Ruido Verde

Hello world! I’m still alive, and feeling much better than I was yesterday. I estimate my water intake to be approximately four liters today...and I’m still feeling a little lightheaded and headach-y due to insufficient liquids. Needless to say (though I’m going to say it anyways), it is HOT here. 

I’m listening to two French and German backpackers talk to one another. One, they don’t seem to like wearing clothes (I guess it’s because they’re European) and two they talk about the funniest things, in stilted English. I guess that’s what I sound like in Spanish however, so I shouldn’t be talking.

The soundtrack here seems culled primarily from bad (and therefore really good) eighties soundtracks and Billy Joel. Not that I mind, it’s just an interesting observation. 

Today, we met with El Ruido Verde, the organization/youth group run out of Chichigalpa outside of Chinandega, a city next to Leon. El Ruido Verde is part of the growing movement to investigate and also attempt to treat a mysterious epidemic of kidney disease dubbed IRC: Insuficiente Reñal Chrónica. The disease has struck down young and old alike and its ultimate contributors have yet to be determined. To Nicaraguans, all that matters is that their loved ones are dying prematurely and suddenly of a disease that no one seems to care about treating. Talking to an old man this afternoon who had IRC, he bitterly complained that no one seemed to care about the masses of (often poor) people who were afflicted with this disease, especially the government. The word “el gobierno” only prompted scoffs of contempt. Another story I heard was one of a twenty year old man, who had worked in the sugar canes since the age of 13. After seven years, and at the ripe old age of twenty, he was diagnosed with IRC and is now unemployable due to his medical condition. Currently he depends on his mother for income and sits around, knowing his mortality is close approaching. 

Some background: Chichigalpa is known for being heavily dependent on the production of sugarcane, which requires backbreaking labor in wide open cane fields under scorching heat. Campesinos bring pichingas (pitchers) of water with them, but often leave them at the end of one field while working through row through row of canes with a machete. Because they’re paid by the amount of cane cut, they neglect to walk back to the end of their field to take a sip of water and so inflict damage equivalent to running a marathon on their bodies every day, sustaining themselves on only a few liters of water. The same can be said of people who expend a lot of energy in hot weather, like tricycle drivers (who pedal bikes with seats that transport people short distances). While there are some researchers working on determining what causes this mysterious disease that has literally wiped out entire male generations in Chinandega, notable a group from Boston University that we ran into on the bus and who seem pretty well known in the area, the primary correlations (which are pretty strong at this point) point to an insufficient amount of water drunken by IRC victims. Other contributing factors, as elucidated by one extremely friendly bicycle driver, may be the heavy consumption of alcohol, contaminated and unfiltered water that exhibits pesticide contamination or bacterial traces. 

A beautiful view of farmland and a nearby volcano. Nicaragua, after all, is called the "land of lakes and volcanoes." 

A bucolic country road.

Our work this week will be consulting Ruido Verde, a group of around five college students who have designed multiple models of camelbacks that contain water bottles of different sizes, that can be carried while men are working so that they can take frequent sips. Last week, the other half of our DukeEngage group helped Ruido Verde create a survey to test the market share of their product. Today, we helped administer fifty of these surveys among tricycle operators and cane workers (cañeros) and will be advising them on how to analyze the data, draw conclusions that can help them later, and also help them design a presentation that they could be giving to a bigshot executive at the company that owns literally everything in Nicaragua. They own pretty much all of the sugar cane fields, Flor de Cana, the biggest and only rum manufacturer in Nicaragua, the major three brands of beer, and I think a few banks for good measure. Oh and a car chain. They own of those fancy islands in Lake Nicaragua. Anyways, Ruido Verde has no idea what to do for their presentation, especially since it turns out that this particular company has something against one of the organizers family for agitating against its pesticide usage...?

That’s the other thing; the people who run Ruido Verde are extremely interesting. Christian, who at 32 is the oldest of the organizers, is this tall, lanky Rastafarian dude, who is extremely chill. He also seems to be buddy buddy with every tricycle driver in the area. His father is the leader of the local chapter of El movmiento comunal, the biggest social organization in Nicaragua and is this feisty old man who treated us to pamphlet after pamphlet of causes he was agitating for. One of his pet projects is pressuring the government to clamp down on what he believes is “incontrovertible” proof that a local business is contaminating the water supply with pesticides. Due to his efforts at inciting protests, his son Christian was fired (apparently) from said company. I was impressed by the coherent and organized political efforts Christian’s dad has and the deep commitment he obviously has for human rights of all kinds. 

Christian and his peers seem to be part of the same band; I had a good discussion with Cesar, a twenty something, about reggaeton. Actually, it wasn’t really a conversation because he completely dismissed with his first sentence the idea that reggaeton was an actual form of music...but we progressed to talking a bit more about his tastes and swapping artist names. It’s amazing what globalization can do; Cesar and Christian were very much in touch with all kinds of music and the grunge/reggae culture which definitely didn’t have strong roots initially in Nicaragua. 

Giving the surveys was really fun, though after the sixth one (surveys, being more like long conversations, take around 15 minutes) I started getting a little tired. Nicaraguans are immensely friendly and will immediately pull a chair up to you and give you fifteen minutes of their time. It also helps to be a gringo and a girl. Often times (as sexist as this is) it helps to play up the “I don’t know anything, please tell me everything you know” in order to break down barriers and get the desired information from people. One guy insisted I sit down in his tricycle while he talked, opening up completely and giving his full opinion on IRC and how upset he was about its prevalence and lack of attention, all the while thanking God for his healthiness so far and going so far as to invite all of us over anytime we wanted, providing his contact info in case we ever needed help with our efforts. Sometimes, friendliness doesn’t always work in your favor. I entered a property with about five males and their mother, whose presence didn’t deter any of the guys from heckling me. Also, because everyone was talking at once, I couldn’t understand everything they saying and had the distinct feeling that the teenagers in the back kept making fun of me. Oh well. 

A triciclero (blocked by a school boy) of the kind we interviewed.

Also, Nicaraguans definitely feel that they can take advantage of us gringos. One of the guys asked if I could gift him the Bolsas de Vida, as well call them, to him. Others, when I inquired in to the price that they’d be willing to pay for the bags, told me drastically low bids such as 15 cordobas (about 60 cents) whereas when Christian or Cesar asked people, they’d give them estimates of 100 or 200, knowing they couldn’t BS native Nicaraguans. 

For dinner, we had some Chinese...though we went originally for the air conditioning, the food was surprisingly good. Even though the food didn’t taste completely Chinese, it was very fresh and full of vegetables, and the portions were huge. I felt like I offended the owner because I left, literally, half of my dinner unfinished because the helpings were so large

The menu

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Goodnight!