desde nicaragua

a rush, a muddy neighborhood and a coffee

¨¿´Pa dónde vas, vaga?¨

The evening is cool and the streets slick and tranquil. It´s the calm after a storm and I returned to a black, black home. The power was out, so I ran down an eerily calm Carretera Sur in my rain-soaked jeans to here, a crowded cyber café in Monte Tabor. My landlady asked where I was going and she laughed when I told her I need to figure out how to get myself to Liberia, Costa Rica, by tomorrow afternoon.

Details: It´s been a complicated day. The morning intense because I thought my laptop was dead. How do I function without my beloved MacBookPro? It´s seriously my best friend and companion in this country. What happened to its battery? Is this some sort of punishment for using it extensively for things that have little to do with my work here? I moped in bed. Outside the rain pounded down.

For hours I slept, unsuccessfully attempted to fix the computer, ate, slept, read, unsuccessfully attempted to fix the computer, stared at the rain, ate, slept, watched my still-wet clothes clinging to the chairs near the fan not get any drier, unsuccessfully attempted to fix the computer, slept, ate, waited for a bus outside that never passed, shivered in my wet clothes in my lonely cabin, slept. Finally, sometime before noon, the computer decided to come alive again and my connection to the world reopened and:

The rain outside was something important. A tropical storm, or maybe a hurricane, depending on who from government was talking. I was outside now, robbing a wireless signal from my neighbor´s house, learning under his covered porch. The sky was dark and the branches whipped violently and the rain still pounded down. It was frightening, and as I looked at storm-tracker maps on my laptop screen I thought about doing the brave thing that somebody like me should do automatically. And then I thought about putting on dry clothes again and hopping into my sleeping bag with a cuddly book. But a friend set me straight, so I made a few inquiries, then tied up my hair and stepped into the storm.

Again, no buses passed and I got soaked. No taxis. I needed to get into the city to find real people whose houses were undoubtedly flooded, where streets were muddy and impassable. I had wrapped my laptop in two plastic grocery bags and its sleeve and tucked it into my cheap thin messenger bag but I still figured I would kill it this way, in this rain, as angrily I waited for transportation to not pass on Carretera Sur. You have to be kidding me, the transportation strike is over and where are the taxis, the buses? Now, when I actually have something important to do?

So I hitchhiked down, made more inquiries, and eventually found myself in the Hugo Chávez barrio near the airport. It´s poor and houses here are made of discarded things -- squares of metal and plastic and cardboard, pieces of cement, plastic bags. The streets were flooded or muddy and inpassable. People were everywhere, unsurprising since they´re mostly unemployed, but children were everywhere too because school got canceled. Almost immediately I drew attention because I walk like a chela and who did I think I was walking into here carrying a steaming cup of coffee in a paper cup? Did I really do that? Walk in as if this was just some thing I had to cover, please Mr. Taxi Driver, do you mind if we stop into one of the only chain coffee joints in the city so I can buy a wake-me-up?

Um, I guess I did do that. I probably deserved the jeering and taunts my first five minutes in the barrio.

But I learned once from a driver in Matagalpa how to talk to people in a place like this, and so I waltzed into random shacks yelling ¨buenaaaas.¨ And people told me their stories, and one 16-year-old boy guided me for an hour through his neighborhood, considered one of the toughest in the city. Don´t think I don´t realize how lucky that made me, carrying more than $1,500 worth of shiny computer in my deceptively ratty bag.

You know the feeling you get when you are doing a job that you like and you feel confident and happy? I miss that rush. I did my work, my job, and fast, and then I remembered later that I haven´t had a real job in nearly two years. I haven´t done regular reporting in nearly two years. All of the sudden I was afraid that everything I submitted was incomplete and badly organized or worded wrong and not quality. I guess the good thing about having a job and rules and a framework is you get used to expectations and to meeting them. The bad thing about being so loose and free like I have been these past eight months is you forget what those expectations were once and begin to doubt whether you still know how to meet them.

There is good and bad to everything, I suppose.

The storm may be a hurricane by now, I can´t be sure. The internet in this café is terrible and it takes about 5 seconds for every letter I type to appear on the screen. Don´t even ask how long it takes to load a page. But they play tecno remixes of such American classics as Joan Osborne´s ¨What if God was one of us?¨ so it´s not so bad and I won´t complain.

I told Lorena the landlady I was going to Costa Rica because I will go, tomorrow, hopefully on a hurricane-free road to meet two beautiful people I know making their way into Nicaragua specifically to visit me. This is amazing, having friends who like you enough to come visit when you live thousands of miles and several countries away. Since I´ve been down here I´ve gotten to see one two three four five six seven eight and now with Q and C 10 people here on visits. Three more coming next month, one a month after, my bro and his friend perhaps the next month, upcoming visits with other folks in neighboring countries, and it´s not that I like to brag or anything, but ...

my friends are the best.

I´m frequently encouraged to write more personal stuff in here so the above is an attempt to do that. People tell me it´s boring to read about political stuff, please update us on your adventures and love life and that time that kid tried to rob you and we really don´t care about everything else. Well, let me know if this was interesting.

For now, it´s back into the dark, back to my black black cabin and the clothes that isn´t yet dry. And to my bed, where I have little doubt that I´ll be able to sleep for 10 to 12 hours. Be jealous.

Because this is living.

Ometepe, and my place in the world

I meant to write in this earlier, but several friends have been coming in and out of Managua on visits, and it's been hard to juggle everything the right way. Recently, I'd written about a trip into Ometepe, and I wanted to add a couple of photos from the trip.

This is a tree in front of the Morales family house in Las Pilas, Ometepe. This is the family whose children I live with in Managua. Past this tree, where my friend Devin is gazing out one coolish morning, is the village's central plaza, a large square of dirt with a couple of soccer posts and a pretty school at the end.

Devin, Mason and I know each other from university. They stopped in Nicaragua for about a week on a longer, Central America agriculture tour. (I hope you guys made it to Guatemala safely!) The family cleared out a bedroom for us that the three of us shared. "Bedroom" is an abstract word. There's the idea of doors, of walls, in order to deliniate spaces and provide a degree of privacy. But sound travels through thin boards and over the top. And the animals, including a large sow jokingly called a relative, freely roam in and out of the walled spaces.

All of our meals there were the same: sweetened coffee, beans, rice, cheese and plantains. Everything they eat comes from products they grow themselves on the island. Even the fish a nephew brings for stew or to fry comes from his morning's catch, which he sells to other villagers.

Here, my friend's mom squeezes the stuff that soon will become a salty, traditional Nicaraguan cheese. She makes every night when her husband comes home from their mixed-crop finca, bringing home about a gallon of fresh cow milk. The family grows several varieties of bananas, oranges, mandarins, cucumber and other fruits and vegetables — for export or internal consumption, via el Mercado Mayoréo.

You are easily in shape by living on Ometepe. Incer, one of the brothers in the family, used to live in my house in Managua, but returned to the island a month ago when he couldn't find a job here. Since then, he's lost a solid 10 pounds and his muscles are more defined. All you do is walk, and he walks fast. He hurried us (I had to beg for him to slow down) to and from his father's finca, about an hour away, up and down dirt paths, pausing to grab interesting fruits or tree "products" along the way: oranges, mandarins, tamarindo, these sponge things they use for bathing, a coconut-like fruit the size of a strawberry.

It was a good trip, and on the way in and out. The Kapuzcinski book has me thinking about doing journalism and writing about the world you see, and what it means or feels like to do that job now versus 50 years ago, when the famous Polish foreign correspondent did, or even versus a couple thousand years ago, when Herodotus did. Check this:

Man does not obsess about memory today as he once did because he lives surrounded by stockpiles of it. Everything is at his fingertips — encyclopedias, textbooks, dictionaries, compendia, search engines. Libraries and museums, antiquarian bookshops and archives. Audio and video recordings. Infinite supplies of preserved words, sounds, images — in apartments, in warehouses, in basements, in attics. If he is a child, his teacher will tell him everything he needs to know; if he is a university student, he will be informed by his professors.

Of course none, or almost none, of these institutions, devices or techniques existed in Herodotus's time. Man knew as much, and only as much, as his mind managed to preserve. A few privileged individuals started to learn to write on rolls of papyrus and on clay tablets. But the rest? Culture was always an aristocratic enterprise. And wherever it departs from this principle, it perishes as such.

In the world of Herodotus, the only real repository of memory is the individual. In order to find out that which has been remembered, one must reach this person. If he lives far away, one has to go to him, to set out on a journey. And after finally encountering him, one must sit down and listen to what he has to say — to listen, remember, perhaps write it down. That is how reportage begins; of such circumstances it is born. (p.75-6)

...

I want to keep copying down the words from the book, but hopefully that gives you a good enough idea of what this is about. Travels with Herodotus is a book that is making me think very hard and profoundly about my job, about foreign correspondence in 2008 and beyond, in my place in the world.

Anti-Danielismo can bring a room together

Tonight I attended a release party for a slim book of vignettes about the martyred journalist who in life denounced the repressive Somoza family dictatorship  — and by dying propelled the revolution that overthrew it.

The stories about Pedro Joaquín Chamorro — who was assassinated 30 years ago — are touching, and author Luis Rocha was soundly commended by some of the most important people in Nicaragua who attended the event. ("Its only defect is its brevity," said former Sandinista vice president Sergio Ramirez. The book is a quick 78 pages.)

But the fascinating and (I should have expected) unexpected part of the evening was hearing people use the dead journalist's name to validate criticism about the government in place now — and, in effect, compare current Sandinista leadership with the repressive Somoza dictatorship.

"The best chapter is still being completed by the people, who have decided to defend their freedom and never again listen to the siren calls of messianic leaders who offer to exchange it for false paradises and true  dictatorships."

That was Danilo Aguirre, a legendary journalist here and editor of El Nuevo Diario, reading the prologue he wrote for Rocha's book. Aguirre and Rocha both worked with Chamorro at La Prensa.

Rocha uses two vignettes and the symbolism of a caged bird to attack current First Lady and poet Rosario Murillo, who was once Chamorro's secretary at the newspaper. She was then a young woman discovering freedom like a bird out of a cage; today she owns of that cage, Rocha concludes.

"In time, corrupt and oppressive systems recycle and reproduce themselves," he read, to a response of appreciative murmurs and emphatic nods.

The Internet is a tool. A good one.

They cut Internet access at work. By work I mean La Prensa's newsroom. By newsroom I mean a place where journalists gather information, and assemble it into stories. By stories I mean the stuff published in newspapers that informs readers about what is happening in the world around them.

I can't imagine doing my job without the Internet. That is, I can't imagine doing it well.

Perhaps it's because I'm a Western-trained journalist, but access to the Internet to me means access to information that helps me understand subjects before waltzing blindly into a story; it opens the door to complex, investigative and explanatory reporting. I'm a better journalist with the internet.

But here at La Prensa, as of the middle of last week, a good deal of reporters (how many? I'm verifying numbers) arrived to work to discover their access had been cut. Editors had apparently complained that too many people waste time on MSN Messenger instead of working. (This happens back home, too.) So the higher-ups cut selected certain people and cut their access to the web, period. And yet it's not like back home where newsrooms (or workplaces in general) will cut access to particular sites or limit user privileges ... Here, it's all or nothing (minus work e-mail, which crashes often).

Needless to say, folks here aren't happy. Stories are being turned in earlier — which was probably the point behind the measure. But some reporters say they're turning in work that isn't as thorough as it could have been had they been able to do some research on the web.

Is there some other way to get that research done, or is it hopeless? I asked one reporter.

"If the editors don't think that the Internet is an important resource, then I'm not going to go out of my way to do that research," he told me. "I'll go home earlier."

The situation reminds me of a conversation I had recently with Cornelio Hopmann, executive director of eNicaragua, an Internet policy institute based in Managua. He told me Nicaraguans — even those from the highest economic class — just don't think the Internet is very important.

"In Nicaragua it's no means of communication, even for those who can afford it, who are educated, who in the U.S. would use the Internet," he said. "It's not a Latin American phenomenon; it's a Nicaraguan phenomenon."

Is it unethical to hum along to Danny O's theme song?

I'll begin with something light.

A very cool note in the Chicago Tribune about presidential hopefuls and their theme songs: In Latin America, politicians feel the beat. (You can see videos here!) It covers the songs of now-presidents in Latin America like Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Nicaragua's Danny O during their campaigning, along with those of folks like Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee back home.

You can't run a campaign in Latin America without a song (or better yet, an album's worth) that lets supporters dance while extolling your virtues.

In Nicaragua, ex-dictator Daniel Ortega applied his own version of John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" to a 2006 political comeback based on reconciliation ... The songwriters kept the melody of the chorus but substituted new lyrics to soften the former Marxist rebel's image.

"What we want / Is jobs and peace. / Together we achieve / Reconciliation."

In Latin America, these songs become part of the candidates' political biography, a less offensive way to trumpet themselves. And for voters who don't have the education or access to read detailed platforms, the music is a convenient shorthand.

The best jingles burrow into the consciousness.

Danny's "Reconciliación" jingle is definitely burned into my consciousness. Whenever he gives a little speech in a barrio or public plaza, his theme music plays on repeat for hours, since events tend to start some two hours after they're "scheduled" to. (Nica time, Meli, get used to it.) People know the words, sing along. I have to stop myself from mouthing the words.

A friend promises to get me the CD.

Something interesting about this story is that in the first mention of Ortega is paired with the word "ex-dictator." I guess that's all a matter of interpretation, but it was just sort of an unexpected word coming from the Tribune.

Along those lines, my friend Tim Rogers has a story in today's  The Miami Herald about how legislators who formed the "Bloc Against the Dictatorship" plan to challenge President Daniel Ortega using reforms — which he himself had pushed through in 2005 — that transfer power from the presidency to the National Assembly:

Opposition lawmakers, who claim that Ortega's authoritarian ways have marginalized the legislative branch in the past year, now hope to regain some political muscle by reenacting his own reforms against him. The law that temporarily suspended the reforms is due to expire Jan. 20, and lawmakers say they won't renew it.

''The bloc against the dictatorship will not [extend the suspension] . . . of the constitutional reforms, and the president will have to comply,'' said Liberal party lawmaker and National Assembly secretary Wilfredo Navarro. ``[Ortega] is going to fall into his own trap.''

Apparently, the president met with some opposition last night to try to work out a deal. One solution the "bloc" has it to delay approving the annual budget. We'll see if anything comes from it.

Other than that, another fairly slow news day. This may be due to the fact that 1) it's Sunday and nobody — politicians and journalists included — likes to work on Sundays, and 2) There are fewer reporters at media outlets. From what I know about La Prensa, people are leaving for jobs in government, and they aren't being replaced. The editors tell me this is because of lack of cash, something directly blamed on the government's cutting of advertisement.

This doesn't bode well for the quality of journalism being produced in Nicaragua, something compounded by the general antagonism between private media and government. (Read a recent La Prensa article here, which is actually belated coverage of an October country report by the Inter American Press Association.)

Like most things in Nicaragua, truth changes depending on where you're standing. The Sandinista cab driver who picked me up from the airport Friday night asked me whether I thought there was freedom of the press in his country. I hesitated for a few seconds, then said it's too much of a mess to say a simple yes or no. Neither media or government play the game fairly. One is not objective, the other is secretive; it's hard to know whether the chicken or egg came first. Both are mean and vindictive. One wants money from the other. One spews propaganda and happily feeds friendly media. Journalists are regularly bought out, independently fighting for their party, or sleeping with sources.

The driver nodded at me. "At least government doesn't censor stories like it did during the Contrarevolución of the 1980s," he says finally.

That's one way of looking at it.

Death of a Chamorro

Back in Managua. I figured it would feel like coming home but it doesn´t.

I arrived to learn about the the death about one of Nicaragua´s most important people in journalism, and a member of the higly influential and rich Chamorro family:

We´re living the moment that nobody could imagine. Our founder and director, the Engineer Xavier Chamorro Cardenal, died in the early morning on Friday ...

Born on Dec. 31, 1932 en Granada, Xavier dies at 75 years and 3 days of age, only six days before the 30th anniversary of the assassination of his older brother, the Martyr of the Free Press and Director of La Prensa, Doctor Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Cardenal... (El Nuevo Diario, my translation)

After the assassination of his brother — a major turning point at the end of the Somoza dictatorship, which ultimately led to the success of the 1979 Sandinista Revolution —  Xavier took over the direction of La Prensa:

Throughout the struggle, the paper maintained close relations with the FSLN. Although by no means ideal in terms of journalistic excellence (even at the height of its prestige under Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, the paper was sensationalist and overloaded with stories of rapes, murders, automobile accidents, and, inevitably, pictures of the cadavers of murdered young Sandinista activists), there was at one point even talk of making La Prensa the official Sandinista newspaper after the overthrow of Somoza.

By early 1980, however, much of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie, originally hopeful that they could outmaneuver the young and politically inexperienced Sandinistas, began to drift into the opposition or move abroad. Three of La Prensa's four owners voted to take the paper sharply to the right. Xavier Chamorro, the editor and fourth owner, opposed the move, as did the overwhelming majority of the staff.

The fight demonstrated where the Sandinistas stood on the question of an independent press. They could have easily encouraged the staff to take over the paper and run it themselves, there being nothing "free" about control of the press by the rich. Instead, Xavier Chamorro and 80% of the staff quit, leaving La Prensa's owners with little but the name, and moved two doors down the street to found a new paper, El Nuevo Diario.  The move had the inevitable effect of accelerating La Prensa's lurch to the right, but confirmed the Sandinista commitment to an independent, indeed opposition, press. Vice President Sergio Ramírez was later to remark that opposition parties and an opposition press are essential to keep a government honest and competent. (Revista Envío, 1986)

Today, El Nuevo Diario is no longer a pro-Sandinista newspaper. Its politics are with that of the Sandinista Renovation Movement, a party founded in 1995 by dissidents of the Sandinista party. Its concerns continue to be about social justice, although critiques of the Daniel Ortega administration grow more frequent. La Prensa continues to be a conservative, anti-Sandinista newspaper.

On the 25th anniversary of El Nuevo Diario, Xavier Chamorro Cardenal promised the paper would continue to serve as "the voice for the voiceless." He wrote in his memoir:

"We believe fervently that we ought to reach among everybody, true institutionalization of the State, and that is the true path toward democracy, and until then, make peace and progress. Certainly, we have planted a journalism that is compromised by the real needs of our people, to create consciousness there where there is none ...

"My biggest hope is that some day, sooner than later, with a Nicaragua that has emerged from backwardness and poverty, the youth who read this book and revise it with astonishment what its pages and titles reflect about the national happenings, will assume the nightmares we had to live through, at the same time recognizing that we were capable in one bit of a 25-year history, insist in handing them down a more dignified Country, with governments that inspire respect and a more just and supportive society." (END, my translation)

Xavier Chamorro Cardenal is survived by five children: Francisco, Margarita, Gabriel, Ana María y Juan Sebastián Chamorro García.

Coming full circle (thanks CPCs)

So yesterday I made a brief mention of a La Prensa reporter who says he was attacked by the president's  security at an event Tuesday night. I failed to bring up the controversial CPCs (Citizens Power Councils) because they seemed sort of irrelevant.

But I should have thought to mention a Thursday headline in La Prensa that directly blamed the CPCs for the alleged brutality: "CPCs with a license to give beatings." It's unclear whether the security members who roughed up Jorge Loáisiga were CPC members, fanatic Sandinistas, or just doing their jobs.

The headline is pretty weighty, and the article that follows doesn't directly link the folks Loáisiga says attacked him with the CPCs. And now yesterday, five CPC members denounced the newspaper, saying it caused them personal injury : “We are all CPC and we feel offended, because yesterday they accused us and pointed us out as the people with a license to beat, and classified us as delinquents."

The chief of the National Police says those "blue shirts" weren't police or CPCs, but that they had every right to detain Loásiga for violating security norms: "The manner in which he tried to get into a restricted area was irresponsible," said Aminta Granera Sacasa.

In response come the editorials, including one by La Prensa's editor in chief directly criticizing Granera.

There are a million ways at looking at any given event, subject. The newspapers seem to be using the aggression against Loásiga as proof of government totalitarianism. The government (because the CPCs are the government, as President Daniel Ortega likes to remind us) is using the event as proof that the newspapers are out to get them.

And now you have the ex-pat community in Miami using the incident to beef up their opposition to Daniel Ortega and his CPCs:

"It's a violation," said (Nicaraguan American Chamber of Commerce head Armando) Arana, a former Nicaraguan diplomat in Costa Rica, "but what is more worrisome is the government's defense of the action."

Doctor Salvador Marin, a former Contra member, said he hopes those outside of Nicaragua can help raise money and support for civic greater participation in the countryside.

"We will do all that the people will let us do," said Marin.

Although still in its infancy, the loose coalition plans to recruit support from the Nicaraguan expat communities in Texas, California and New York as well.

Welcome to journalism in Nicaragua. It's never boring.

"Brother countries" making inroads in national TV

The more I do actual journalism here, the less time I seem to dedicate to this blog. Funny, some weeks I spent hours each day reading and comparing, learning and trying to come to an understanding about various issues here and in the rest of Latin America — then writing little blurbs here. And then some weeks, like the past two, I've been doing the same thing but about very specific issues, writing about them for La Prensa, then coming home exhausted to crash in bed.

The past two days, for example, were dedicated to this: Iranian programs coming to national television. Basically, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has been opening the door for his "compañeros" in Iran and Venezuela to make inroads in national television here.

(By the way, Hearst News Service recently had a story about growing Iranian involvement here, if you're interested.)

What do I mean by this? Well, first the Ortegas want Iran to help develop Nicaragua's film industry, which has been basically non-existent since the beginning of the first Sandinista administration. Iran, of course, has an internationally acclaimed film industry.

Last week, First Lady Rosario Murillo announced that a delegation of Iranian officials were in country to look at media and communications here. (Read comments by her and delegation here.)

So both governments say they'd like to bring Iranian soap operas and films and cartoons to Nicaraguan television. But the relationship is more than a sharing of popular culture. Iran wants to help build up Channel 4's "Multinoticias" — pro-Sandinista but private programming that is run by (now, don't be shocked here) two of the Ortegas' sons.

It's unclear how much money Iran plans to invest in amplifying Channel 4's coverage area.

Iran also wants to train Nicaraguan journalists. I'm not sure whether that's the kind of country Nicaragua needs to be taking lessons from, considering Iran's track record in regards to freedom of expression, the press, etc. Then again, the Ortegas (like previous administations) haven't been getting many accolades for their work here, either.

Now, enter Venezuela, which is close to sealing a deal with Nicaragua to take over the basically defunct state television Channel 6. That channel is run by the Ministry of Education but can only afford to show an hour or two of programming a week.

Why the interest? Well, Venezuela is the majority owner of Telesur, a network that's often called the Al-Jazeera of Latin America. It's Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's response to major Western (imperialist, he might say) media outlets like CNN, the BBC or Univsión.

Telesur might soon take up the state's channel, then. I wanted to draw a connection to the influence on television here from Iran and Venezuela — "brother" countries, Ortega calls them. So I spoke with Carolina Acosta-Alzuru, an expert in communications and Latin American soap operas who teaches at the University of Georgia and just happens to be Venezuelan.

“Is it good? Is it bad? To me, it's interesting to have access to content that traditionally we wouldn't get to see," she told me. “It's interesting to have other media powers in the world, but if the object is indoctrination, then it's a bad thing."

If anyone has seen a serious analysis of Telesur out there, let me know. I guess I should probably buy a television and start watching it to formulate my own opinions, but I can barely bring myself to sit in front of one for more than a few minutes every couple of months.

Oh well.

* * * * *

Anyway, if you're an American interested in news from Nicaragua, you probably know all about the Eric Volz case.  That's all Nicaragua is famous for these days.

Honestly, I don't feel up to adding to that scandal, but you can check out coverage from The AP, WSJ, CNN, TIME Magazine, The Nica Times, The Tenessean, Nashville City Paper,Friends of Eric Volz (or their MySpace page).

I had started writing a real post on the Volz case a few nights ago, but got slammed with work and haven't been keeping up since. I'm sorry, but such is life. The rest of the world is covering this one.

* * * * *

Finally, something a little closer to me is in the following photo:

(La Prensa/G. Flores)

The man on the left is Jorge Loásiga. He is an investigative reporter here at La Prensa, a funny guy who sits diagonally from my desk.

A few nights ago Loásiga was roughed up by Ortega's security at a presidential event. Police say he was trying to force himself past security. He says he is the victim of police brutality. All the media, as well as journalism associations, say the government is out to get La Prensa and that this is a sign of Ortega's free speech repression.

I'll follow up on this one later tonight or tomorrow. It's important because the media here is dedicating a lot of resources toward covering this issue.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Danny O is in Cuba, asking for help dealing with this country's energy crisis. Suerte, compañero. Energy problems mean no running water in Granada today. No running water means Melissa badly needs to take a shower.

Odds and Ends

Today is for maintenance. You'll notice a few changes to this blog, including more links to news outlets here in Nicaragua. I need to do a better job of offering variety, especially when it comes to sources. As always, send me links, because it's easy to miss things. And give me advice on where to go to learn what's happening. I can easily spend a couple hours every day just reading the main newspapers here and still miss big news. I want to be more selective of what I read and how much time I spend doing so.

I also changed the title of the blog to more accurately capture what it is I'm doing here. Most of what I write is about Nicaragua, because obviously this is where I am and where I do journalism. However, I will continue to get sidetracked on other issues going on in Latin America, as this blog was originally intended. For example, I'm going to be in Mexico from Dec. 24 to Jan. 4, so expect to read more about that country soon.

Finally, some news.

* From Reuters, a longish story about Nicaraguan migration to neighbor Costa Rica. The trend is similar to Mexican migration to the States, although some say with more popular acceptance on the part of Costa Ricans. From Nicaraguans find USA in booming Costa Rica:

Forest-cloaked Costa Rica's low-skilled immigrants work in agriculture, at construction sites and as domestics and security guards -- jobs Costa Ricans, better educated and settled in the middle class, prefer not to do ...

As in other countries where immigration is a heated issue such as the United States, whenever the media publicizes a crime by an immigrant, the immigration debate flares up, exposing racism toward migrants, experts said.

Yet as the role migrant workers play in the economy is better understood, the debate is changing. The free health care and education immigrant children receive, for instance, are seen less as a national burden and more of an acceptable result of integration, said Jorge Peraza-Breedy of OIM, an immigrant advocacy organization.

* Andrés Oppenheimer, an Argentine columnist and foreign correspondent with the Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald, was in Managua recently to speak about his most recent book, Cuentos Chinos, and how poor countries can reduce poverty by attracting foreign investment, spending money on education and relying on social consensus.

Today, Oppenheimer writes about Nicaragua in his syndicated column: As world watches Venezuela, other leaders make moves, providing four solid reasons why President Daniel Ortega can't be Hugo Chávez (no oil, opposition controls National Assembly, unpopular wife, no control of police/army or support from media).

* This is not in English, but yours truly had a story on the front page of La Prensa about how a new(ish) web site that claims to be for the Citizens Power Councils — which isn't a legally recognized entity — uses government resources to churn out official good news. You might call that propaganda.

* And I'll leave you with an unusual story and pleasant photo from The Associated Press:

MEXICO CITY - Thousands of Mexicans are skating, wobbling and often falling on a giant ice rink set up by the tropical capital's government to bring some holiday cheer to this massive, chaotic metropolis.

The rink in Mexico City's main square measures 34,445 square feet — twice the size of a professional hockey rink and nearly five times as big as the one at New York's Rockefeller Center.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard inaugurated it Saturday night and by Monday, more than 5,000 skaters glided across its surface, sometimes none too gracefully. At least 30 people received medical attention for bumps, bruises and one broken nose.

"Don't hold on to the rail, keep moving and keep your feet in a V shape. Don't lean forward," yelled a city worker, as a woman struggled to stay on her feet.

I never would have thought to imagine such a sight. Hopefully I'll be on that ice in three weeks' time.

more on cpcs

Good investigative journalism by El Nuevo Diario regarding the government bean sales: Enabás supplies Citizen Power Councils. According to the government, the bean sales in poor neighborhoods are only organized by the CPCs; Enabás does the actual selling. This is interesting because the CPCs aren't an official part of government, and therefore shouldn't handle government money (a controversial topic that will become even more so tomorrow when the president goes through with his plan to legalize them by any means necessary).

What the reporters did was incredibly simple:

After on-site verifications by El Nuevo Diario yesterday in Managua's barrios, we discovered that the CPCs of the government's party handle the money from the bean sales ... changing the operation into one of political clientelism ...

This same trip demonstrated that what was said by First Lady Rosario Murillo wasn't true, and that the confusion of Enabás-CPC confirms the denunciation that was has happened is that the CPCs are a para-state organism — a very dangerous State-party mixup.

Reporters went to the bean sale sites and saw not a single Enabás employee.

For example, at the site in Batahola Norte, headed by Melba Fátima Urbina, the beans were being sold by her husband, Rodolfo Cuéndiz, who attended us cordially.

"Yesterday (Tuesday) we sold 8,000 pesos, of the 9,000 that we were supposed to turn in. Today (Wednesday) we turned in the 8,000 pesos that we sold, and they brought us 5 more quintales of red beans, and one of black beans. When they return we'll turn in what we've sold, and that's how we'll do it I guess until they tell us that it isn't necessary to go on with this," he explained. (END, my translation)

This kind of story really wouldn't be that big a deal for me in the States, but it's super reader-friendly, creative and good journalism. Things often missing in artices here. Kudos, END.

Speaking of good work, a friend alerted me to a strange story in the NYT yesterday, Fugitive From U.S.  Justice Leads Panama Assembly. This was his recommendation:

this is one of the most amazing stories i have read in a long time. can you imagine, they are trying to put this guy in jail from killing a soldier who was occupying his country?  whether he did it or not, how insane is it to consider defending your country the crime and conquering it the norm.  I mean, the USA does this all the time, but seldom this bluntly.  if they can arrest this guy, every american official should be arrested flat out.

And another NYT article sent by a friend, In Chávez Territory, Signs of Dissent. And another from Harper's Magazine, Roger Cohen: Viva Mubarak, Fuera Chávez!

Happy reading.