Grey Matters Media

Just when I think this trip can’t possibly be any more incredible, I go and have a day like today.

We spent the afternoon with Ana, flushed and giddy with the success of our Presidential interview. Our next appointment wasn’t until the late afternoon, so we had a leisurely, relaxed lunch and took our time developing the next set of questions. Around four o’ clock, we packed up and left. Ana weaved her way expertly through the early rush-hour traffic, and we made it to the offices of La Prensa, Nicaragua’s oldest and most respected newspaper.

There we met with Christiana Chamorro, former editor and now editorialist and member of La Prensa’s Board of Directors. The Chamorros are something like the Pulitzers of Nicaragua; their family has owned La Prensa for several generations. The assassination of Christiana’s father, Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, who was an outspoken critic against the Samoza dictatorship as well as the editor of La Prensa, helped mobilize popular support for the Sandinistas. From 1990 to 1996, Christiana’s mother, Violeta Barrios Chamorro, was the President of Nicaragua.

I felt more confident going into this interview than I ever had before. Journalism is only a hop, skip and a jump away from creative writing; after nearly a week of politicians, I was going to talk to a writer. I was put even more at ease when, upon pulling into the parking lot, I noticed a Princeton University sticker on the back of a white SUV. “Oh, yeah, didn’t I mention that?” Ana casually remarked. “I think that her son went to Princeton.” My heart, recalling hours spent wandering the streets of Princeton in adolescent bliss, skipped a beat, and I was momentarily grateful that I visited my parents in New Jersey the weekend before leaving on this trip.

We made our way inside and again walked down a long hallway; this one had pictures from La Prensa’s long, well-renowned past. Images from the 1972 earthquake hung side by side with more scenic shots of the islands near Granada. We waited for a few minutes on some sofas near a reception desk before Señora Chamorro herself came out to show us to her office.

And what an office it was. Although relatively small in terms of square footage, what it lacked in floor space it made up for in a very high ceiling. And every inch of wall space was covered with photographs or newspaper articles detailing the incredible history of the Chamorro family, which is inseparable from the history of La Prensa itself. Front and center, smiling over the desk, was a photo of Pedro Joaquin himself. I could have spent hours, maybe even days, asking Senora Chamorro to tell the stories behind each and every object. There were neat piles of Time magazines on the edge of her desk, and three newspaper racks held today’s issues of La Prensa, El Nuevo Diario (Nicaragua’s second-most widely circulated publication, it’s notably more sensationalist than La Prensa - sort of the difference between the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald), and one other paper that I didn’t recognize.

The interview was the longest yet. Señora Chamorro took broad, simple questions and gave us confident, passionate, and extremely detailed answers; after the first question, Ana gave up translating and summarizing her Spanish answers for me, and I can’t wait to start working with someone to transcribe and translate this interview. When the interview ended and Arthur and Trevor started putting the equipment away, I asked her about the Princeton sticker on her car, and we talked about what a wonderful college town Princeton is.

By the time we were all finished at La Prensa, it was nearing dusk, so Ana was able to postpone our final interview of the day for tomorrow. We drove over to a park to watch Ana’s friend, Norma, play tennis. Afterward, the five of us, plus Eleane and some of Ana’s friends from Almori (including the incomparable Gioconda) went to dinner at TGI Friday’s, of all places. Eleane and Gio lied to the waiters and told them it was Ana’s birthday, and Ana had to get up and dance, protesting the whole time.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.