Managua, Nicaragua
What a long, crazy day!
We all woke up relatively early - I’d say everybody was showered and dressed by eight-thirty - and had a good solid breakfast. Ana spent all yesterday evening working to arrange a particularly delicate interview and was going to call us if the plans came through. Either way, she was going to pick us up at noon to take us to her office at Almori where we could interview Alvaro Montealegre (who is, essentially, The Boss) and another employee to get two perspectives on the business.
The place we’re staying has a beautiful open-air patio with four criminally comfortably rocking chairs and we spent the morning out there, sipping lemonade and preparing questions for the interviews. Ana picked us up around one, so we had some time to use the internet at the office before setting up for the first interview. Trevor was worried about the light (partially cloudy days, he says, are the worst for shooting, because the light is always changing), but other than that, Señor Montealegre’s interview went very well. His answers were so well organized and concise that if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he knew what we were going to ask him ahead of time and had memorized answers.
We also interviewed Thomas, an employee at the company, who gave us a totally different point of view on what the Nicaraguan workplace can be like - very honest, heartfelt answers.
Our third interview, with a Nicaraguan writer and former revolutionary, fell through (I was particularly disappointed, but I suppose that’s life), and the fourth was pushed back to Thursday morning. We drove back with Ana and stopped at a bank, so Arthur could get some cordobas, and at a small grocery store, which was very interesting. A lot of the products, especially branded items like cereals and soups, were American, but with Spanish labels on them. The mascot for Kellogg’s cereal is a baby elephant. On our way out, Arthur bought me a little desert: Two really thin “communion” wafers with a layer of caramel between them. He says he’s had this in San Antonio, but I’d never seen it before. So delicious!
When we got back, we had a quick dinner and looked over the new interview footage. Trevor and Arthur shot some B-roll at the office, and they uploaded that as well. We’re going to bed early tonight; tomorrow we’re catching a seven o’clock bus to Chinandega, where we’ll shoot for the other project, a promotional piece for Betania. I think Arthur is hoping to use some of the B-roll for the documentary as well.
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