From January 25 to February 6, 1984 I went to Nicaragua with sixteen visual artists and cultural workers principally from Northern California. Our goal was to initiate cultural exchange with Nicaraguan artists in the hope that through art the true voice of Nicaragua might be heard in the United States.
    I also wanted to check out an obscure and little known account of an ancient Indian shark burial ritual where the dead were heaped with gold jewelry and fed to the fresh water sharks in lake Nicaragua. I had come across the account while reading about sharks in preparation for a shark film that I was working on.
    The fact that a revolution was going on at the time added an interesting flavor to the overall experience. The following are excerpts from my travel diary.
 

"...the Fascist Junta in El Salvador kills people like chickens."

Arrival, Managua January 25

There seems to be a good deal of commercial enterprise and lots of people are driving around in trucks and busses, working, shopping, and being very busy. Along the lake, outside the area devastated by the earthquake in 1978, there are many international corporations doing business, such as Volkswagen, Toyota, Datsun, Shell Oil, Standard Oil, to name a few. This is unexpected as the Reagan Administration has portrayed the government as undemocratic, repressive and opposed to free enterprise. Upon arriving at the hotel I meet a Brazilian nun who had worked in El Salvador. She told me that "...the Fascist Junta in El Salvador kills people like chickens." She said that the church is under a state of siege for it's advocacy of the rights of the poor and dispossed. Anyone who offers aid to the compansinos or defends their human rights is labeled a communist and is disappeared by the death squad which operates freely with impunity throughout El Salvador. Bodies if their victums are constantly showing up in the local dumps. She had to leave or be killed herself and appears greatly relieved to be in Managua.
 

Masaya and Monimbo Artisan's Co-ops January 27

    The Masaya Artisan's Co-op members welcome us warmly and express their desire for peace and friendship with the American people. They explain that their objective is to reclaim folkloric values which were exploited and destroyed prior to the revolution. I am especially impressed by the women of the union who exhibit a strong sense of leadership in their direction of the discussions and presentation of speakers during the meetings. In the old society under the Somoza dictator they would have had no opportunity to have a voice in making decisions that affected their lives. Before we go, we exchange gifts with the craftspeople as a token of our mutual goodwill.
 

The Contras then hung her body parts on a tree as a grisly warning to future health and social service workers.

Acto in Dahlia January 15

We attend an "acto" in Dahlia, Matagalpa Province in northern Nicaragua where the revolutionary government will be handing over land titles to landless campesinos. Music is blaring and speeches are given, including a long and eloquent oration by Daniel Nunez, a well-known poet, FSLN commandante, and in charge of agrarian reform in Matagalpa and Jinotega.
 Everyone is pretty upbeat considering what happened earlier here just about a mile down the road. A few weeks ago in the vicinity of Dahlia, a Nicaraguan nurse working with a Cuban doctor at a health clinic was kidnapped by the Contras. After being raped, she was skinned alive and cut into pieces. The Contras then hung her body parts on a tree as a grisly warning to future health and social service workers. The Contras are remnents of the old Somosa Dictactor's army that have been rearmed and outfitted by the Regan administration through the CIA.

Women

 Nicaraguan women played a key role in the insurrection. To maintain their position of importance after "TheTriumph," has required continuing struggle in this traditionally macho society. An American woman interviewing Nicaraguan women was told that the majority of men are notoriously irresponsible when it comes to the sharing of childcare, financial support, cooking, housework, or even the acknowledgment of paternity. "......a lot of women's demands were forgotten by the men after the triumph of the Revolution."
    They added, however, that Tomas Borge, one of the original FSLN founders, has severely criticized the men for this condition. He recently championed a new law that required equal pay for women in all work. The law also mandates equal share in childcare and child support.

A Journey on the Inland Sea

    I needed to go to Solentiname, an archipelago on the southern shore of Lake Nicaragua to investigate the shark burial rites of the Suma Indians. My journey began in Granada. For centuries Granada was the coveted prize of pirates fighting their way up the Inland Sea of lake Nicaragua. In the 1850s, Cornelius Vanderbilt's Accessory Transit Company shipped 2,000 49ers a month through Nicaraguan waterways during the height of the goldrush. In 1855 the company financed the American mercenary force led by William Walker who seized and burned Granada.. His goal was to make himself "President" and introduce slavery into the country. It was unclear at the time whether he planned to make slaves out of the Nicaraguans or bring black Africans into Nicaragua.
 

In an instant I am smashed between two long lost lovers...

    The traffic is light and the air clean. I sit down to relax and have a glass of juice under a shade tree in the park. My respite is soon interrupted by the sound of automatic weapons fire. I grab my cameras and run towards the gunshots. As I round the corner I am confronted with about 500 soldiers marching towards me, firing their automatic rifles into the air in celebration of their return home from combat duty.
    Suddenly I hear people shouting behind me. Turning, I am faced with an even larger crowd running towards the soldiers. With my only exit closed off by a charging crowd of frenzied Nicaraguans, I suddenly realize, to my horror, that I am standing at the point where the two large masses are about to collide. In an instant I am smashed between two long lost lovers...
    After recovering from the parade I meet two interesting people, a mechanic and an English teacher. They are both concerned that the American people let President Reagan support the contras. They say that people here live in fear of invasion by the United States. Many people take tranquilizers for stress.
    The English teacher suddenly speaks in a low voice:

"There is a man coming this way who has some very strange ideas. Be careful!"

A gaunt young man steps forward and introduces himself as David. He is the son of a Somozoa National Guardsman (dictator's army and death squad) and is studying chemistry and algebra.

"I want to go live in the United States," he says, "...where everything is wonderful....lots of wealth, industry and freedom."

To him, in short, Nicaragua is nothing....America is everything. He actually believes that "God is money" and wants to be in the United States where he can have lots of it. The teacher and mechanic shake their heads in disgust. They are surprised and laugh, when I, the "Yanqui Gringo" criticize him for his shallow morality.
 
 

As a boatbuilder and mariner, I am surprised the boat floats.

 San Carlos January 30

    Today I leave for San Carlos. The boat ride is a perfect set for the movie "African Queen," only lacking Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn. As a boatbuilder and mariner, I am surprised the boat floats. No doubt the constant effort of the two strong men on the pump helps. The passenger compartment is packed. Some people are on hammocks, others are sitting or lying on deck. It is a gymnastic event to get from one place to another, dodging the sleeping bodies and vomit.
    I arrive at San Carlos at dawn. A light drizzle soaks me to the skin as I walk into town. San Carlos is a pit, somewhat reminiscent of Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" during the rainy season. Several battles have been fought here, and the place looks it. I meet a farmworker who fought in the battle for San Carlos.  He tells me that thirteen people took the town from Somozas's National Guard. About half of these fighters were made up of the local teenagers who had learned how to fire a rifle only weeks before going into battle against professionally trained soldiers.

Solentiname February 1st

    The boat to Solentiname is a 40-foot dugout canoe with a hand-crank motor. One crew member bails continuously while the other steers. This is beginning to seem like a common setup with Nicaraguan vessels. Small dugout canoes paddle out to us as we pass the smaller islands and drop off passengers. The ferry's last stop is in the official luxury hotel, four cots, four walls and a roof.
    The next day, I hire a Miskito Indian guide to show me a piece of shoreline called Playa de los Muertos or Beach of the Dead. This is where a Dutch explorer in 1764 wrote about the Indians feeding their dead to the sharks. We walked along a jungle path surrounded by lush vibrant green vegetation decorated with beautiful orchids and many other tropical flowers bursting in gorgeous hues of every color imaginable. At one turn he stops to point out a huge tarantula the size of my entire hand with fat hairy legs as thick as my fingers.
    We finally come to a clearing and beach with an odd shaped mound overgrown with creeper vines and plants. We cut back and pull away the vegetation and find a carved stone alter. The guide said that they used to prepare the bodies here. They would dress up the corpse in their best clothing and jewelry and then carry it to the water and put it on a raft. The raft would be paddled out about one hundred feet offshore and then lowered into the water with great ceremony, blowing horns, beating drums and chanting.
    The fresh water sharks harkening to the commotion as their call to "dinner" would then arrive in short order and devour the corpse. The ritual stopped shortly after the arrival of the Catholic missionaries. The pious fathers persuaded them to donate their gold to the church rather than feed it to the sharks with the dead. I make notations on my map of the location of the beach. I spend the next day tracking down local artists and taking photos of their work. It is so beautiful here that it is impossible to take a bad picture. Later in the evening, I meet a campesino who tells me that the quality of life for the workers and campesinos has dramatically improved since the revolution.
 
 

"We won our freedom at an immense cost."

Solentiname February 3rd

    At 4:00 in the morning I leave Solentiname and watch the sun come up on my return to San Carlos. As I arrive, I meet an American and her Nicaraguan friend Reina, who works in an agricultural project at a village six miles from San Carlos. She says that some contras raided that village yesterday and murdered three unarmed women who were working outside the community compound. Sporadic automatic rifle fire can be heard in the distance as we walk into town from the docks. The local militia is patrolling the highway into town where another fifty contras attacked a bus full of people, killing nine and wounding six. The survivors were kidnapped and have not been heard from since. I ask Reina how she copes under such great hardship.

"You must understand" she said, her eyes focused with determination, "...we are motivated by love, a great love for our country. We won our freedom at an immense cost. We will risk everything, make any sacrifice to maintain it. We cannot be defeated."

Managua February 5

    On my last night before leaving I stay up late walking around Managua. It is 2 a.m. and I meet a secretary working at the Belgium Embassy who speaks English. I comment on how quiet and peaceful the streets are in this, the capitol of Nicaragua.

"Yes," she says "..that's because each block has a defense committee with a volunteer who stays up all night on the lookout for trouble. If there is any kind of problem or emergency they bang pots and pans together to wake everyone up. In an instant the street is filled with people. That's why I can walk all over town at this hour and feel safe. I feel safer here alone on the street at this hour than I do on the streets of your capital at midday."

I was struck by the irony of what she said. We spend billions of dollars yearly on police and prisons and our streets are becoming more dangerous. Yet here with such poverty and devastation they have safe cities where even foreign travelers can feel more comfortable and secure than they would in their own countries.

Departure; February 6

    The taxi's motor dies on the way to the airport and we are stuck by the side of the road, with a plane to catch. After an hour of trying to get the vehicle to run in vain a military jeep comes up the road. It stops. Two soldiers get out and we explain our situation. Just then a farm truck approaches and the soldier flags it down.

"These people need a ride to the airport," he tells the driver. "Can you possibly give them a ride?"

Then he turns to us and says, "You know, you will have to pay because the companero is making a living with his truck."   We agree, of course we are delighted.

"How much?" asks the soldier of the truck driver.

"500 cordobas."
 

"I will do my best to tell my people about your people and hope that "my" government will leave you in peace."

"For all of us and our stuff, all the way to the airport?" we ask incredulously. We had been charged as much as that for a 10 minute ride in Managua, and the airport was a good one hour away!
    As I relax on a sack of coffee beans in the back of the truck I think of how lucky we were in our misfortune and suddenly thought of what might have happened if we had been in El Salvador. I don't think we would have felt happy and relieved to see soldiers come up the road. Soldiers from the army and militia men and women here in Nicaragua seem appreciated and respected, not feared by everyone. It truly feels like the soldiers and the people here were looking out for us Americans. I feel overwhelmed by the trust and kindness they and many other Nicaraguans have shown us, in spite of the fact that Reagan and the CIA are running a war against their people.
    I think back about the last two weeks, tears well up in my eyes as I make a silent vow. "I will do my best to tell my people about your people and hope that "my" government will leave you in peace."