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by Michael E. Campana
(being a semifictional account of my sabbatical adventures, designed to amuse
and inform, and to be taken with a kilo of salt)
3 March 2003
from Valle del Zamorano, Honduras
I am now in the Valle del Zamorano, a beautiful valley 3000 feet above sea level, about 25 miles east of the capital, Tegucigalpa. I've been here since 24 February. I am staying on the campus of Escuela Agricola Panamericana (aka Zamorano), a private undergraduate agriculture school of 850. UNM is now partnering with Zamorano on a USAID-ALO grant to develop a 12-month 'diplomado' program in Water Resources and establish a Central American Water Resources Development Center. Zamorano was established in the 1940s by the United Fruit Company (Chiquita Banana), that paragon of American altruism and benevolence, to train Central American farmers in the 'United Fruit Company way' (i.e., 'Size matters', or, 'A bigger banana is a better banana.'). The school no longer is associated with United Fruit and has broadened its mission and curricula to include socioeconomic and environmental development. For a small UG school, it has strong outreach and research programs. And I even sort of understood the Spanish-language documents I signed on behalf of UNM.
So who was the first person to greet me at Zamorano? None other than Marty Schwarz, an ex-New Yorker who grew up about 10 miles from me in Queens, near JFK Airport. Gees, we're everywhere. He is now the Outreach Director and has lived in Central America for almost 20 years.
By the way, for all of you who don't know the words to 'Louie, Louie' but care, check out this WWW site (thanks to Fred Proby, who knows which things are important): www.urbanlegends.com/songs/louie_louie_real_words.html. Now many of you can die happy, or at least well-informed.
Many of you (well, at least one - thanks, Sheila, you are now in my will), no doubt stirred by my mention of 'Seinfeld', have suggested that I work on a sitcom about the adventures of a professor on sabbatical. This would truly be a show 'about nothing'.
So how did I wind up here? I left Granada and took the 'expreso' bus to Managua. I shared my seat with a couple of chickens and a goat, but no patos, or at least none I could discern. The man across the aisle from me started chatting in Spanish, and after I asked him to slow down, I could understand him. When he asked me where I lived and I told him 'Nuevo Mexico', his eyes widened and he exclaimed 'Roswell!'. I got this same response from an immigration official in Honduras. I am convinced that to much of the outside world, this is what New Mexico has come to represent. I suppose it could be worse - they could imagine we had a governor who wanted to legalize drugs or something. Consider how New Jersey's image has suffered (to the degree that it could) since 'The Sopranos'. On second thought, for New Jersey, that'd be a step up in the world.
Speaking of New Jersey, Managua was quite a place. It seemed in better shape than I had imagined. I splurged and stayed in a B&B (all of $50 per night) near two universities, UCA (Universidad de Centroamerica) and UNI (national engineering school). But this was not your quaint, English countryside B&B; its 'atmosphere' was disrupted somewhat by a 9-foot brick wall topped with razor wire, massive steel doors, and shotgun-toting security guard. I would later find out why these features were present.
Just up the street was a big, upscale (i.e., no dirt floors) mall, MetroCentro, replete with a food court (McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Burger King, TCBY, Subway). There was a coffee shop called Planetdoe's. Guards were everywhere. Guards by the men's and women's rooms. Guards on mountain bikes with shotguns and 9mm sidearms patrolled the parking lot. An armed guard controlled the main vehicle entrance, but strangely enough, two vehicular exits were unguarded. But one of the guards said it was okay - they were exits, not entrances.
I awoke the first morning to persistent loud popping noises. I thought they were fireworks or something. When I went outside, I looked down to the main boulevard, about 200 feet away, and saw a lot of people running around. My first thought was, hey, this is Nicaragua. The hotel's street had been blocked with boulders. Turns out the students were demonstrating, and down here they don't fool around. The 'popping noises' were from hand-held mortars the students were toting and firing randomly. This illustrates an obvious advantage to enlisting engineering students. The liberal arts students provide the slogans, posters, bandanas, etc., and the engineering students provide the firepower. The locals took all this in stride, as the students do this often, they told me - 'la protesta del dia'. Nonetheless, I decided not to go for a walk. The police stayed away for a few hours - seems they stay back and intervene only if people or property (i.e., the MetroCentro) are threatened. Later that day, they came in with tear gas as the students had surged across the traffic circle and threatened the MetroCentro, a no-no. The next day, the students were back at it, although they stayed away from the mall. They were actually demonstrating for a good cause. The government had promised the universities a 6% piece of the budget, but had scaled that back to 4%. The students simply wanted what the government had promised, or at least cable TV in the student lounge. Or something like that.
I visited a pharmacy in the MetroCentro to get some medicine for a head cold. Unlike drugstores in the US and Canada, you don't get to browse for your favorite remedy. Everything is behind the counter and you have to ask the pharmacist. I bought prescription-strength Sudafed by the pill - 20 pills for $2. I also noticed bottles of Aralen, the anti-malaria prescription drug chloroquine I take weekly. I asked the pharmacist the cost and she said it was 40 cents per tablet, about one-sixth what I paid in the US (and I did not need a prescription in Nicaragua). I do not mind subsidizing people in developing countries, but that differential seems somewhat extreme to me. You sometimes have to watch out for expired and counterfeit drugs. The Aralen tablets were in an unopened bottle identical to mine, with an expiration date indicated. I remember buying some Lariam - the heavy-duty anti-malaria drug mefloquine - for $2 per tablet in Panama City, 25% of the US price. Lariam is something else - among its side effects are what can euphemistically be termed ´vivid dreams´, or what you and I would call 'nightmares'. There were a few times I woke up in Panama in a cold sweat after some really horrible dreams. In one really bad dream, I had miscalculated the indirect cost return to UNM on a proposal and was forced to attend meetings on how to prepare proposals and administer grants. In another one, a one-hour faculty meeting went on interminably because the clock got stuck at 5 minutes before the hour. Others (dreams, not meetings) were even worse. Fortunately, Lariam is not required here, because the mosquitoes have not yet gotten their act together. But the little Anopheles devils are working on it and becoming more resistant to chloroquine, just as the ones east of the Panama Canal are starting to resist mefloquine. For non-believers in evolution, tropical disease treatment can pose an interesting dilemma.
My drilling project outside Managua fell through, so I decided to head for Esteli, a city in the northern mountains. I caught a ride with Zamorano colleague Robert Walle, who works out of Esteli, and spent three days there. Esteli was, and still is, a proud Sandinista stronghold. Some of the fiercest battles between Somoza's troops and the Sandinistas took place here. Some of the buildings still bear bullet holes. Outside of the city one of Somoza's bombers is on display, brought down by Sandinista gunners. Esteli is also the center of the cigar industry in Nicaragua and the gateway to the gorgeous Miraflor nature reserve. The name is appropriate - the reserve has over 300 different kinds of orchids.
Cable TV in Honduras is a cut above that in Nicaragua - the comedy, especially. Instead of 'Los Tres Chiflados' I now get such treats as a Pauly Shore film festival, followed by Rob Schneider's best. I was even blessed with 'Back to the Beach', an insipid remake of those Annette Funicello-Frankie Avalon beach movies of the early 1960s. Frankie, Annette, and Connie Stevens had aged fairly well, although their acting skills had declined noticeably. Twenty minutes was all I could take (but there was a great version of 'Pipeline' by The Chantays). Some of you may remember Annette from the original Mickey Mouse Club. It's been downhill since then. When critics call your acting talents just short of those of Britney Spears, you know it's time to pack it in. What some people will do for money. What's even worse is what some people will do to pass the time. Next thing you know I will be picking up my Margaret Atwood novel. Is it time to go home yet?
The other night I stumbled upon a show I had never seen before, a Canadian show entitled 'Cold Squad', about an elite Vancouver police unit. The title stems from the fact that the show takes place in Canada. There is the usual cast of characters: the crusty, atavistic MAWGs and OWGs (Middle-Aged White Guys and Old White Guys), the 35-ish female sergeant (Robin Banks) who is all business, and the young, edgy, impetuous, handsome male (Dick Cabeza) and beautiful female (Lisa Carr) detectives, between whom there is much sexual tension (later transformed into compression) and the slightly ditsy (but really very smart) receptionist (Bette Yurass) who lusts for the young male detective. Last night's episode had the squad joining forces with Sergeant Preston and his faithful (huh?) dog King (if these last two names are familiar, then you are old, too) of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to bust a bootleg DVD/CD outfit that was threatening to flood the market with counterfeit Mackenzie Brothers and John Candy DVDs and 'Greatest Hits' CDs of Rush, Celine Dion, Gordon Lightfoot, and The Guess Who. This would not only sully these icons of Canadian culture, but also disrupt Canada's balance-of-payments. The Cold Squad and the RCMP busted this gang of vicious mobsters after Sergeant Preston and King, posing as Bob and Doug Mackenzie, infiltrated the gang's warehouse operation in the Vancouver suburb of Grand Blanc Nord. A subplot had one of the MAWGs, Forrest Ranger, confessing to Chief Inspector Gordie N. Knott, that he was really a woman in a man's body and was getting a sex-change operation, but that this had been complicated by the brutal murder of his/her doctor. The CI was having a tough time with this one and was worried that unisex bathrooms might be the ultimate result. Next week's show promises to be another thriller, as the squad must thwart the release of a bioagent that would destroy the nation's entire supply of back bacon. On a serious note, the show is well-done and the location shots sure beat those of northern New Jersey. You gotta problem wit dat?
Nicaragua, like Honduras, is a beautiful country. The northern part I saw is cooler, drier, and more mountainous than the area around Granada and Managua. Since it is the middle of the dry season, it looks somewhat like NM or CO (if you don't look too closely to see the occasional palm or mahogany tree). The drive from Esteli to Zamorano is quite a treat, as the countryside gets more rugged as you approach the Honduran border.
Nicaragua and Cuba have a very close relationship. Both are passionate about baseball, and both produce excellent rum and cigars, although Cuba's reputation for cigars surpasses that of Nicaragua's. Some aficionados dispute this alleged superiority and claim that the 'forbidden fruit' psychology is operating, at least for Americans. Nicaragua's cigar industry took off after the Cuban revolution, when Cuban cigar magnates smuggled some top-quality seeds into Nicaragua. In Esteli, the Cubans had built a hospital and several Cuban doctors had remained there to work. I noticed likenesses of Castro on some of the murals, and there were a couple of Cuban restaurants.
I head to Tegucigalpa on 3 March to meet a USAID person and will stay there
till I fly home on 5 March. On 13 March I head to Kyoto, Japan, for the Third
World Water Forum. CNN has been running ads for the 3WWF featuring people commenting
on their water problems. At the end, a woman says something to the effect that
at the 3WWF, words will be changed in actions. I don't know if that'll happen,
but the banquet concluding the 'Water and Poverty' session had better be a good
one!
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