Dad - August 4, Night

Saturday August 4, 2007
Hotel Alhambra
Granada

(post pizza)

I am not sure William Walker would recognize, let alone approve of Granada these days – the central parque at 8 pm on a Saturday is buzzing comfortably with food vendors, men and couples hanging out on benches and the carriagemen.. The crafts sellers and the kid soccer players have mostly gone away, but there are a number of pavilions that are still selling food. Several of the arched loggias around the parque have restaurants laid out with diners making the scene. Next to the Cathedral which he burned down and was finally rebuilt in 1910 – the bright yellow exterior belying an austere, unadorned interior – the Calle Calzada stretches east to the Lago Nicaragua. The first four or five blocks are blocked off to auto traffic and the more intrepid restaurants have set out tables for eating.

The effect is not European or urban American chic. The public lighting is dimmer, the street is treeless, there aren’t enough crowds and the buildings are one story, brightly painted and free of ornamentation in the front. Well to do Nica families outnumber travelers in the restaurants and at the bumpy cross streets, there are streams of cars, tricks, walkers, bicyclers and horse drawn and carriages. (I noticed on Ometepe the way horses were used for transportation and work – not just recreation – and that extends even into the city).

This is a cool city. It has the colonial feel – colonnaded interior gardens that you glimpse through doors set in plain stucco fronts painted shades of yellow, red and aqua; tile roofs, even a tinny sounding cathedral bell that chimes the quarter hour. There are some impressive public buildings – none higher than three storeys. There are all sorts of nicely framed photographs waiting to be taken – with Volcan Mombacho or the Lago as backdrops.

But this is a working town, not a tourism museum. A few blocks away from the central square you hear the clunk of folding metal chairs dragged across the linoleum floor at a high school, and during the days the streets are choked with traffic. The market section is full of street vendors selling bootleg DVDs, food and clothing, sometimes under dark vinyl sheets under which you have thread your way past the stalls. Besides the hospedajes and internet cafes, the stores include video slot machine parlors, joyerias and barber shops. My early morning walk this am took me out of the hotel district within five blocks of the parque and then I was among Granadians walking to work, dirty crying kids, a few women – presumably Indian – walking smoothly erect with large wicker baskets balanced on their heads, dirty streets and guys hacking at the weeds in the campo de beisbol with their machetes. The Iglesia de la Merced – where William Walker had his inauguration - has a statues adorned with clothing, pictures framed by Christmas lights and the shepherd Jesus holding a toy stuffed lamb. The locals won’t surrender the City to the viajeroes and for that we should be glad.

I have finished the history of Nicaragua in the 80s, which holds the Sandinistas in higher esteem than the Reagan administration, but only by a split decision, and now have had a chance to ask a few Nicaraguans what it is like to have Daniel Ortega as president again. I am fascinated by the arc of a guy who was shooting up Somoza Regime leadership in the 60s, and now is preaching “peace” and “growth”, and cutting deals to maintain his political power. . The Nicas who speak English and deal with tourists generally take a dim view of Daniel. Although no longer the revolutionary, he loses points on the one hand because of the compromises he had made and on the other hand because – as the lawyer who sets up partnerships in Nicaragua for locals and foreigners says – “He still believes in that robin hood stuff and that does not work in the 21st century.”

“The table is set for him.” that guy continued. (meaning that the financial health of the country has improved, the military is reduced and under control, and foreigners are willing to invest, especially in tourism.) “Is he going to mind his manners or be a pig?”

(I suppose “being a pig” for a business person interested in getting his share of the foreign money, is just doing what is right for the kid in the Managua slum. Nicaragua remains the 2nd poorest country in the West, so there is still work to do)

Ortega would not have won last year, our Ometepe guide Johan maintained, if the conservatives had not split and the popular Sandinista splinter candidate had died during the campaign of a heart attack (or was it really, some asked). And all concede that his wife (partner?) is a nut case.

But the revolution is long past. The well meaning coffee pickers from the US have their memories. Private ownership is of course a good thing. People are more interested in emulating the life on FoxSports and CNN - getting a cell phone, a clothes washer and a car. It seems a given that while the political leadership may be crooked and venal, the prospects for a return to military repression is not even worth conceiving. Then the debates here are in some ways the same as in the US – how much effort do you spend on making the pie bigger vs the relative size of the slices.

That is where tourism comes in. Is it a parasitical economy or Nicaragua’s silver ring? We are in the southern corner of the country on the gringo trail – so it is all about tourism here. The Miami based architect/developer on our canopy tour today who is in country one week out of four as he does a big development on the pacific coast insists that eco- sensitive green development is the only way to go – but who makes that call? He thinks it is good that the Nica ministry overseeing him is getting stronger, but as a regulator, I want respect from my entities, not praise.

It is a whole different set of debates than the 80s, when Nicaragua was to be the second leg of the communist stool in the Central American/Caribbean, and we poured money into the contras and making misery. Now – fortunately for Nicaraguans, the American money is in canopy tours, not contras. And – as the T-shirt of the older, well meaning but loutish Californian guy on our canopy tour proclaimed, we have “Unleashed the Beast” of the Marines in the Middle East, not here.