Grey Matters Media

What was supposed to be an extremely busy day today, with interviews packed together like sardines, turned out - in true Nica fashion - to be much slower paced.

We woke early for an eight o’ clock meeting, at his campaign headquarters, with former Vice President turned Presidential candidate Jose Rizo. The empty parking lot at the building was our first sign that there had been a misunderstanding. “Senior Rizo is not here,” explained an extremely friendly man once we’d been ushered inside. “He is campaigning in San Juan del Sur for the day!” At least an hour or two drive south, San Juan del Sur is a town known for its beautiful beaches, which I have read have some decent waves for surfing. Clearly there had been a mix-up somewhere along the line of communication, and we weren’t getting an interview today. We rescheduled, tentatively, and went on our way.

But to where? Our next interview wasn’t for another two hours! What were we to do with ourselves?

Our friend, Norma, was giving us rides for the morning. After the defeat of the Sandinista government in 1990, Norma’s parents had opened a small, private Catholic school in Managua. The school flourished and today provides incredible educational opportunities to over five hundred students, from preschool to twelfth grade. When Norma asked us if we’d like to kill time by taking a short tour of the school, we were naturally enthusiastic. One of the highlights of our last trip, for me, were our shoots at schools founded by Padre Marcos as part of the Mission of Betania. Countries vary by geography, economy, politics, and history, but kids are pretty much kids no matter where you travel. Being around them is one of the best ways I know to remind myself that beneath those differences about which Grown-Ups like to make so much noise, we’re all just human, and we’re all in it together.

Anyway, the school was incredible. In art history classes (which, if they are good, always include a little bit of architecture) you learn about how architecture adapts to environment. At its core, architecture is an adaptation to our environment: It’s a response to the human need for shelter. The architecture and design of this school was just astonishingly beautiful. A sprawling complex of buildings on thirteen acres of land, the classrooms opened onto airy, covered walkways, and the grounds were landscaped with beautiful, lush flowers and plenty of shade trees.

Our first stop was the preschool. My mother has been an assistant preschool teacher for ten years now, and I think she would have been amused to find that activities like finger painting and Play-Doh are found all over the world. It was Mother’s Day in Nicaragua on Wednesday, and we passed countless displays of student artwork accompanied by captions like “The thing I like best about Mommy is _______.” Trevor shot for a while on the new basketball court, which is in the process of being covered with a roof so that students don’t have to play in the rain. The high school students were taking finals, so we left them to their work. One of our final visits was to the school’s young library, which has just been awarded a reasonably large grant from a publishing company. Right now, Norma explained as I walked around its few bookcases, it just houses some old reference books; it’s not really a positive learning environment for students. With the help of the grant, the school would be able to purchase thousands of books, everything from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Cat in the Hat to Hamlet. I must admit, the prospect of having the opportunity to build a school library from the ground up tickled my literary imagination. Think of the possibilities! (”I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library,” said the great Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges. My kind of guy.)

With something like reluctance, we left the school so as not to be late for our next interview. You may or may not recall that we were originally supposed to meet Ricardo Teran on our last trip. We met with him today in his office, and I have to admit, he made quite an impression. Trevor asked him if it would be all right if we turned off the air-conditioning unit in the room so that we wouldn’t pick it up as background noise, and the room temperature must have gone up ten degrees in the forty-five minutes or so that we were there. Teran is a young man, only a few years older than Arthur, but he speaks with almost unnerving intensity. “So, when are you running for President?” Arthur asked him, jokingly, as we packed up our equipment. Given a few years, I’m willing to bet he won’t be the only one to ask that, and probably with a great deal more seriousness.

Our final interview of the day was with Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the brother of Christiana Chamorro, with whom we met on our last trip. Senior Chamorro ran Barricada, the FSLN-owned newspaper, until 1994, and now has a radio show, a weekly television program (”Think the Nicaraguan version of 60 Minutes,” Ana told me), and a weekly newsmagazine. For some reason, his demeanor reminded me of a college professor, the kind whose classes always fill up very quickly, who has been given affectionate nicknames for his students, who go on to be things like Secretary of State or CEOs of large companies and who, in acceptance speeches for awards, always thank their professor for opening their eyes and changing their lives. Also working at Senior Chamorro’s office was Camillo Belli, the son of writer (and, let’s be honest here, one of my literary heroines) Gioconda Belli. He gave us information about several extremely intriguing contacts, including an organization called Judenic, which he explained is kind of like a Nicaraguan Rock the Vote.

And we did all of this before lunch!

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