a bit more polite than elsewhere. On the love front, I saw couples walking hand in hand, necking publicly and women who unabashedly stared me down. A romantic people, young Nicaraguans are, according to one young lady I talked to, liable to abide their hearts more than their parents or the church, and for whom, to marry for money, is almost sacrilegious—a stance similar to their own political leaders. Neighborhoods are also an odd mixture, flopping from middle-class to poor on the same block. No one escapes the graffiti. The red-over-black slash of the Frente Sandinista Liberacibn Nacional (FSLN) is ubiquitous as well as No Pasaran, (they will not pass!—a message to us Yanquis.) Except for the lack of certain luxuries like light bulbs and soap, life amidst revolution seems quite normal. The Managua MacDonalds is doing a land-office business, Return of the Jedi is playing down the block and campesino (poor farmer) land holdings have jumped from three to 44 percent in five years. I then went to the press center and heard the lovely captain Rosa Pasos give a military briefing. All was not roses. The large map was sprinkled with red arrows indicating counter-revolutionary incursions, some reaching as far as Esteli, 90 miles north of the capitol. She reviewed the statistics for the first three weeks in October: 92 combats, 240 contras and 84 Sandinistas dead, 28 contras captured, 4 civilians dead, 20 wounded and 163 kidnapped, 34 air space violations, etc. Using her pointer efficiently but with a visible absence of military bearings, smiling luxuriously and unintimidated by the hanks of cameras and microphones, she easily fielded the questions. Most importantly there were still no MIGs coming and Bluefields, on the Atlantic coast, was still closed to foreigners. Indeed, the map graphically illustrated that the state of Zelaya, which is the eastern-half of Nicaragua and includes some 200,000 Miskito Indians was under siege. The next day, over a couple of gaseosas (soft drinks), I got a taste of how Machiavellian it really was. Raphael was happy to tell me his convoluted account of things, even though waves of nervousness sometimes played across his slightly weather-beaten, brown face, and living broke in the streets had not afforded him a good night's sleep. He has grown up in the semi-idyllic benign neglect of the Somoza years and became relatively well-to-do as a lobster fisherman. Then a lack of spare parts and international politics strangled the business. His two brothers refused to join the contras and were subsequently killed. This incurred a certain suspicion and, in spite of a professed neutrality, he was arrested, tortured with electricity and nearly drowned by the Sandinistas. Only a magic spell cast into his food by a brujo (witchdoctor) which his sister brought to him in prison initiated his release. They are devoute Christians, he assured me, but the complete lack of doctors makes them wholly dependent on indigenous “medicine.” I guess the brujos double as lawyers as well. I “lent” Raphael some money until he found a job and left town to see the Fiesta de San Geronimo in nearby Masaya. Fog rolled up from Lake Managua as we drove by but the threat of rain did little to dampen the festivities. People in their Sunday best or fully costumed were flocking from all over to see the parade. The town was jammed and the floats bearing brass bands, outrageously dressed individuals or dancers, many of whom were men cross-dressing, had trouble squeezing through. Scores of other revelers in drag, costume or out, marched jubilantly in-between. The colorful panorama was suddenly interrupted by a pair of gigantic oxen towing a black cart suspended high between two 12- foot-wide wheels. Underneath the vehicle hung a bucket filled with motor oil in which sat a completely blackened boy. Above him, the drivers were also covered with oil, and behind the cart, his wrists fettered at the end of a twenty-foot chain, was another “black” youth. Swinging wide arcs on the end of his chain, he sent the crowd screaming in an effort to avoid being stained by one of his “oily” limbs. A tribute to the devil one man told me. My surrealist reverie was pierced by the eyes of a nica (young Nicaraguan woman), staring me down and inviting me into a small courtyard. There for the benefit of a private party, an elderly, highly proficient marimba player was flailing away. Soon I was dancing with all the women and some of the men; swigging down shots of rum—to their wild cheers. One red-cheeked fellow endeavored to educate me in the local dance steps, to more crowd approval, especially when I imitated the apparently gay moves. The young, obviously gay member of the group that had just adopted me, Omar, claimed it was fairly prevalent. Not all the transvestites I saw earlier were gay, he said, some were put up to it by dares or. bets, but homosexuality was condoned by the people and the new government. About eight of us, led by his Aunt Rosaria and including his 14-year-old, dressed- to-kill cousin, Annabella, proceeded to dine, drink and dance our way into the night. About three a.m. I found myself staggering down a country road to grandmother’s house where, disregarding my SOON I WAS DANCING WITH ALL THE WOMEN AND SOME OF THE MEN: SWIGGING DOWN SHOTS OF RUM—TO THEIR WILD CHEERS. ONE REDCHEEKED FELLOW ENDEAVORED TO EDUCATE ME INTHE LOCAL DANCE STEPS, TO MORE CROWD APPEAL, ESPECIALLY WHEN I IMITATED THE APPARENTLY GAY MOVES. protests, they pulled the mattress right out from under her. They plunked that down in the tiny living room between the four over-sized carved rockers (a Masaya specialty) for me and Omar. So while the women nestled in amongst the chilidren, sometimes two or three to a bed and grandma snored on her bed frame, I spent the night suffering the retroactive fire-power of rum and unsuccessfully trying to convince Omar I wasn't gay. The next morning, after I had been brought back to the land of the living by three or four coffees, I marvelled at their hospitality. Grandma beamed benevolently as Omar prepared the typical breakfast of beans and eggs for everyone. Aunt Rosaria’s older son, who was a permanent resident, piled all the rockers onto the beds and mopped the living room. The children, after an initial shyness in my presence, scampered around playing sing-song games. They invited me to come back and stay whenever I felt like it and I left a little groggy but completely refreshed. For some reason I longed for a cool breeze, so after getting rained out one afternoon, I hopped a bus for Matagalpa. In the seat behind me, reading a Bible through a pair of fashionably-framed glasses, I found a recent draftee out of Nicaraguan soldier at ease—“the coolest people I had met in a long time economy school—Francisco. He wasn't at all happy with the government and he made no bones about it irregardless of the fact that the rest of his unit and his comandante were sitting right behind him. His father had a small shop that was devastated by the earthquake and now he sold lottery tickets on the street. Francisco was working himself through university with a job at the Central Bank and fast becoming a yuppy until his untimely draft call. He complained of the absolute paucity of consumer goods, the Marxist economics he had to study, the lack of good novels in the bookstores and the marriage of party and state. According to him, with one-third of the GNP going to the military, the government was breaking the people’s back. In Matagalpa I offered to treat him and his whole unit to a beer, hoping to hear their view on things but they had to report directly. Matagalpa is a wealthy cattle town in the cooler foothills and some of its more spiritual citizens have formed a yoga institute, in the de la Ferrier tradition (a French mystic who came to Latin America in ’47 and had disciples from Guatamala to Peru). I discovered it the next day and after a spiritual-cum-politi- cal discussion, I took a delicious steam bath and left immediately for San Raphael del Norte—the war zone. It was beautiful country, small, steep hills leading up to the rolling high plateau that was Sandino’s old stamping ground—in fact, San Raphael is where he was married in 1933. Some 20 kilometers out of town, waiting at a small dirt fork in the road, I looked up at an overhanging bluff and as my eyes adjusted to the shade, I watched a battalion of guerillas dissolve out of the trees. At least a hundred, some women, and they were all watching me—grinning broadly. It looked a lot cooler up there than on the road waiting for a ride would be, undoubtedly, long in coming, so I climbed up. What a crew!! The comandante had raced back on important business to Managua and they were just bivoacking here until his return. They had been in the mountains for weeks and their camouflage uniforms were ripped and covered with mud. At least half of them were too young for a razor, but even the women were battle-tested and tough. One kid, with grenades hanging off everywhere and an AKM on his back was teasingly poking a woman’s behind as she struggled up the steep, muddy slope. She turned around and whomped him one hard in the shoulder. Other malefemale relations were more relaxed. One couple was snuggling in the grass, and I asked the older, mustachioed fellow holding the machine gun, who seemed, without rank, to be the second in command, what policy was. “As long as they fight” he replied with a twinkle. “But don't all the guys chase the girls at first and when one finally gets her, aren’t the other jealous?” I wondered. “She goes with who she wants,” he said puckering his lips in the couple’s direction, which is actually how they point in Nicaragua, “What can we do?” So, as a small kitchen was set up in the back and as soldiers climbed into the trees, hung hammocks and joshed with each other, I chewed the fat. Between questions about lifestyles in New York and where I intended to tour in Nicaragua, a realization started to invade my thoughts. Yes, in all my travels in the 3rd world, these were the first soldiers who didn't finger their machine guns nervously, who didn’t fan their barrels in your face when they wanted you to do something or bask in the glow of your paranoia as they transferred some of the boot they were under to you. Not only were these some of the coolest soldiers, but the coolest people I had met in a long time. They weren’t cocky or arrogant or violent. They were living close to the edge — and they had that look of extreme satisfaction that one can get only when one is ready and willing to give up ones life for a just cause — your people. And not only that, they had absolutely no animosity toward me — the gringo. Nor had I felt one iota of antl-gringoness in the whole country — not one shove in a bus, not one drunken confrontation (typical elsewhere), not one off-color passing remark (I understand Spanish perfectly). And here they were, sitting in the cross hairs of my people, my army. Waiting on tenterhooks for that massive B-52 strike that was going to initiate the D-Day style invasion. .. and we’re going to have to fight the Yanqui invader,” shouted Daniel Ortega from the podium of his last campaign address, “town by town, street by street, block by block, house by house. Everyone — men, women, children, cripples — and they will not pass (No pasaran). But,” he said, lowering his voice, “when the coffee harvest comes next month, there are going to be 200 North Americans up there with us, in the war zone, helping us cut the cafe." That humanist streak runs deep in this revolution, you can feel it in your bones. It comes out in the little things — the subconscious things, like the way their soldiers must have been inculcated with a respect for life, as they always keep their guns pointed straight up or down. It comes from the poets that have carried this revolution; Father Ernesto Cardenal — the minister of culture, Rigoberto Lopez Perez — who assasinated Anastasio Somoza Garcia (the old one) in 1956, or one of the many unknown poets of Sandino’s original band who wrote: Long live the patriot, senores, whose fight is always delicious, with pride he has confronted the gringo so ambitious. That humanity became law when they abolished the death penalty and refrained from revenge on the Somocistas, even when they found their actual torturers. “We learned that from Carlos Fonseca,” said Tomas Borges, the only surviving founding member of the Sandinistas, who spent months in jail, shackled and completely hooded. If anyone has the right to hate the gringos it’s the Nicaraguans. Only a couple other countries around the world supercede its claim to the most and most absurd Yanqui intervention. As Franklin Delano Roosevelt so astutely recognized — Somoza was a son- of-a-bitch — so we continued to use our strength to keep him firmly fastened to the juglar vein of Nicaragua. Even when the Somozas had reduced the country to one finca (farm) and amassed one of the world’s biggest fortunes, the esteemed government of the United States could still not comprehend why Nicaragua might need a revolution. Sure, five years later it’s not all peaches and cream. With the economic base sucked to the bone by Somoza, with the bourgeousie reluctant to invest under the new government, with Russia afraid to bankroll her for fear of a swing to the right — and the West vice versa — with a super power breathing down her neck and forcing her to put all her eggs into armaments, it’s still pretty amazing that in 8 years the infant mortality rate has dropped from 121 to 58 per 1000. The air is cool, the soldiers are friendly; so even if it is an armed camp, San Rafael del Norte is still kind of quaint. The streets probably don’t look that much different then when Sandino walked them arm in arm with his betrothed, Blanca Arauz. There are still a lot of Arauzes left. In fact, one burst in on me as I sat quietly trying to compose the beginnings of this article. He looked pretty funny in his jogging suit — Adidas, shag hair cut and sunglasses — considering it was the middle of the night. I thought I had another chico plastico (plastic boy) on my hands, until he switched back to Spanish and told me how alienated he had felt during his 9 months in Seattle. The people were nice sometimes, but he sensed a certain prejudice against him as a Latino and an unexplainable coldness that was frightening. This was his country and he was never 50 Clinton St. Quarterly
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