Saludos from the Nicaraguan hinterland

Elba Rivera Urbina, W8 member from Nicaragua, lives in the Southeast of the country. As well as her work with the Nicaraguan Campaign for Education coalition she works with the ecological farming community of the "Región Autónoma Atlántico Sur," educating and training mestizo and indigenous families, who use organic agriculture, which mainly means diversified agro-forestry in the humid tropics.

Friday, 24th of April 2009: I had to do it again: walk and ride to the "hinterland" ... "My" eco-farmers association Sano y Salvo / Safe and Sound had its annual meeting, which means the 8 local organic farmer groups (look them up on Google Earth, if you want: Kukra Hill, Rama Cay, El Rama, Cerro Silva, Punta Gorda, Nueva Guinea, Buenavista, buffer zone Indio Maíz) were invited by the 9th group – Santa Isabel del Pajarito – to exchange their experiences, to learn more about the conditions of the others and become more and more an organic family. We travelled 2 hours on an IFA truck, then walked and rode (and rested) for 9 hours; old, young, kids, mothers, mestizos and Rama.

Our indigenous Rama colleagues have been the people more affected than others by impoverishment, exploitation and negligence of their culture and identity. It has been a long lasting fight to get schools and classes in their language, for example, and to set up a health post on their island Rama Cay.

Their land is recognized as Rama land but promises to clearly define and mark the territory have not been followed through, therefore settlers just enter the land and use it for conventional agriculture which is inappropriate for the humid tropics. The settlers are poor landless people or campesinos, who out of ignorance have already destroyed their land's fertility, then sold it to the cattle ranchers and now start over again ... with the same inadequate agriculture.

Safe and Sound is trying to reconcile mestizo settlers with Rama people, it is very unusual that these two groups are working together. The Rama had been mainly fishermen, but the sea is close to empty too. So they started with Sano y Salvo and diversified agro-forestry: growing cocoa, cinnamon, citrus, cassava, lemon grass, bixa, hot pepper, vanilla, borojó and a lot of other – mainly forest – plants.

Saturday 25th of April: We woke up, sort of recovered and got ready to discover Santa Isabel del Pajarito. We slept in the old and the new school, and we heard that the new school is named "Escuela Dania Sujey"; after a school girl, a 3rd grader, who got sick. Eight men tried to take her in a hammock to the doctors in time, but she died during the long journey to the nearest hospital.

Public school is free, and so is medical attention, but the quality of school education is bad. The teachers' own professional training is of a very low standard, their salaries are the worst in Central America, rural backcountry schools have just one teacher for all 6 grades of the primary level. And free health?  ... There are not enough nurses and doctors and no free medicine, and with half the country having a very deficient infrastructure, often sick people are days away from the next health post.

Sunday, 26th of April: The big Safe and Sound Volleyball Championship ... Nueva Guinea won, Rama Cay came 2nd. And on Monday morning at 5 a.m. we began the journey home ... this time only 6 and a half hours, riding, walking, talking ... and enjoying sun and rain and just being together ...

Back home I heard that my mother had nearly died during my absence. She was bleeding and the local hospital and then the regional one, 140 km away, did not treat her because it was the weekend. Luckily my brother saved her, got her out of the hospital without permission and brought her to a private clinic!

She is already a lot better! Saludos to everybody, Elba

The W8 leaders will be blogging over the coming months to highlight the issues of health and education and their work for positive change in these areas. Stay tuned for more!