for instance, the governor gives all of the aid—roofing panels, cows, pigs, hens, pelibuey (something between a goat and a sheep)—to the same circle of people.