hasta la victoria siempre en el salvador...

hey friends,

some photos from the day before and the day of the presidential election, where i drove around in a pickup truck as part of the election fraud special forces and then took to the streets to party with el pueblo...

tienen miedo?

no!

estan cansados?

no!

entonces, adelante, adelante, la lucha es constante!

i'm leaving this land of central america in a few days to head back to the land i call home. it's been amazing and at the same time i am so excited for what's next.

thanks for reading,

much love,

max

elections in el salvador day 3

this morning, we hung out for a while at the fmln headquarters, which is called 1316 since that is the address. while we were there, someone asked us if we could read a quote in spanish with a gringo accent, so that they could use it in a radio commercial. so, they recorded cody saying, "i am confident that neither TPS nor the right to receive remittances from family in the united states will be affected by the outcome of the election, despite what some of my colleagues in congress have said," which was a quote released today by house of representatives committee on foreign affairs chairman howard berman in order to counter balance the fear tactics that arena is using here.

in the afternoon, we headed over to the radisson hotel, where the tribunal suprema electoral (tse) has set up offices to process the over 5,000 election observers. we fileld out some forms, had our pictures taken, got our credentials, and became offical election observers.


while at the hotel, we accidently walked into a press conference by arena's presidential candidate rodrigo avila. the press soft balled him questions such as "why is the fmln so violent?" or "how is chavez in control of the fmln?" or "how would things get really bad in el salvador if the fmln wins?" and he put out the same threats that have dominated the media here. basically, arena's message is that if the fmln wins the united states will deport salvadorians and stop remittances to el salvador and that at the same time the fmln is secretly controlled by venezuelan president hugo chavez who wants to dominate and repress all of latin america. as avila left the press conference, he walked right by me and paused for a few minutes to answer another reporter's question. suddenly, i found myself standing right next to him and surrounded by cameras and reporters. i had to remind myself that i am here techinically as a neutral observer, and so i couldn't say anything to him.

in the evening, we went to a reception that the fmln was putting on for the hundreds of international observers that they have invited. sadly, my camera died so i don't have any party pictures. it was really incredible to meet so many people from so many countries who are involved in so many interesting political projects. i met a labor attorney from new york who is friends with a friend of mine who is an immigrant rights attorney in san francisco. i ran into a couple of panamanian folks who i had met in panama city at a revolutionary poetry reading in honor of the cuban 5. i met a man from kuna yala who knew many of the amazing kuna people i had met just over a month ago. i hung out with a couple from toronto who do a radical radio show and work in a feminist bookstore and know someone who used to work with my union. so many parts of my trip coming together.

much love,

max

elections in el salvador, day 1 & 2...

hey friends,

well, i've arrived in el salvador for the last adventure of my travels. the presidential elections are this sunday and thigngs are really heating up here. this is an extremely critical election, as the ruling right-wing party has been in office for 20 years and has been moving an aggresive neo-liberal program that has made the rich richer and the poor poorer. currently, the fmln is leading in the polls, and their victory would be a huge step in moving el salvador towards being a more just country for all of it's people.

day 1...

we got into san salvador, and were immediately blown away by the completely biased media coverage of the elections here. every page of the newpapers was supporting the right-wing arena party and bashing the left-wing former guerillas of the fmln. after a long day's journey, we met up with our salvadorian friends who are part of the fmln. over dinner, we learned about all of the ways that the right-wing is trying to steal the elections, including employers telling workers that they need to take a photo of their vote for arena or they will be fired and arena providing false identification documents to nicaraguans and hondurans so that they can vote for the right-wing. we also found out that arena has been threatening that if the fmln wins then the us governement might deport salvadorians living in the us and might also stop all remitances into el salvador from salvadorians living in the us. this of course has been helped by us republican congressmembers who have been making the same threats from the floor of the house of representatives while claiming that fmln is a "pro-terrorist" organization.

day 2...

we went to the fmln office, where we met up with hundreds of people from all over the world and received an extensive training in the political history of the country, the history of the fmln and arena, the specific processes used on election day at the polls, and what to look out for in terms of voter fraud. later, we got to attend a press conference of sana (salvadorian american national association), which has brought dozens of election observers from all over the world to insure that there won't be fraud on sunday.

overall, the energy here is excited, but nervous. people here have gone through a civil war, where many of them lost loved ones, and 20 years of an administration that has only benefited the rich. every time the fmln has gotten close to gaining more power, the right-wing has done massive fraud. we shall see what happens this. as the slogan from the fmln presidential candidate mauricio funes goes, "esta vez es diferente."

much love,

max

nica & catracho otra vez...

hey friends,

cody and i managed to have a few more adventures in nicaragua and honduras before making it to el salvador for the elections. in this update, i bring you...

1. the community side of touristy granada

2. a few hours of radical managua

3. in search of soy in leon

4. gangsters and revolutionaries in esteli

5. baleadas and haircuts in hondruas

1... from san jose we made it up to granada on the shores of lake nicaragua. we ended up hanging out with these two guys who spend nearly their entire day sitting around and guarding an outdoor food vendor area that is closed during the day. they took us to play futbol rapido, which is soccer played with teams of 5 on a basketall court sized cement field with a very small ball. it's basically the equivalent of street ball and is predictably accompanied with a good amount of machismo and physical play. amazingly, as the sun went down over the dramatic view of towering mountains and rough lake, we actually won a game. later, they took us to a community center called carita feliz to see youth dance performances, which ranged from breakdancing to folclorico.

2... on our way to leon, we stopped in managua for a few hours. while, we were there we went to the parque de la paz, which was built after the civil war in order to destroy most of the weapons. basically, a huge hole was dug in the ground and then filled with guns and cement. part of the park sculpted into a lighthouse and an abstract modern structure of squares. while, the other part of the park is really rough and crude, and looks as if they poured a bunch of concrete on the edge of a small hill and then started jamming rifles into the quickly setting concrete. we also stopped at a huge monument in honor of the workers of nicaragua and the main union, the federacion nacional de trabajadores. and yes, that is an enormous gun that the worker in the sculptre is raising. as we were leaving the center of managua to go to the bus station, we noticed a very large shanty town across the street from the national assembly building. we stopped there to find out what was going on and it turned out that this was a group of former banana workers who were staging a protest because the had been affected by a pesticide used by the banana companies. they used to work for large banana companies, like dole and chiquita, but then about 16 years ago, workers and their families started to get cancer. predictably, the companies fled the country and won't take responsibility. over 7,000 people in nicaragua have been affected by this chemical, which has caused cancer, deformities, and other illnesses in the banana workers, their kids, and their grandkids. after years of protests and lawsuits, a group of around 700 former workers and their families decided to camp out across the street from the national assembly in order to try and pressure the nicaraguan government to support them in holding these banana companies responsible. they have now been their for over 2 years and are running their protest/community in a very powerful and democratic structure. we met the president and vice-president, whose stories of illness and struggle are both so disturbing and inspiring. we exchanged contact info, and cody and i are doing some research into how we might be able to work in solidarity with their struggle, especially looking into ways that we all in the us can work to hold these us companies responsible for all the pain and suffering that they have caused to these workers and their families.

3... last time i was in leon, as i was leaving on the bus, a local guy told me that all of the hamburgers that are sold by the street vendors in town are actually made of soy. cody and i were, naturally, very excited and decided to go get some. however, none of the vendors would admit that their hamburgers were made of soy as there that is an insult. we kept tryign to explain that we actually wanted them to be made of soy, but still none of them would give in and tell us the truth. they just kept directing us to other vendors sayign that their competition used soy in their burgers. so, it turns out, that everyone in town knows that the hamburgers are soy, but no one really wants to talk about, and especially not the vendors. so, in the end, sadly we couldn't bring ourselves to eat the hamburgers. despite the lack of soy, we did find a folkloric dance performance by a nationally famous group at the nice old theater.

4... our last stop in nicaragua was the northern town of esteli, which was the center of the sandanista revolution in the late 1970's. we found ourselves hanging out with the local gangsters of calle 5, who like to chill at the bus shelter, smoke kush and local cigars, and drink a local hombrew made from a fruit called cojombro. they bragged that they could get us some crack rocks for 2 dollars in 10 minutes, but we kindly declined. we went to a local museum that has been put together by the association of mothers of heros and martyrs, which was absolutely incredible. not only was there an extremely detailed and powerful explanation of the histroy of the revolution in nicaragua, but there were also photos and recuerdos of many of the young revolutionaries who were killed by the dictatorial government. we hung out with the director of the association, whose son left home at 14 to join the sandanista guerrilas in the hills and then two years later was killed and beheaded by the dictator's national guard. she was an incredibly strong woman who works every day to keep the memory of her son and other mother's children alive. we found out that her daughter just moved to san francisco last month, so she gave us a bag of cookies to give her daughter when i get back to the bay. once again, places don't feel that far apart and history not that long ago.

5... in honduras for a few hours, we ate a bunch of baleadas, which i didn't realize how much i missed from my adventures a few months ago with manjula. before cataching the bus to el salvador, we happened to walk by a children's barber shop called kidz kuts, and decided that since we were going to be official election observers we might want to clean up a bit. so, we got our hair cut at this place that had a play structure and toy trucks for kids to sit in while their hair is styled. very official, don't you think?

much love,

home in a week,

max

adventures and now on the road home

hello friends,

in this update, we have...

1. a bit more bohemia in panama
2. los carnavales en las tablas
3. a hostel in a cloud forest
4. a failed attempt at going to bocas
5. another 54 hours in costa rica

1... i got back to panama from kuna yala and met up with cody who flew down from california to travel the last month with me. we hit up all of the vegetarian resturants again and in the evening went out to see what was happening at the communist metal head squat bar called banos publicos. instead of metal, though, they had local live cuban style trova music. the scene was so bohemian with the tiny dilapitated and graffitied bar filled with people dancing and a continually rotating cast of characters playing insturments and singing. we ended up at an after party on a rooftop where we danced, drank, and smoked under the stars with 360 degree views of the old section of panama. we then somehow found ourselves at an after after party in an apartment with a hammock in the middle of the living room and a leaky faucet that flooded the whole place while also creating a high pitched shriek that at the time sounded like amazing experimental music. as the sun cam up, we got into a cab, picked up our french friend valerie and headed to the bus terminal to catch the first bus to las tablas and carnaval.

2... los carnavales in las tablas were simply unbelievable! the tiny town goes crazy as thousand and thousands of people come for 5 days straight of non-stop partying. the are two tunas, basically like opposing teams, called calle arriba and calle abajo who compete throughout the carnavales. during the day, each tuna would arrive at the town's center square with their culeco, which consisted of a super blinged out float featuring the tuna's queen followed by a large group of openly gay men called cuecos who sang songs bashing the other tuna along with a huge live horn and drum band called a murga. to make the whole situation even crazier, the roads were lined with water trucks which would douse everyone with cold water as we danced through the streets to the cueco's congs and the murga's beats. after the culecos went around a few times, we would go to one of the outdoor clubs to dance. it was a total fantasy of the ultimate party that was so packed you basically had to grind everyone near you in order to dance. at night, the tunas would compete again with their culecos back in the center square with a completely different float and costume for the queen. then after the culecos, we would go back out to the clubs and dance until the sun came up. at the end of all this, we would head home to sleep a few hours before doing it all over again the next day. the last night was truly magical and ridiculous as at 5am the two tunas lead marches through the city. everyone follows their prefered tuna and danced along to the music by the murga. when the two tunas meet at the center of the town, they put their respective queens on tables facing each other and the queens battle in full-on dancing and waving competition as each tuna's supporters yell obsenities at the opposing queen and sing nasty songs about the other tuna. after about an hour of this queen-on-queen action, to finish off the whole extravagnza each tuna lights firecrackers on the ground for as long as possible. it looked as if the streets were on fire. after about an hour of this madness, calle arriba's supplies ended, and calle abajo was declared the winner of carnaval. one super interesting thing to note about the carnavales in las tablas is that despite all the machismo and homophobia in panama and central america, the carnivales are almost completely organized and run by the cuecos. cuecos design and build the floats, dress the queens, and even write the biterly homophobic songs against the other tuna. it's a documentary project just begging to be made.

3... after carnaval, we decided to go and relax in this hostel called lost and found, which is actually located in a cloud forest. it was pretty unbelievable to cook in the outdoor kitchen while watching the clouds glide through the treetops along the mountains as cacomistles, olingos, and kinkajous (all varieties of jungle raccoons) would just wander through looking for food. we got to take a hike down to a cool mountain river to take a dip and a nap, and then up to a lookout where we saw an incredible double rainbow. the hostel also had a great foosball table and a collection of over 400 movies so we just chilled for a few days.

4...we decided to go to bocas del toro, which is a group of islands on the caribbean coast of panama. however, after the over-priced dorm rooms and toursit food, the rainy weather, and getting ripped off of five dollars while trying to buy pot, we left town the next day.

5... this time in passing through costa rica i spent a few more hours. we found some fun adventures in our 54 hours in costa rica including staying at a hostal run by quakers who were hosting a conference on depleted uranium, hiking through the goregous jungle line beaches in cahuita and seeing howler monkeys, running all over san jose to get back to the vegetarian restuarnat i went to last time, and hotboxing a van with two costa rican hippies as the drove us from the border stopping along the way to look at a three toed sloth, a grey hawk, and a tucan.

well, that's it for now. i've got a little less than two weeks to go on my trip as i'm coming back to the bay area on march 18th. we our currently in granada, nicaragua, and plan on spending a few more days in nicargua and honduras before getting to san salvador, el salvador in order to observe the presidential elections and the last week of the trip.

much love,
max

through costa rica and into panama...

hey friends,

in this update, i share some photos and words about...

1. costa rica in 33 hours
2. finding a house in las tablas
3. panama, panama, panama
4. the beautiful and revolutionary islands of kuna yala

1... i crossed into and out of costa rica in about 33 hours. along the way i walked through hotels filled with crackheads and prostitutes, drank canned rum and coke in the park at 1030 am with a french rasta guy, found the first vegetarian restuarant of these travels and ate a club sandwich with jamon de soya, and saw the brightest rainbow i've ever seen in my life.

2... i arrived in the small town of las tablas in the interior of panama and started looking for a place to rent for carnaval in a few weeks. i found a few random postings around town, called around, and made a plan to meet up with a contact in the central park. i told ivana and yasilka it would be pretty easy to find me since i was the only gringo in town. they took me to ivana's parents' house, where rita made me my one of my favorite drinks, chica de maranon (cashew fruit juice), and chinto told me about his love of current events magazines from the united states... seemed like a prefect fit, so we sealed the deal. ivana, yasilka, and i went out that night to the one club in town, drinking seco (a local sugar cane derived liquor) and dancing and singing along to the official song for carnaval 2009... looks like it will be incredible!

3... since i was able to arrange stuff in las tablas so quickly, i decided to head to the big city, panama city, or panama, as everyone calls it throughout the country. it's also in the state of panama, so it's panama, panama, panama. panama's public city buses are totally pimped out with air brushed designs, bright lights, and lots of hood ornaments. i spent my days here hunting for vegetarian restuarants, which i actually found three of them and two of them are even vegan buffets! yes! in the nights, i managed to find a bit of the city's alternative cultures with a revolutionary poetry reading focused on the cuban 5, an all night afropanamanian dancehall reggae party, and a bar called banos publicos which is a squat by a collective of local communist metal heads.




4... my friend jose, who is from panama, told me that the one place in all of panama that i definitely had to go to were the islands of kuna yala, and he was totally right on. he gave me a list of names of people he knows on one of the islands, so i booked a flight and headed out to the remote islands. kuna yala is an autonomous indigenous territory on the carribean coast with 366 islands and 49 communities. the kuna won control of their land through an armed revolt (la revolucion tuli) in 1925 in which they killed most of the panamanian colonial police occupying their islands. in recent times, the kuna have become internationally famous for their molas, which are a amazing beautiful hand made cloth designs using a reverse applique technique. i didn't take pictures of the more traditionaly dressed kuna women because it is seen as a sign of disrespect since some tourists travel to kuna yala and start snapping photos like they are at a human zoo. i spent four days on the island of ustupo, which is the largest kuna community with 5,000 people and was the center of the revolution. there i stayed with tomas de leon, who at 83 is the oldest person on the island and is a saila (chief) of natural medicine healing. he told me so many amazing stories about the revolution, in which his family were the main leaders, and his experiences of traveling all around the americas as part of international indigenous leaders' conferences. tomas also took me around to meet all the elder men and sailas on the island. these folks were incredible, i would buy them pepsis and we would talk about the kunas' philosophies on the sisterhood and brotherhood of all things on earth and the importance of equality between women and men. while i was on ustupo, there was a group of local youth practicing a street theater performance reenactment of the 1925 revolution. i got to meet one of tomas's son, andres (although everyone calls him pequeno) who offered to take me around to different islands for three days. pequeno works with the panamanian government's dvd based adult literacy program called "yo si puedo," which was developed in cuba and has been used in venezuela, bolivia, and nicaragua. i also got to travel around the islands with the government's scholarship program for grade school students. through these connections, i got to take boat rides through the wild rolling turquoise sea to many different island communities, where i was invited into people's homes and they told me about the successes and challenges of these programs. we also stopped on a tiny uninhabited island where i swam in magnificently clear waters and got to eat the large squishy seed of a young coconut tree. once we got to the twin islands of nargana and corazon, which are connected by a bridge, where pequeno stays when he is working, i got to know his friends and we stayed up late, drinking too much, playing pool, and talking about revolutions. the super nice and radical people along with the stunningly beautiful islands made kuna yala one of the most amazing places i have ever been in my life.

so, yesterday, one of my bestest friends cody arrived in panama. we're going to spend the day here, and then head out to las tablas. carnaval 2009!

much love,
max

two weeks in nicaragua...

hey friends,

so, i´ve spent the last two weeks in nicaragua and tomorrow i´ll be heading to costa rica. as i cross the border along the rio frio, what people call themselves will change from nicas to ticos and their choice of beans will shift from red to black.

in this update, i have for you...

1. wandering the street of leon

2. granada´s gringoland

3. the volanic island of ometepe

4. wildlife adventures in los guatuzos

5. family life in the arts and craftsy island of archipelago of solentiname

***also, check out manjula´s flickr site for a bunch of great photos and commentary from our first weeks in honduras (more instalments will be coming shortly) www.flickr.com/manjula

1... despite the heat (leon being the second hotest city in all of central america because of the surrounding volcanoes), leon is a great city for wandering about aimlessly -- winding streets with single story colonial buildings, murals and memorials celebrating the revolution, and a tradition of sitting in front of your house in big wooden rockign chairs as the sun sets. in my comings and goings i found myself: dancing in the streets with withes in a night time parade celebrating the life of poet ruben dario, selling green mangos for a woman while she tried to explain the significance of all the revolutionary murals to a few tourists, helping a few local college kids practice their english and working on their pronounciation of the word ¨can´t¨ which theyt said like ¨cunt,¨ hoping around all the different bar cafes with an international group of 10 backpackers, eating the best street food ever of mashed yucca topped with a big piece of fried cheese and coleslaw all served on a banana leaf and eaten with your hands, playing cards with the young guys working at the fruit market and trying to get them to gamble with me, and listening to a primitivist painter´s stories of his travels in the united states as a guest artist. so, as folks from there say... vive leon jodido!

2... granada is nicaragua´s toursit capital and for good reason as it is filled with absolutely beautiful colonial architecture. unfortuantely, this also means that it is filled with young european backpackers, wealthy american families, ex-pats buying up all the restuarants and hotels, street children doing hip hop dances for change, and people from all over nicaragua coming to try and sell just about anything to tourists. but i made the best of it and had a great time: learning about russian religious cultural studies from recently graduated alaskan college students, getting beat by kids at the local chess club, drinking way too many beers with local folks who shared with me their experiences of being openly queer in a country that up until recently legaly outlawed homosexuality, hanging out ever day with two streets kids -- oscar and abraham -- and playing their favorite game which entailed walking down the street spinning against the colonial walls (it´s actually really fun).

3... from grananda i took an all day bus, taxi, ferry, bus trip to merida on the isla de ometepe, where there is a hacienda that is sort of a backpackers´resort with cheap rooms, inexpensive all-you-can-eat-buffets, and a pier from which you can swim in lake nicaragua as the sun sets beautifully every night. while on the island i had an incredible time: playing baseball with people from the local villages where the diamond was a cow pasture, the bases were dirt filled rice bags, the outfield was a volcano, the backstop was the lake, we shared the only 9 mitts that they had, and i hit a double; hiking amongst fruit trees to a huge waterfall with an american guy and reminiscing about the wonders of trinidad & tobago; hiking to the peak of an inactive volcano which is topped by a cloud forest. from granada, i hopped on an all-night 12 hour ferry trip across the lake to the small port town of san carlos. along the way i got way too drunk on beer and rum & cokes with a really nice group of international travelers. luckily for me, somehow i ended up sleeping the german guy´s hammock, he slept in the slovenian couple´s hammock, and they slep on the floor.

4... from san carlos, i took another boat to the tiny town (10 families) of papatourro in the guatuzos wildlife reffuge along the rio papaturro off lake nicaragua. in town, the spanish organization amigos de la tierra has set up an ecological station in order to engage in biological studies of the area, create a sustainable collective of organic cacao farmers, and develop local community-based tourism. the area is overflowing with amazing wildlife, and while i was there i saw howler monkeys, white faced monkeys, spider monkeys, huge green and orange iguanas, cayman crocdiles, small lizards that run on the water, tiny brightly colored poisonous frogs, so many beautiful birds, super bright butterflies and dragonflies, and a three toed sloth. the vegetation was amazing, ranging from the worlds smallest orchid flower to trees with trunks as wide as houses. i had an incredible guide named armando who was born and raised along the river and no only knew the name of every plant and animal but was also friends with everyone in the surrounding area. we took an all day hike and came across such an amazing variety of things: a man trying to teach a one day old cow how to nurse, a family who made us a traditional drink of corn and cacao called pinolillo, an old man who played ranchera music on guitar for us, a woman who had recently found a piece of indigenous pottery that was hundreds of years old, and so many families that gave us different varities of citrus fruit, coconuts, cacao, and star fruit.

5... while i was waiting for the boat outside the ecological station, a family came by and they said that they were headed to the archipelago of solentiname, which is renowned for it´s primitivist painters and artisans. they offered me a ride, and how could i pass it up. as we rode up the river spotting iguanas in the trees, they invited me to come and stay with them. they lived in a one room house on the isolated far side of the island of mancaroon surrounded by their extended family in 6 other similar homes and all of their rice, bean, and plantain fields. these folks were some of the nicest people i have ever met in my travels. we hung out, took hikes to talk to artists, milled rice by hand, visited the local museum (which they had never been able to go to), ate meals of freshly caught fish, played with my camera, and i answered their many questions about the united states and my travels. the next day, we left at 2 in the morning to come to the town of san carlos where they hoped to sell wood and and plantains. as we pulled into the rough docks at 4:45am, four other boats pulled in at the same time with similar goods for sale. they are usually able to sell the wood at 1 cordoba per piece and the plantains at two for 1 cordoba. 1 cordoba is worth about 5 US cents. the people in san carlos who buy the goods then turn around and resell them for three times the price. as the sun rose, i went over to an internet cafe by the central park to print out a few of the pictures of them that we had taken together since they had no pictures of themselves. when i gave them the pictures they were very excited -- especially the two little girls -- but they were also sad as their sales had not gone very well. since a few other boats had shown up at the same time as them with the same goods, the buyers in san carlos were refusing to buy it all. i asked them what they would do if they couldn´t sell it all, and they told me that they would just have to leave it there on the docks and head back on the three hour boat ride home. we said goodbye and good luck.

well, that´s it for now. i have a lot of thoughts on the very complicated current and historical political situation in nicaragua, but i´ll wait for another post to share those. tomorrow, i will be lining up at 8am at the immigration station to get my exit stamp and then hopefully take the first boat down the rio frio to cross into costa rica in the small town of los chiles. from there i will be moving quickly through costa rica to reach panama and with some luck set up a place to stay for carnaval.

thinking of you all often,

much love,

max