The Great Volcan Masaya

Smoke and sulfur belched upward continuesly from Nicaragua’s most active volcano.  Rain poured down and the wind whipped at my face stinging it like acid as I tried to look down into Volcan Masaya’s enormous crater, hoping for a glimpse of molten lava.
Peace Corps Training was officially halfway over now, and as a reward, we were given a free trip to Volcan Masaya National Park.  Although it Masaya is far from the highest volcano even in the immediate area, with Volcan Mombacho so big we could see it in the distance from the Masaya park, Masaya’s constant activity attracts visitors from all over the world.
According  to the park’s visitor center more than 50 percent of their patronage comes from “extranjeros” or foreign tourists.  The entrance to the park is 100 cordobas, roughly four US dollars.  For that, not only can you visit the crater itself, but also a very educational museum dedicated to it.
There are exhibits of the volcano’s geology and how it effects the local environment as well as a history of how the volcano was seen by human societies.  Ancient tribes believed that a “Hag deity” lived at the bottom of the crater and was honored with human sacrifices.  The Spanish saw the place as the gateway to hell and proceeded to baptize the volcano and mount a large wooden cross on the top.
Naturally we weren’t out at this site just for fun.  Peace Corps decided to use the place for our diversity session.  The idea was people are like volcanos, they have some really amazing topical features that make them different in appearance. However, if you get down to the core of them all, there’s a chamber of molten magma deep down in all of them that makes them who they really are.  At first hearing this metaphor I wasn’t totally on board but after going up the slopes of Masaya, I started to get a better idea of how right it really was.
We drove all the way up to the lip of the crater.  Being allowed to do this is something that is unique to this volcano in not just Nicaragua but the whole world.  In 2001 it “burped up boulders” according to Moon travel guides, damaging cars and narrowly missing people.
Lonely Planet travel guides say that Volcan Masaya is for adventure tourism, and it is suggested to limit your visits to only 20 minutes.  The billowing clouds of greyish sulfur smoke that smells like a full latrine will convince you to keep it short if the warning didn’t.  But don’t let that keep you away from this place.  It’s amazing to stand on the shoulder of one of nature’s great marvels of raw power.

Originally published in Va Pues, March 2012
(The Peace Corps magazine in Nicaragua)

Independence Day: An American in Nicaragua

When I saw that my Peace Corps service was going to keep me in Nicaragua for over two years, I started thinking about what that meant.  It means, if there’s going to be holiday, I’m going to be there for it.  I didn’t think the first would actually be their independence from us!

Ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it’s mostly true.  September, 15^th marks the day Nicaragua fought back against Spain and the 16th commemorates the battle against the American-born dictator, William Walker.  I’m not going to get into the whole history of that because I'm no expert so, I’ll stick to what I experienced on Nicaraguan Independence Day. But since the preparations for this started way before, I think it’s best that I follow their lead.

Every morning, for about the past week and a half in this tiny town of La Paz, has been filled with the ringing and banging of hundreds of drums, snares and xylophones as all the children prepare for a grand parade up and down all five or 6 streets that make up this little pueblo.

The noise permeates just about everything.  Even while at the school trying to observe their classes, the other volunteers and I were almost having to stuff our fingers in our ears to tone down the insistent “THRUM DRUM CRASH!” 

The sound made studying impossible for both the students in the class and us volunteers trying to learn how to improve things.  We all reached the same conclusion that if they practice like this for every holiday, and there’s a lot of’em down here, some kind of wall to separate the band from the rest of society is going to be at the top of the priority list.

Even when you go home, that’s not enough to escape.  The students regularly practice marching through the streets in the late afternoons for the last few days before the actual parade.

“Imagine if these kids could put all this energy into something else,” said Carol, one of the 3 volunteers here in La Paz.

Well I tried to think what the town would be like without the primary school band, the secondary school band, the church band… Honestly, there’s nothing else left in this town for these kids to do after school.  In the US, there are a million student orgs, teams, clubs as well as hot spots to hang out.  Here… not so many.  The bands are about it.

Finally, the day had come for everything these kids had been practicing for the real deal.  The all dressed up in their brightest whites and most navy of blues, the colors of the Nicaraguan flag.  Bright and early, they start their regimental procession over the cobble stones of tiny streets with no names.

A quick look through their ranks reveals that there is only percussion, no horns or reeds.   What they lack in tone, they make up for in rhythm.   A section of girls carry an instrument that looks like a round cheese grater and a whisk that they scrap together as they dance their way through the street.

Being one of only three Americans in the entire pueblo, and the fact that they’re celebrating freedom from a white American dictator, I expected some anti-American sentiment to be a bit of an issue, but surprisingly, I was being introduced to more people that day than the entire time I’ve spent here.  In fact the people were so generous that if I ever uttered that I was thirsty, a complete stranger would dash in doors to her kitchen and bring me a glass of water.

Independence means something different to these people it seems.  It’s not about kicking out the foreigners or hating their past oppressors.  For them, it’s about becoming their own sustainable community and being in charge of their own destinies, not having someone tell them what is permitted.  If they want to give water to a thirsty gringo, they can and they do.

Cuerpo De Paz