NICARAGUA

READ

The Inhabited Woman, written by Gioconda Belli and translated by Kathleen March, tells the story of Lavinia Alarcón, a well-off, educated young woman living in the fictional city of Faguas. She lives alone in the house left to her by her beloved Aunt Inés, and in the opening chapter, she is about to start work at the first job she’s ever had, working as an architect in a local firm.

Lavinia’s family is near the top of the social hierarchy, a group of aristocrats known as the “Greens.” While the Greens are envied and deferred to, control of the country appears to rest in the hands of the “Blues,” who are considered to be low-class, uneducated, and nouveau riche. The dictator who rules the country, whom people refer to as the Great General, is a Blue. And then there are the people who are just trying to live their lives – the workers. They are not happy with the brutality and corruption of the Great General and his followers, and a revolution is brewing.

Although Lavinia belongs to the upper class, she is not without sympathy for those who don’t have her advantages. Her first assignment at the architectural firm is to visit the site of a proposed shopping center for which her firm has drafted the blueprints. She discovers that the shopping center will require the demolition of a low-income barrio and that troubles her. When she returns to the office, she confronts her co-worker, Felipe, about the situation, but he says nothing can be done.

Before long, Lavinia finds herself in a relationship with Felipe, but she can tell he’s hiding something. When he arrives at her house in the middle of the night with a man who has been shot, she discovers that Felipe is a member of a rebel group called the National Liberation Movement. Shortly thereafter, Lavinia becomes a member of the group too.

Interwoven throughout the book are thoughts emanating from the orange tree outside Lavinia’s window. The tree apparently possesses the spirit of Itzá, a young woman warrior who helped battle the Spaniards hundreds of years previously. She understands and empathizes with the inner turmoil that Lavinia experiences as she transforms from a privileged, relatively sheltered young woman into a soldier for justice.

It should be noted that the author herself came from a wealthy background in Managua, Nicaragua. While working as an account executive in an advertising agency, she got involved in the struggle to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship. Belli became the press liaison for the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and later she was named director of State Communications. She is no longer a member of the Sandinistas, and has become critical of the government that she helped put in power. As a result, she now lives in exile in Spain.

COOK

Most of the food references in The Inhabited Woman aren’t very interesting. But after Lavinia joins the movement, she goes for military training in the hills over the course of a weekend with people whose backgrounds differ from hers.

“Their lunch consisted of a tortilla with rice and beans and a cup of coffee. Lorenzo, René, and even Felipe ate skillfully, using their hands without being squeamish. Lavinia tried to hide her discomfort, the difficulty she had in eating rice and beans neatly, without silverware, with just the tortilla to help her, unable to help spilling the purple and white grains.”

I found a simple recipe on the Casablanca Cooks website for gallo pinto – Nicaraguan rice and beans. The ingredients were very basic: small red beans, white rice, onion, vegetable oil, and salt. Served with corn tortillas, this was a very satisfying meal. And no, I did not eat it with just the tortilla – I cheated and used a fork.

 

GIVE

GlobalGiving had several projects on their website that I would have been happy to support, but the one that caught my eye was the one teaching children how to be nature stewards. According to the project description: “Climate change is already impacting lives and livelihoods, especially in the tropics. Nicaragua’s climate problems are exacerbated by widespread exploitation of ecosystems, land, and wildlife. To restore its natural resilience, forest and local biodiversity need protection and care. Nearly one-third of Nicaragua’s population is under the age of 15. This rising generation is the key to change.”

The plan is to created a junior ranger program for children between the ages of 8 and 13. They will learn about the forests and beaches near where they live, and they will be given opportunities to plant trees, do beach cleanups, and take part in sea turtle releases. It is hoped that the children will become nature stewards and will share their knowledge with friends and family.

More information about this project is available at Nicaragua's Nature Stewards: The Junior Rangers - GlobalGiving.

NEXT STOP: NIGER

NEW ZEALAND

 

READ

Oh, my. I don’t even know where to begin with the book I read for New Zealand. The Bone People, by Maori author Keri Hulme, took a lot out of me. It’s a book about broken people and shattered families; heart-melting tenderness and unspeakable brutality; hitting rock bottom and seeking redemption.

The book centers around three people: a woman named Kerewin Holmes, who is mostly European but a little bit Maori; a man named Joe Gillayley, who is mostly Maori but a little bit European; and a young boy named Simon Gillayley, Joe’s foster son, who is all European. They form a bond so tight that each one feels incomplete without the other two. At one point, Kerewin, an artist who has been struggling with her ability to create, sculpts a tricephalos with the back of each of their heads melded together, their faces turned outward. When Joe sneaks a look at it, he thinks, “She saw us as a whole, as a set.”

There is so much darkness and pain within each of them, though. Kerewin is wealthy, at least by local standards, and has built a tower with a spiral staircase for her residence. But she is estranged from her family, has no friends, and is struggling with her inability to make art the way she used to do. She comes home one day and discovers Simon in her tower, and her life takes a completely different turn.

Simon is very young – probably somewhere between six and eight years old. He was aboard a ship that was wrecked, killing everyone onboard but tossing him toward the shore, where Joe found him. Joe brought him home, and Joe and his wife Hana became his foster parents. Simon doesn’t speak, although there doesn’t seem to be any physical reason why he can’t. Things go well until Joe loses both Hana and their infant Timote to the flu.

Joe and Kerewin meet when he goes to her tower after she finds Simon there. Simon is precocious and finds ways to communicate without speaking. He is not a docile child, and frequently does things he’s not supposed to do – skipping out on school, stealing, lashing out, and going places he shouldn’t. And this brings me to the biggest problem I had in reading the book: child abuse that ranged from horrific to sickening.

At one point, it was so bad that I almost gave up. I thought I’d start over with a different book from New Zealand instead. But I stuck with it. After all, the author won a Booker Prize for this novel, as well as the Pegasus Prize for Literature. The cover of the book has a quote by Pulitzer-prize-winning author Alice Walker that says, “This book is just amazingly, wondrously great.” The New York Times called it “unforgettably rich and pungent,” and the Washington Post said it was “an original, overwhelming, near-great work of literature.”

So, what was great about it? For starters, the three main characters are multidimensional and mostly sympathetic. There are things to love about each of them, but they also have some truly deplorable traits. When one suffers, they all suffer, even in the cases where one or two of them are responsible for the suffering of another. The plot is rich with Maori language, culture, and mythology. The last few chapters, especially, draw on Maori folklore to help bring a hopeful resolution to what would otherwise be an untenable situation for all concerned. I’m glad I didn’t stop reading at the worst part or I wouldn’t have had the satisfaction of knowing how everything turned out.

But am I glad I read the book at all? I don’t know. I’m sure The Bone People will haunt me for a long time.

COOK

There were many food references in The Bone People, but none that were helpful for purposes of this blog. I did a little web surfing and found a recipe for New Zealand Kiwi Bread on the Food.com website. And yes, it’s called that because the main ingredient is chopped kiwis, not because Kiwi is a nickname for people from New Zealand. The only substitution I needed in order to make it vegan was to use JUST Egg in place of the egg. It was very easy to make, and it had a nice tang, both from the kiwis in the bread and the lemon juice in the icing.

GIVE

A project from an organization called WAI Wānaka caught my eye on the GlobalGiving website. This organization is focused on protecting local waterways to ensure that the water stays healthy for both humans and the ecosystem. According to the project description, donations will be used to “increase our community’s capability and capacity to deliver on the ground environmental action by co-ordinating our own volunteer activities with local environmental groups to expand the effectiveness of volunteer efforts in our region.” More information about this project is available at: Help 50 volunteers take environmental action in NZ - GlobalGiving.

 

NEXT STOP: NICARAGUA