A Letter From Nicaragua
Just got back from two days of picking coffee near Ocotal. It's a small town about six miles south of the Honduran border. It was a U.S. marine base during the invasion of 1912 and again in the 1930s. Coffee picking gives you lots of time to think as you pluck the little red berries off the plush green trees trying not to break the stems and damage the crop. Ocotal is an oasis of lush green jungle terrain which is a pleasant sign of life. After two months of drought, which has killed many a harvest throughout Central America, most of the country is dry and dusty. Empty river beds mark the way. The good news was that I only heard six shots the whole time I was there and they were all aimed at birds in the sky. The cooperative is prepared for an attack, being only six miles from the border. Since co-ops are a main target of the Contras it is surrounded by a trench. All co-op members, be they 13 years or 43 years old, carry an AK-47 rifle when walking through the jungle. In 10 months they have not been attacked, if only by the grace of God. The believe this is because the Contras don't want to attack so close to the Honduran border because they want to maintain the lie that Contras are not operating out of Honduras. But this is clear blasphemy and I doubt that many in the States believe this.

Every second of the day this damn war haunts us. It's not just the sound of distant mortar shells as I am going to sleep. It's not just the prevalence of armed soldiers and citizens or olive greens. It's not just the SMP (military draft) T-shirts on the backs of the young boys playing baseball in the street. It's the economic war. The fact that energy is in such short supply that each barrio (neighborhood) gets only 2-5 hours of electricity a day. It's eating tortillas and bare rice for dinner because the beans we are supposed to receive monthly from the Barrio Expendio (the government store) haven't been available for almost two months. The ones sold by private vendors in the street are too costly. It is not being able to go to the Cascades--one of the most beautiful natural wonders in the country--because this secluded natural fountain buried in the mountains, is an easy target for Contra attacks. It's never having enough water to take a good shower because water is also being rationed. If you can bathe there isn't enough soap to come clean because the Barrio Expendio has been out of this too. So yes, every moment here is testimony to the high cost of war. It is evidence that the United States through the embargo, through maintenance of the Contra forces and through the inequality of prices on the international market, is effectively crippling the productive capability of this nation; these people. War is still unhealthy for children and other living things.

Elaine Freedman
Nicaragua