Drums 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

Drums

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 15^th 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 11^th 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 19^th 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.

 

More About My Students

I’m thinking more about my students these days.  I watch them all the time, when I’m teaching, of course, but also when my counterpart is teaching.  I watch them in the streets and playing ball or practicing marching for the two national holidays on September 14 and 15 (Independence Day and the Victory at San Jacinto). A few observations:

More kids than I originally thought are poor, really poor. I was fooled by the uniforms and by the selection out that poverty makes in school attendance.  The uniforms do what they are supposed to do, make everyone seem the same.  But after a while you see the differences—the condition of the uniforms tells a lot because appearances matter here and when the uniforms are dirty or too small or held together by pins , it’s an indicator of money trouble at home. Some kids carry a dullness about them.  I still don’t know what that is about—maybe fatigue, abuse, malnutrition or maybe just boredom with what school has to offer.  But, the really poor kids may not come to school at all, it being too costly to get there or to buy the uniforms and backpacks and supplies a student needs to go to school.  (Education is free in Nicaragua but it still costs parents to send their children.) I can give one example of a seventh grader named Cindi who is the younger of two daughters in a family in an outlying community. Her mother only had enough money to pay for the transportation to get Cindi’s older sister to school.  Cindi was not going to be able to go until my former site-mate and another volunteer, as a final gift to Nicaragua, gave her the “scholarship” of $15.00 per month to pay for transportation so she could go to school.  Every month I, the administrator of the scholarship, pay Cindi her 300 cordobas.  After this year I don’t know what Cindi will do.  I do know that if Cindi couldn’t attend school without outside help, there are many who are there by the skin of their teeth or not there at all.

I am always reminded by the way in which my kids behave differently than kids in the states.  One way is that they have known each other all their lives. In school kids are grouped in sections by the towns from which they come, the reason having to do with their traveling together, I think. That means that the kids in a class have grown up in the same streets of small communities, living close by, playing  together, going to the same elementary schools.  They remind me of puppies from the same litter; they are like brothers and sisters.  Although the Nica teachers think that there are too many public displays of affection, I don’t see nearly as much of that as I would in an American school. I think it’s because friends are like family.The kids are all over each other, affectionate, comfortable as much with teasing assaults on one another as with playing with another’s hair or hooking arms to walk around the school together. There are kids who think they are cool and there are shy kids, but those distinctions don’t matter much because everyone has known the others forever.

Today I was hiking back to my site along the highway and came upon an impromptu soccer game by the side of the road in which two of my students were playing. I need to set the scene.  One side of the dirt patch they were using for a field was bordered by some trees and weeds abutting the Pan American Highway where big semis and busses pass going fast.  On the other side of the dirt patch ”field” was a barbed wire fence.  At the ends of the field were homemade goals, two upright sticks about two feet high and set about two feet apart, topped by a stick that fit into the natural notches at the top of the uprights. The players ranged in age from I’d guess ten years old to 20 or so.  (This is another mark of kids in Nicaragua.  All ages hang out and play together, there being no rule that olders should disdain to play with youngers.  Quite the opposite, kids of all ages are family, playmates from earliest years and know each other like siblings.  They are who they have to play with. There’s nobody else.) All were shirtless.  The older kids looked like young Davids, bodies naturally sculpted by work and gleaming with sweat.  Three wore no shoes, one had a pair of high rubber boots, one played in flip flops and another in what looked like boat shoes except that 10 minutes after I started watching, the sole of one fell off and he played on the insole. The rest had shoes.

It was a great game.  But frequently the ball flew beyond the barbed wire fence and someone had to go for it, pulling up the crotch of his shorts to keep it from snagging on the barbs and expertly ducking to avoid getting cut.  But when play came up against the fence, people got hurt.  One player, grinning, displayed a gash on his hip to me and kept on going.  I wasn’t the only one watching.  Three other people stopped to see what was going on. The players obviously liked the audience.  We were played to, asked for decisions about whether goals were good, looked to for appreciative responses. I watched for a half hour, having the most fun I’ve had in some time, a part of the sidelines again, cheering and groaning as though my own kids were playing. Only the threat of rain hustled me along back home.

I keep thinking of something my son Adam told me happened on the Appalachian Trail.  People for whatever varied reasons would leave offerings along the trail for the hikers. Things like candy bars or beer.  The hikers called it trail magic.  I could imagine the pleasure of rounding a curve in the trail after 6 hours of hiking and finding a cooler with cold beer.  Well, that’s what the soccer game along the Panamerican Highway felt like to me today-- trail magic.  And, because you can’t take the teacher out of the hiker, I just got a connection I didn’t have before with two of my kids who will remember that I was there on the sidelines.