Not-So-Ancient History

Yesterday morning, Margui (la profesora) took us through the house and pointed out a zill- okay, that's an exaggeration. But I had over 200 nouns tossed at me yesterday! I'm already improving my Spanish, I know - I even held my own in the market on Tuesday and got a bar of Nicaraguan chocolate for 35 cordobas instead of 45 - but getting all these words into my head is going to be quite the challenge. Still, that's part of why I'm here and I'm looking forward to it. ¡Estoy lista!

Después del almuerzo, we went out to the Coyotepe fortress as part of the culture and history component of our orientation. During the cab ride there, José (Did I mention that he runs orientation and the house?) explained some of Nicaragua's history, beginning with Christopher Columbus. It seems to me that Nicaragua's history is one of incredible perseverance despite the destructive volatility of the both the political and natural environments. Political wars have been interspersed with earthquakes, fires and hurricanes, destroying pretty much everything people have worked to rebuild after the last disaster. There have been several civil wars in the past hundred years as power swung between one party and the other; the last war ended in 1990.

All this to say that in this part of the world, history isn't as old as we'd like it to be. Because the prisoners were only released from Coyotepe Fortress in 1983, the Scout who led us around the prison has actually heard the stories he told us from people who lived them. Essentially, the prison was built as a fortress on a hill designed to protect the city of Masaya (I think), but it has tunnels underneath that secretly housed hundreds of political prisoners. There was no water or electricity, so they had nothing but tiny windows covered with bars to see by. Our guide said that there used to be snakes, scorpions, rats, bats and cockroaches all over the place; now there are a lot of bats and the occasional enormous spider. Many of the gates and bars were stolen by vandals in the nineties and now the whole place is covered in graffiti.

Seeing all the bats was really cool, but it was eerie and sad to see the rooms where only thirty years ago, people were tortured, isolated or hanged because they didn't agree with the party in power at the time. Politics in Nicaragua are - obviously - much more intense than at home. I see graffiti all over the place for "Daniel" and I wish I knew more than the fact that he's running for re-election. (Maybe if Savannah's forgiven me for mentioning bats, she'll give me a crash course in Latin American politics. My understanding is that she knows all there is to know about such things.) In any case, I want to read up; the current party is celebrating "¡31 años de triunfos!" and I'd like to know what all the fuss is about.

PS - If you want to see more photos from this week, have a look at the photos tab at the top of this page to get the link for the album.