musings

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I wrote this poem on a cramped chicken bus ride towards cosiguina (a volcano in the North of Nica). There were pot holes in the road the size of small towns, so I figured Id try and get it down in a more legible format.


give us your guns
not bags of rice and corn
let us defend ourselves
from the ever changing enemy

the well trained magician who never ceases
to disappear
only to turn up
cloaked in the flag of a different nation
with new expectations and conditions
illuminating countries in neon with a wave of his wand
turning the world into a light bright charade
of alienated strategy

behind the scenes,
pressed suits glide silently
over floors that gleam reflections
of forgotten ghosts

the filed away consequences
of decisions made in board rooms
dimly lit
and chalk full of distractions
to hide the implications of their words
uttered through shining white teeth and premeditiated smiles
that haunt newspaper pictures
with eerie uniformity

I want to believe
in a Sandino like stranger
calm and undeterred
by the hollowness of promises made on behalf
of unborn generations

tipping his sombrero as he leaves the room
mocking their threats of war with the understated shamelessness
of having done nothing
but exist


Dont worry Dad, I havent joined the Sandinistas. Yesterday I had an interesting talk with a guy named Alejandro who was very anti Sandinista and thought that the party has done a really bad job of governing and put Nicaragua in a worse place then it was during the Somoza (dictator) regime. He was clearly bias, coming from a rich family, educated in the US, having a high paying job... but he made a lot of good points. He really resented how the Sandinistas used the lack of education of the people to there advantage, and resented how theyve made a mess of the economy. We definitely didnt agree on everything, but it was really good to see an opinion of government from the other side, as a lot of what Ive been learning has been from travellers or ex revolutionaries (also a very bias point of view). From the outside, it can be really easy to idealize the socialism here from the outside, without fully coming to terms with the way it plays out in meeting the needs of the people. Why does everything have to have so many sides, influences and factors... lately anything being simple seems very far away.

Ive kicked my ice cream addiction, and determined it was more of an infatuation then an addiction. Were currently in the Laguna de Apoyo, a lush jungle like place where a lot of people come to vacation and kick back. Weve been waiting around to go paragliding, but the wind has been sketchy and I dont want to take the risk of being blown so high up into the atmosphere that the air isnt breathable. As I mentioned before, we did a 3 day trip out to Cosiguina which ended up being really awesome. Camping out on this beautiful black sand beach way the hell out in extremely rural nicaragua, watching the sun turn into a perfect orange ball of light before dissappearing below the ocean, sitting by the campfire and looking up at the stars. We ate dinner in the back of someones house which ended up being kind of a disturbing experience as animals of all kinds roamed around, puppies eating ducks, a pig having a ceizure in the mud, goats and skinny dogs... food doesnt taste as good when you have to face the full reality of what happens to it before you eat it.

Feeling very vagabondy and purposeless, well see where the wind blows us next. All my love.

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Comments

[yeva]

yay for adventures:).

[Jeremy Taylor]

If you ever do come to UBC, you should really take LAST 100. You learn so much about why the economy in Latin America is the way it is and why it's impossible most Latin American economies to escape their current situations.