So I haven't written in a long time...
Bullet points:
-There is a very small community of activists, politicians, writers, intellectuals, etc. in Nicaragua. It constantly surprises me how easy it is to meet with major figures, and talk like any two people in the street. This is what I've been doing the past few weeks.
-I sometimes get very tired of the very white, very self-righteous community of mostly Christian solidarious US citizens that live here. A lot of them are doing great work, but I can't help but feel that a lot of them feel a lot more validated by their fame here than they would in the US, where they'd be small small fish. Am I the same way?
-My relationship with G is a spiritual experience, but a very confusing one. Last night he was heartbroken because of the state of the world; Nicaragua is fucked. With both teachers and doctors striking because their salaries are ridiculously low (as mandated by IMF regulations), with a 70% unemployment rate, he's feeling lost and like he's wasted the past 7 years of his life here, since he came back from Cuba. He is worried the US will rig the elections so that the right wins again, in which case he said he can't help but keep living here. I can't tell him not to despair because I have no idea what its' like to be him. I also don't want to feel like he's my own personal project. I also want to support him, and to feel like we're creating a world of hope together for the two of us. I do not know how to do this.
-My coworker the other day made a joke about criminals getting ass-raped in prison. First of all, having met victims of prison rape through my past job, it disgusts me that in popular culture it's acceptable to joke about these human rights violations as if they were ever humorous (count the number of prison ass rape jokes you've heard in movies and tv shows. Disgusting, isnt' it?) Second of all, the bigger problem is that criminals are accepted as throway people. Since millions of people are behind bars for a certain drug addiction which has been criminalized (which, shockingly, falls upon racial lines), and are there as a result of a racist penal system, which is part of a much larger racist socioeconomic system. Even if they have committed a crime, they are still fucking human beings and deserve rights. Anyway, the fact that a so called progressive person has succumbed to the disgusting idea that prison inmates are throwaway people from whom anal rape is just a funny part of life is shocking to me. Furthermore, I hate being preachy and self righteous, but I fear I didn't state my opinion strongly enough: I just reminded her of basically those two points: that a) rape is never funny and b)dehumanizing prison inmates as criminals doesn't exactly jive with the values that we purportedly share. I'm still obviously upset about it, and I think it relates to my second point, in which I feel kind of alienated from a lot of the Americans here, in addition to being a foreigner myself.
-Beyond these inquietudes, I've actually been extremely happy recently. In love with G, doing work that I feel is meaningful, taking French and bellydance classes (random, I realize); in other words, keeping busy. I'm also trying to track the elections here, which I'm going to be talking about soon. Oh yeah, and politics in the US=too depressing; Alito? SOTU? jesus, folks.
-There is a very small community of activists, politicians, writers, intellectuals, etc. in Nicaragua. It constantly surprises me how easy it is to meet with major figures, and talk like any two people in the street. This is what I've been doing the past few weeks.
-I sometimes get very tired of the very white, very self-righteous community of mostly Christian solidarious US citizens that live here. A lot of them are doing great work, but I can't help but feel that a lot of them feel a lot more validated by their fame here than they would in the US, where they'd be small small fish. Am I the same way?
-My relationship with G is a spiritual experience, but a very confusing one. Last night he was heartbroken because of the state of the world; Nicaragua is fucked. With both teachers and doctors striking because their salaries are ridiculously low (as mandated by IMF regulations), with a 70% unemployment rate, he's feeling lost and like he's wasted the past 7 years of his life here, since he came back from Cuba. He is worried the US will rig the elections so that the right wins again, in which case he said he can't help but keep living here. I can't tell him not to despair because I have no idea what its' like to be him. I also don't want to feel like he's my own personal project. I also want to support him, and to feel like we're creating a world of hope together for the two of us. I do not know how to do this.
-My coworker the other day made a joke about criminals getting ass-raped in prison. First of all, having met victims of prison rape through my past job, it disgusts me that in popular culture it's acceptable to joke about these human rights violations as if they were ever humorous (count the number of prison ass rape jokes you've heard in movies and tv shows. Disgusting, isnt' it?) Second of all, the bigger problem is that criminals are accepted as throway people. Since millions of people are behind bars for a certain drug addiction which has been criminalized (which, shockingly, falls upon racial lines), and are there as a result of a racist penal system, which is part of a much larger racist socioeconomic system. Even if they have committed a crime, they are still fucking human beings and deserve rights. Anyway, the fact that a so called progressive person has succumbed to the disgusting idea that prison inmates are throwaway people from whom anal rape is just a funny part of life is shocking to me. Furthermore, I hate being preachy and self righteous, but I fear I didn't state my opinion strongly enough: I just reminded her of basically those two points: that a) rape is never funny and b)dehumanizing prison inmates as criminals doesn't exactly jive with the values that we purportedly share. I'm still obviously upset about it, and I think it relates to my second point, in which I feel kind of alienated from a lot of the Americans here, in addition to being a foreigner myself.
-Beyond these inquietudes, I've actually been extremely happy recently. In love with G, doing work that I feel is meaningful, taking French and bellydance classes (random, I realize); in other words, keeping busy. I'm also trying to track the elections here, which I'm going to be talking about soon. Oh yeah, and politics in the US=too depressing; Alito? SOTU? jesus, folks.
posted by Brynne at 9:47 AM
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