Nicaraguan School 1981

Nicaraguan School

January 11-25, 1981

I received a phone call from -- I think it was Professor Ray Smith -- in California who asked me if I would be interested in flying to Nicaragua to evaluate the hazards associated with integrated school complexes in Nicaragua.  The Aid for International Development (AID) would pay my way and I was to evaluate a proposed new school that was to be at least partially funded by the United States.  As a cocky, recent Ph.D. in Entomology and on the faculty at Texas A&M, I was happy to take a 2-week break to visit the beautiful tropics.  Was I -- an entomologist -- qualified for such a project?  Well, not really -- but I could figure it out.  Right?

So, in the January cold of 1981, I left my wife and three kids in College Station, flew to Washington D.C. for briefings, then to Nicaragua.  Of course, I knew that there had been a revolution a couple of years before when the Soviet/Cuba backed Marxist Sandinista's kicked out the dictatorial Somoza government.  But, I also know that the opposition Contras were still fighting a guerilla war against the new dictator -- Daniel Ortega -- and his new socialist government.  Most of the recent battles were out on the periphery of Nicaragua and were unlikely to reach the Capital of Managua.

"Will I be safe there?" I asked my Washington advisors.

The answer was something like "Well, we wouldn't send you there if we thought it was too dangerous."

My flight landed in Guatamala City where I spent a day, then to San Salvidor where there was much military activity at the airport.  In Nicaragua, I was transported to the Hilton Hotel and truly amazed at the devastation of city buildings by the recent war.  Walls collapsed, bullet holes everywhere, shrapnel-shredded trees, military vehicles and soldiers in considerable abundance.  I began to feel more and more unsafe -- until I saw the Hilton.  There we no bullet holes that I could see.  If it survived the war without damage, I should be relatively safe sleeping there.  Apparently, VIP's stayed here during the war so it was never attacked.

Revolutionary Art of Managua

 

 

Later, the local officials escorted me to an area close to Chinandega -- northwest of Managua -- and I was shown the location of the proposed new school.  As I surveyed the site, I noticed that the school was to be located on prime agricultural land, adjacent to some non-agricultural, old volcanic lava flows.  As a self-proclaimed economic-ecologist, I concluded that it might be wise to level the non-agricultural lava and build the school there and save the proposed site for agricultural uses.  The world is gonna need lots of food in the future so the conservation of agricultural land might take a priority.

Anyway, I wrote a report to AID and still had a few days before my return flight out of this war zone, back to the good old USA.  Having been in Nicaragua for over a week and had not heard a single shot fired, I decided that it might be safe enough to rent a car and see a little bit of the country.  I did not drive far before reaching the first of many roadblocks where young soldiers carrying Russian Kalashnikov rifles, checked me out as a potential American spy,  They always found my documentation OK.  But, kids with rifles made me wonder if this kind of travel in this war-torn country was very wise.

Military Police

I visited the rim of the Mombacho Volcano on Lake Nicaragua, peered down into its smoking crater and took a brief tour of the handsome, colonial city of Grenada.  It is truly a beautiful country with incredible potential -- but it is the second poorest country in Latin America.  Too bad!

It has been about 38 years since I took this trip so details are a little fuzzy but it was definitely an interesting trip.

After I returned to the USA, I found out that President Reagan had terminated aid to Nicaragua during my stay there. and so the money for the school had probably evaporated.  I concluded that there was only a small chance anyone ever read my report and my efforts had been mostly in vain.  I don't know if they ever built that school.

But, the Communist Daniel Ortega is still dictator of Nicaragua thanks in large part to the efforts of American Methodists who helped oust the Samoza dictator so that a much worse Communist could replace him.  Poor Nicaragua!

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