As old
the
By Debbie Howlett
Of I he Emerald
Emerald editor Debbie
Howlett recently returned from
an 11-day trip to Nicaragua. This
is the third in a five part series.
Among the many impres
sions of Nicaragua, a few are
sharper, more focused than the
rest. Some images stay in the
mind longer, blotting out ones
that are less dramatic.
I
The youthfulness of the San
dinistas is an image that lingers. The young children's faces
come back to smile, to haunt.
A young boy stands guard near an airport terminal exit. His
green fatigues hang limply on his slouching frame. His field cap
tips rakishly to the right. An inch long cigarette butt droops
from his lower lip, grey-blue smoke curling around his smooth
chin. An automatic rifle hangs carelessly from his right
shoulder.
Barefoot kids press toward the foreign tourists. Small, dirty
palms reach out, begging for anything of value. Pesos, pens,
candy.
But not all of the images haunt.
A group of neighborhood boys play baseball with a
broomstick and a hard black ball that resembles the ball used
in field hockey. A smaller, frustrated boy strikes out and storms
| off to sit alone in the tall grass of a vacant lot.
It is clear that politics and the Sandinista government mean
H very little to a 4-year-old child, that happiness is the measure
for everything.
The youngest Nicaraguans only want food in their bellies. They
want clothes, and shoes to cover their bare feet. They want a home,
with a roof that keeps the rain out.
The children, many of them as old as the revolution itself, won't
equate food and health care with Marxism, Capitalism, or Com
munism. The older kids are taught that their government won't ter
rorize them as political leaders have in the past.
Sometime along the way a child begins to learn about the
significance of U.S. intervention and Soviet economic aid. He comes
to realize striking out in a neighborhood baseball game isn't as
significant as it once was. Perhaps the realization will come as the
child sits among the tall grass and cries for a his brother, who died at
war last week.
Sometime along the way, the child grows up.
Story and Photos
by Debbie Howlett