Lovely, lovely Estelí

by ariellestraveladventures

Hola amigos!

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I just got back on Wednesday from a week in Estelí for the start of my ISP period to research rural workers and the Asociación de Trabajadores del Campo (ATC) (Association of Rural Workers). Let me just say that Estelí is a wonderful city! It has a walking downtown commercial area (unlike Managua) and it has a much more temperate climate. It is also the home to many cigar factories and leather craftsmen. During my week there, I was lucky enough to mix some sightseeing and leisure time into my research.

Wednesday, November 7                                                                                                                                                                                                                   After a late night of watching the elections on TV, I left for Estelí with two of my friends who are also doing their ISP there. In the morning, I had an interview in Managua with one of my ISP advisors about the history of unions in Nicaragua and immediately after, traveled to the bus station for a 2 hour bus ride to Estelí. We arrived late that afternoon and used the last few hours of daylight to explore our new city and orient ourselves a bit.

Thursday, November 8                                                                                                                                                                                                        Thursday morning I got up early and set out to find the ATC for my first set of interviews! I had been given the name of Antonio, the campo youth director at the center and he was to be my advisor over the course of the week. I finally found the center (I had been wandering around for about 20 minutes, only to eventually figure out that it was pretty much a straight shot down from my hostel, four blocks away. Naturally…) and waited inside to meet Antonio. When he arrived, he gave me the whole overview of the history of the center and what it does in Estelí and the surrounding rural communities. After, he offered to take me to meet one of the men in charge of the center. I agreed and found myself wandering through the city with Antonio to a more residential area, where we walked into this man’s house. He had apparently been home sick, but still wanted to conduct an interview. So I sat down next to him on his threadbare couch, pulled out my digital recorder, and conducted a half-hour interview with him still in his pajamas. I then returned to the center, where Antonio and I made plans for him to take me to interview workers at a local tobacco cooperative farm and to interview a lawyer on staff at the ATC. I then left to go join Briana for lunch at a local café downtown. We finished up lunch, left and returned back to the hostel, where we had a horrible realization: WE LEFT WITHOUT PAYING! We hustled back to the café and ran into Jake on the way, who accompanied us back (probably to witness our embarrassment firsthand). While Briana and I were paying/apologizing profusely to the waiter, a girl at one of the tables started talking to Jake. He was wearing his Macalaster t-shirt and she apparently knew one of his friends at his school. We all ended up talking to her (Nicole) and learned that she is a recent college grad from the US and is here organizing medical brigade of college students that help out in the northern rural areas. She was telling us that her co-workers had been gone since the previous Saturday, leaving her somewhat desperate for English conversation. She then invited us to her house for dinner that night! She seemed pretty nice (and she said that she had a puppy) so we were pretty sold on it! That night, we cooked a lovely dinner with our new friend and made plans to grab dinner with her and one of her co-workers the next night.

Friday, November 9                                                                                                                                                                                                                         On Friday morning, I dressed myself in jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt in preparation for my trip to a tobacco farm. I arrive at the ATC office to meet my mode of transportation to and from the farm: a motocicleta (kind of a cross between a motorcycle and a dirt-bike). Yeah… I was a little nervous. Luckily, Antonio assured me that he was an excellent driver and had never had an accident. So I hopped on behind him, held on for dear life, and began the journey to Finca San Nicolás, the tobacco farm. Once we arrived, I got a short tour of the fields and had the chance to interview some of the workers planting the tobacco seeds and tending the earth. Since this farm is a cooperative and works very closely with the ATC, they did not appear to deal with the same kind of issues that employees at some of the private farms have, especially regarding salaries and working conditions. After the farm, I returned to the city for lunch and then to interview an attorney that works for the ATC, as well as the women’s secretary. After spending most of the day focused on my ISP, I took the rest of the day to tour around some more before heading out for dinner with Nicole and her other friend (who’s name I can’t remember). While at dinner, they mentioned that they were going to beach for the weekend and asked if we would be willing to feed their puppy while they were gone and, in exchange we could stay at the house and cook our meals there. Of course we agreed, took their spare set of house keys, and enjoyed the rest of the night all together.

Saturday, November 10                                                                                                                                                                                                                  On Saturday morning, Briana, Jake, and I took a tour of a tobacco factory. It was so cool to see all the stages of the tobacco leaves as they go into cigar production, especially since I had just visited a tobacco farm the day before. At the end, I bought a whole bunch of Nicaraguan cigars for US $1 each (happy birthday, Dad!!!). After the tour, I wandered around the leather district for a while and got my dad the second part of his birthday present (his birthday is tomorrow and I’m really sad that I won’t be there to celebrate it with him. Don’t worry, Dad, I’ll make it up when I come back with lots of presents!) I also walked around to pick up supplies for the campo. A bunch of us on the program planned to return to our campo families on Sunday to visit for the day. I was so excited to see my sister again! I bought sugar and oil for my parents, notebooks, pens, and a Spanish-English dictionary to help my siblings and cousins in school, and twelve Hershey’s chocolate bars to share. Throughout the afternoon, I had been feeling a little under the weather, but I figured that I was just a little tired. By the time we arrived at Nicole’s house to make dinner, however, I was already running a fever. I was so determined to make it to the campo the next day that I refused to admit to my friends I was sick until I was full-on shivering back at the hostel and throwing up. So I had to admit defeat and could unfortunately not go to the campo the next day. I had to call my sister and she was so upset, but we’ve already made a plan for me to visit next weekend, so hopefully my immune system will stay strong until then!

Sunday, November 11 – Wednesday, November 14                                                                                                                                                                Ok, I’m clustering all these days together because nothing super exciting happened because I spent them either sick or recovering from being sick. I had gotten pretty dehydrated so it took a while for me to feel better, so I just kept drinking rehydration salt fluid (it tasted like orange-flavored salt water. It was pretty gross) and resting and doing some reading for my project. I left Estelí on Wednesday afternoon and have been in Managua ever since.

I’m so excited to start my interviews here in Managua with the Free Trade Zone workers and unions. I already have an interview lined up for Monday morning and I can’t wait to see what else I can work on! See y’all soon!!!

Also check out some of my photos from the week on my Facebook album!