Things are pretty stirring up
here in my pueblo in the north.
Nicaragua celebrates fiestas patrias, the two national holidays that
just happen to be back to back, on the 14 and 15th of
September. I lived through one fiestas
patrias last year in my training town, and I thought I wouldn’t really need to
see another, but the fiestas patrias up here look to be much more serious and
energetic. The bands are out practicing,
the marchers perfecting their steps, the baton twirlers drilling and the mayor’s
office plastering the town with strings and placards of Nicaraguan flags
everywhere, a much bigger deal than in the south. A few days ago I walked to
the empalme, a highway intersection a kilometer from town. I left town to the incessant beat of the
drums. The students were practicing by
the highway, and no sooner had I almost passed beyond their range than I
started to pick up the drums of the next community and soon the drummers
themselves came into view, again down by the highway. I wonder if you could travel all the way to
Managua without losing the beat.
A lot of energy and resources
go into this display of patriotic fervor.
My English Club is temporarily cancelled because the students are
otherwise occupied after school. The mayor’s office supplies plenty of drums
and xylophones, an expense the school could never afford. There is a primary
school band and a secondary school band, both trained under the watchful eye of
ex-band members who are serious and strict and command the kind of attention I
wish I could get from my students. They
wear mirror- lens shades (when nearly no one In Nicaragua uses sun glasses) and
hold whistles in their mouths like real drill sargeants. And the students don’t mind their 3 and 4
hour practices. It’s an honor to be
chosen to play in the band. I get a kick
out of watching the kids I know taking it out on drums, trying out slick moves like twirling those big marshmallow-ended
drums sticks off their wrists.
We’re missing a lot of school
these days. The holidays are Friday and Saturday, but we won’t get back to
school till Wednesday next week. We have already missed a day this week-- for band practice. Last Friday there were no classes after 9
a.m. because of the dedication of 2 new classrooms at my school. Monday, school (which only convenes in the
morning, 7:15 to 12) was cancelled for
(please get ready for this) the passing on the highway in the afternoon of the
torch which is carried through the Central American countries as a show of
solidarity. Why it was necessary to miss
school in the morning for an afternoon event is anyone’s guess. Here’s mine: they snuck in a practice for the
band in the morning, but one counterpart assures me that this torch tradition,
which is only two years old, I think, is important to the country.
Which gets me thinking about
all this patriotic fervor. When the crying need is for more and better
education, why cancel school so readily? Obviously there’s a hierarchy of
values and here the patriotic value trumps the education value. (A Nicaragua
might ask why the need for a hierarchy of values; the two can happily co-exist,
and should.) I have a couple of
theories. First, I think someone in
government may have learned about the power of display and gesture to distract
people from their problems. In a poor country like Nicaragua, it is helpful
politically for the people to focus on the plusses. There not being a lot to celebrate,
materially at least (the place is full of natural beauty and warm people), the
folks can be distracted by noisy celebrations of holidays, old (the fiestas
patrias) and new,( the torch passing.) The drums play a big role here, like
they have for centuries, rallying the spirits, stirring up fervor and fervor
feels good. We all love a parade.
My other theory is a little
less cynical. I can explain it best by telling a story of a mistake I made
early on. My 11th grade
counterpart was looking for a reading.
The curriculum said we were studying Nicaraguan historical figures and
events. There being no reading readily
available, I offered to write one and I chose for my topic William Walker, a
notorious American soldier of fortune who, in the 19th century,
amazingly became president of Nicaragua after landing here with 60 men, at the
invitation of Leon which was fighting with Granada for control of the country.
Google and be astounded. Walker was ultimately ousted and killed. It never occurred to me that there would be a
problem with using him as the basis for a reading which pointed out his
outrageous temerity, just as in the states we study other acknowledged bad guys
like the KKK. But there was. Why didn’t I write about a hero like Ruben
Dario or Sandino? In the aftermath of this misstep (it was a minor error, but
important to me) , one of my PC jefes explained that the country is still
fragile after the revolution, that it is struggling to find a strong identity
and a reminder of the miserable past is not appreciated. My guess is that this is how it was in the
early days of the US when the myths that now sustain us were just being formed,
the George Washington and Revolutionary War stories, the rags-to-riches- only-
in- America stories, the frontier myths, all of which has created for us a
sense of a country strongly grounded, special and mythically ordained. Nicaragua
needs a little of this mythos, or rather its own mythos. For that reason every time you turn around
you see a folkloric dance, hear a patriotic song, or listen to praise for Ruben
Dario.
It makes you wonder at the
myriad ways in which countries are strong and rich. Or poor and weak.
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