Reflections from a MADRE Delegate
By Marty Makower
Nicaragua 2007
We're just back from our amazing trip to Nicaragua for the dedication to Maya of Liwa Mairin, a newly constructed community conference center on the North Atlantic Coast.... It was a most memorable journey. Here's our account.
Background
When MADRE Director Vivian Stromberg called Kit Miller last winter with an invitation to Nicaragua for an event honoring Maya Miller, Kit's mother, in the Atlantic Coast town of Puerto Cabezas, Kit said "yes" but the trip seemed distant. Not so at 4:30 a.m. on April 1, when Kit, Annika, Lucia and I dragged our luggage to the waiting van and headed to SFO, bound for Miami and Managua. In Miami we met Cody, the New York contingent of our 5-woman delegation. Gate changes and flight delays couldn't deter us, and by 10 p.m. Managua time, we were there, sipping Flor de Cana (smooth Nicaraguan rum) in the airport lounge, awaiting our luggage.
Maya's friends know of her long interest in the Sandinista revolution, her revulsion with the US intervention that became the Iran-Contra scandal, and her abiding concern for the poorest Nicaraguans, the indigenous Miskito of the Atlantic Coast region. She made several trips to Nicaragua in the 1980's, and was in contact with people close to the country's politically complex struggles. I recall Maya's accounts of travel to the Atlantic Coast—iffy little propeller planes, clandestine contacts with Sandinista leaders, concern for women's rights and above all, her sense of the importance of supporting the Miskitu people in their struggle with the Sandinista government over autonomy. Maya informed herself well on the issues, with the help of people like Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (Blood on the Border), whose sensitivity and first-hand knowledge she trusted. Maya respected both sides in the Miskito-FSLN tensions; she hoped to support peace.
"We got what Maya would have loved…"
Maya developed strong friendships on the Atlantic Coast, key among them, Dr. Mirna Cunningham. Lucky for us, it was Mirna, together with her New York-based MADRE compatriot, Vivian Stromberg, who led our delegation. The two planned our time, contacts and logistics, and carried out their ambitious agenda with great spirit. We got what Maya would have loved: the intensity of a full agenda and frank face-to-face dialogue with people of immense vision and passion. We, who live in the world's lap of privilege, are most privileged to have contact with people who face material poverty, yet live "richly" in the collective struggle to make life better. Those were the contacts Maya relished: "Trumping" privilege in meaningful ways—figuring out when and how to support those most in need and most ingenious about what to do—was Maya's gift. Our tour guide compatriots had the sense to give us those contacts.
Fast Start in Managua
Our first taste of what the trip was to be came at 11 p.m., when Vivian greeted us on arrival in Managua. The warm, sultry air felt immediately "foreign" and welcoming. We dumped bags in the rooms and took seats around a table for the first of what was to be many fast-paced, laugh-laced, thoughtful conversations with Vivian, a veteran traveler, passionate advocate and activist. She wasted no time laying out the next morning's agenda and the schedule for flying to Puerto Cabezas at midday, and more about the week's agenda, before we scattered at midnight for a short night's rest after a long day's trip.
In chat-time during the days and adventures that followed, we gathered more of Vivian's story. In 1991, after 22 years teaching music in the South Bronx, Vivian went full time as Executive Director of MADRE. Of Turkish descent, Vivian came of age in Brooklyn, New York, during the civil rights movement and played a key role in US-based organizing for nuclear disarmament, peace, and human rights-based foreign policy. In 1983, Vivian helped to found MADRE to bring attention to the US-sponsored wars in Central America. When she later took over as Executive Director, she guided MADRE's transformation from a Central America friendship association to an internationally recognized women's human rights organization that has worked in more than 20 countries. It was on Vivian's inspired delegation to Iraq in 1991 that Maya and Vivian had the opportunity to work together and deliver several tons of milk and medical supplies to a children's hospital Baghdad. Vivian has worked extensively with women in conflict zones on issues of: armed conflict and forced displacement; women's health and reproductive rights; economic justice and community development; Indigenous Peoples' rights and resources, food security and sustainable development; human rights advocacy; youth; and US foreign policy. Vivian's work has helped to forge lasting ties between the movements for women's equality, peace and justice and international human rights, reflecting her strong conviction that women's rights are human rights, that US foreign policy is a "women's issue" and that human rights everywhere are inherently political.
Intuiting Maya's perspective
"A better life" in Nicaragua, the poorest country in Central America, would begin with the basics: potable water throughout the country, a dramatic reversal of maternal and infant mortality (only achievable with widespread access to the most basic health care, virtually non-existent now). Of course, Nicaraguans know well what they lack. People we met are working creatively, strategically, with the too-little resources at hand. Some of the struggle is material; some is political. Meeting just a few of Maya's compatriots there made it easy to understand why she hung in with them.
Maya spoke often of Mirna Cunningham; to me, Mirna was a legend. But in person, she is soft spoken, down to earth, take-care-of-business and fun-loving. It took no more than our first meal together to understand Maya's great fondness for her. What emerged more slowly, over the days we spent together, was an understanding of the renowned leader Mirna is: An indigenous Miskita doctor and former member of the National Assembly of Nicaragua, trained as a surgeon and teacher, with a Masters in Public Health. "La Mirna" also served as Minister of Health and as Governor of the North Atlantic Coast. She was a founder and Chancellor of URACCAN, the University of the Autonomous Regions of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. She has been General Secretary of the Interamerican Indigenous Institute and is now Vice-President of the Indigenous Initiative for Peace, and Director of the Center for Indigenous People's Autonomy and Development (CIPAD). One of the most fascinating hours on our trip was an informal conversation after breakfast in the garden at Casa Museo (our couldn't-have-been-lovelier accommodation in Puerto Cabezas). Prompted by a question from Cody, Mirna kept us spellbound as she explained her involvement with ten countries in developing the principles and curriculum for "inter-cultural" education at the university level, part of a vision and strategy to preserve indigenous cultures globally, while developing resources and improving standards of living.
On the Managua agenda
Our initial meeting at the Ministry of Health required a frenetic taxi trip through Managua that took us over cobble-stoned streets past dirt roads, weaving through vehicles with horns honking and people afoot, on bicycles or aboard wooden carts drawn by very bony horses, passing all with what seemed a hair's breadth to spare. The planned meeting had to yield: Maritza Cuan, the Minister of Health, excused herself to prepare for a press conference with Presidente Ortega. We met instead with a health official who spoke of maternal and infant mortality, the desperate lack of medicines and of reliance on the renowned skill of Cuban doctors to train much needed health professionals.
We returned to the hotel for a lunch meeting with former Sandinista Commandante Dora Maria Tellez. Her disaffection with the current regime and her clear political analysis, revealed a steely commitment to the democratic principles of Sandinismo, and all the quiet passion one could imagine in a small framed, once-armed, lesbian revolutionary. Dora Maria had been an important player in the Sandinista revolution, commanding the forces that took Leon from Somoza's Guardia. She served as Minister of Health in the first Sandinista Administration in the 1980s. Unacceptable compromises of the current Sandinista government, however, have driven her to form a group that has established a separate party, the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS). (Many women are angry at Sandinista support of a new Catholic-backed law prohibiting abortion under any circumstances, even therapeutic abortions that would save the life of the mother.) Dora pins her hope for Nicaragua's future on today's youth—50% of the population is under 15 years old—and she remains sanguine in the face of what she regards as the inevitable shifts in political wind.
Puerto Cabezas: The place and the history
From our noontime meeting with Dora Maria, we headed to the airport and the Atlantic Coast. Our delegation of ten consisted of the "Maya-five" plus Vivian, Mirna, and Monica Aleman (Project Director of MADRE and Mirna's daughter) plus MADRE photographer Elizabeth Rappaport and a young social worker from Chicago, Britt Willey, who came along to scout the prospects for moving to Nicaragua to pursue her interest in women's rights. Aboard a twin-engine prop jet, full with about 20 passengers, we flew over the arid western terrain. As we flew east, the dry mountains and volcano cones gave way to vast flat green and blue jungle. After a short (loud) hour, we landed at Puerto Cabezas and heard immediately the new languages: Miskito, Creole, with Spanish in the mix too. The place, the terrain, felt immediately new; red dirt roads; houses built up on stilts; abundant banana and coconut palms and flowering trees; bicycles and pedestrians far outnumbering cars. We arrived to warm greetings at Casa Museo, the home-turned-guest house and national treasure in honor of Judith Kain, Mirna's mother and a renowned landscape artist. Her fame, we learned, extends further than art. She raised 13 children in that home, including some of her grandchildren and the children of others who went off to be part of the struggles during the revolution (some of the community's adults were with the FSLN, some were "contras"). Additions to the house have made it an ideal way-station with guest bedrooms and delicious meals (every day we ate fish and lobster, beans and rice, and fresh fruit). There is an art gallery exhibiting Judith Kain's paintings, and a little museum. The museum tour is a flood of history. From Judith's old bedroom as it was, full of family photos, it's just a few feet to the wall of church artifacts (almost everyone on the Atlantic Coast is Moravian) and from there to an outdoor altar with musical instruments. Nearby is a fishing display of a dugout canoe and nets, and life-sized stuffed dolls demonstrating traditional Miskito ceremonies. The history dates from indigenous kings and covers the early 1900s exploitation by transnational corporations of the banana, mahogany and fishing industries. One wall recognizes the Sandinista Revolution and another is covered with documents spelling out the principles of autonomy and the struggles of liberation on the Atlantic Coast.
It's hard to put a finger on what matters most, but I'd say the unifying factor among the people we met over three days in Puerto Cabezas is this: A vision and passion for what should be. These are worldly people. Computers and televisions are scarce, but have found their way there; people are acutely aware of what others have. As several local women who are entrepreneurs told us, local businesses struggle to stay afloat and yearn to build an industry of eco-tourism that could attract enough investment to carry Nicaragua into the 21st Century. But day-to-day life, we learned and saw, is hard. Development that saves lives should not be left to chance. The fact that governments seem to have little conscience in this regard, is part of what must have kept Maya coming back, wanting to help.
The Puerto Cabezas Agenda: Learn by listening and asking questions
At the Education Ministry, two men of different political parties, one Sandinista and the other Yatama, welcomed us and explained that because no single party had mustered an electoral majority, alliances like theirs have been necessary. They are developing a curriculum to be implemented very soon, part of the Managua government plan to return to free public education (after 16 years of privatization). Fully in support of the principle, the pair was candid about non-existent resources. The Education Ministry remains uneasy about the future, but hopeful that the Sandinista government, in power since January, will make good on the promise that taxes collected in the Atlantic region should stay there. The schools there need federal funds for books and to attract and keep teachers.
"Uneasy" would describe the circumstances of several of the extraordinary people we met. Cora Antonio, the first woman ever elected to the high post of superintendent in the Moravian Church, conducts support groups with church women and knows more than she would care to about the high rate of domestic violence and the uphill struggle to establish human rights as women's right in the country and in the church.
Dr. Wilfred Cunningham, until recently the only OB-GYN in Nicaragua's North Atlantic Coast Region, cites rates of maternal mortality so high they are comparable to Botswana and Mozambique. We listened to a tragic account of the most recent death: a pregnant woman who was in labor 3 days without expelling the dead fetus in her womb, then was carried by truck for hours on the rough road from Waspam to the health clinic in Puerto Cabezas where she died. Local access to health care would have saved her. His clinic, CADAMUC, has the only ultrasound equipment in the region, a benefit of affiliation with MADRE, which since 2001, has given the clinic material aid for equipment and medicines.
Margarita Antonio, journalist, is Director of Radio Caribe (Puerto Cabezas) and a founder of the Network of Community Radio Stations at the Region's University (URRACAN). Her efforts to educate the community by reporting local news via television are hampered by the flood of international programming that reaches Nicaraguan television and contributes nothing to educate the public about events and issues that impact their lives.
Shira Downs takes a highly politicized view of her work. The Movimiento De Mujeres ("Women's Movement") Nidia White, provides a meeting place and when needed, a shelter. Shira, the firebrand director/organizer, conducts workshops with women that focus on human rights at least as much as mutual support. We sat in a circle on benches and chairs in the main meeting room, open to the noisy street right outside. Some of the women who joined in our discussion indicated that it is easy to find a rapist around town; the perpetrator may brag, and the act is not treated as a crime. We met the woman doctor who examines and treats victims of abuse at the shelter, and toured her exam room upstairs. The bedrooms were upstairs too, and several young children were evidently staying there—they listened to us talk and amused themselves by sliding on their bare bellies headfirst down the rickety stairs. We met a psychologist and saw the curtained area and computer setup used for counseling on the main floor. An elected representative to the national assembly, one of just 4 women currently serving in that governing body, also joined our conversation.
After-Hours Pleasure
The meetings were intense, but our guides didn't neglect tourism entirely. We had a lovely sunset walk on the port town's main dock, a place that has seen pirates and Columbian drug runners, as well as fishing boats. The "fleet" of high-speed Nicaraguan Navy vessels, we were told, has been assembled by confiscating drug boats. "The Navy could never have bought such expensive, fast boats," according to a local. A swim in the Caribbean, walks in the neighborhood of Casa Museo, and priceless conversations with Mirna, her savvy daughter Monica, and with Vivian, about our impressions, their experiences and just nonsense, made the trip! Everyone we met knew Mirna and Vivian, and the pleasure, questions and political overtones of the visits were reminiscent of probing conversations with Maya around the dining table at Orchard House.
THE MAIN EVENT: A Vision of Liwa Mairin
The dedication of Liwa Mairin, a newly built community conference center, to Maya, Vivian and (MADRE founder) Anne Hess, was a completion, a beginning, and an act of love!
With Mirna's encouragement, one focus of Maya's trips to Nicaragua was the construction of a "Peace House" in Puerto Cabezas. The house—built mainly by North American construction brigades—was a headquarters for international peace-keepers during the 1980s, when many people feared a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. The Peace House accommodated many visitors—political representatives, aid workers, health workers and other professionals—and served as a way-station to help the very poor coastal region take advantage of opportunities for aid and development without further imposition on local families. After the Contra war, the Peace House was offered by the Sandinista government to a group of Contra fighters who agreed to lay down their arms in return. Such acts of reconciliation helped bring Indigenous Miskitos and other Nicaraguans home from their exile in Honduras and elsewhere.
For Mirna and others, though, the Peace House vision lived, and grew! A gift of land to MADRE in New York state was sold, and the proceeds were transformed into the stately structures—guest rooms, meeting hall and lounge—that comprise Liwa Mairin. Two doors down the road from the original "Peace House," it is perched on the same bluff overlooking the jade-to-emerald colored Caribbean. Liwa Mairin was blessed in a community ceremony, and dedicated to three women who helped make the community vision a reality. All of us lit candles in a Miskito ceremony, and Mirna recounted the involvement of the three honorees for the 60 or so guests. Kit spoke (in Spanish, of course) of Maya's great affection and admiration for the people and their vision; Vivian spoke passionately as well. The meetings that taught us about struggles and poverty in the region, also prepared us to appreciate the realization of Liwa Mairin, and to recognize the optimistic future that it represents! Maya belongs there, alright.
There's something in all of us that hungers after the good and true, and when we glimpse it in people, we applaud them for it. Through them we let the world's pain into our hearts, and we find compassion. When things go wrong or have been terribly wrong for some time, their inspiration reminds us of the tenderness for life that we can all feel.
Bishop Desmund Tutu