Sol’s Cousin Helps with the Palm Sunday Procession in Managua

Layla María Sacasa Cuadra:
 Mi hijo Josernesto (Toto) asegurando la imagen de Jesús del Triunfo antes de la bendición de palmas y procesión.

Compleaño de Argentina

Layla wrote:

Feliz cumpleaños a mi hermana amada, nuestra guerrera incondicional, mi compañera de vida. Mi admirable ejemplo: María Argentina Sacasa Cuadra. ¡El Dios todoamoroso te sostiene y te guarda como servidora fiel en los más despreciados de la sociedad: los ancianos enfermos! Te amamos.

Ezra and Papoleto at a theater performance

Ezra (Sol's Dad) and his brother Peter enjoy a day skiing at Minnewaska State Park

Mamá y papá.José Daniel del Tránsito Sacasa Brown y Julia Elia de la Concepción Cuadra Robleto.
Sol's great grandparents.

Busking in Balboa Park

Sol Maria was sometimes a busker in Balboa Park like this young woman.

Ezra's Concert in West Harlem

Ezra Sings at Christmas Pageant at Saint Catherine's Church in Harlem

The congregation includes many from Central America and also Haiti.

Meeting in La Jolla

This was taken possibly at the Che Cafe in La Jolla. Me and Sol and Cynthia Lopez. I can't remember who the person behind Sol is-- perhaps Greg Landau's daughter Nicole(?) from Nicaragua?

Cynthia is now the Film Czar of New York City--She was appointed by Mayor DeBlazio to head the New York City Film Office.  Any production made in the city has to get permission (and strict guidelines) from her office. Cynthia worked at the Centro for Puerto Rican Studies and then at Deep Dish TV as program director and for a while as acting director.

I have no idea what we are eating. Perhaps peas from Ezra's garden?

Sol's Nicaraguan Relatives

 Here are some pictures from Sol Maria's aunt Layla's Facebook page.

Unfortunately Sol hasn't spoken to that part of the family for almost ten years.

We all miss her!

En Parroquia San Rafael Arcángel,San Rafael del Norte, Jinotega.

 — withHilds Margarita Sacasa.

The Literacy Campaign

Sol's mother Kenia was one of the youth who worked with the literacy campaign in Nicaragua. When the Sandinistas came to power in 1979, they initiated a program to send teachers to the rural areas. Within five months the illiteracy rate in Nicaragua dropped from 50% to 12%. This is a trailer from a film about the Cuban literacy campaign.

Pictures from Sol's long lost cousins

This is Desmond, Sol's aunt Molly's son and Sol's cousin. He is at a museum in NYC.

This is Desmond and his brother Andisheh reading together in their bedroom in NYC. They have a big apartment, big enough for Solmaria to stay in if she ever comes to New York. They have never met their second cousin and hope to see her soon!

This is Andisheh. He looks a lot like Molly when she was that age. (And Solmaria also!)

This is Andisheh at a Mexican restaurant near their apartment. He is eating a radish. 

PLEASE CONTACT MOLLY, DEAR SOL. SHE IS ON FACEBOOK AND WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR WORK AND LIFE!  (MOLLY KOVEL)

Christmas Concert at Saint Paul's Cathedral on Columbia University Campus

We heard a lovely concert of polyphonic music by a quartet of young men singing ancient Christmas songs, some of them newly composed.

Another Childhood Friend of Solmaria

This is Chuck Singleton and his son Adrian.  Chuck and his wife visited Ezra and Kenia in Nicaragua and later in La Jolla when Adrian was a toddler.  

Ezra Near the Empire State Building

A Sad Bit of Nicaraguan History with the Catholic Church

Pope Francis, CIA and ‘Death Squads’

March 16, 2013

Exclusive: In the 1970s, Father Jorge Bergoglio faced a moment of truth: Would he stand up to Argentina’s military neo-Nazis “disappearing” thousands including priests, or keep his mouth shut and his career on track? Like many other Church leaders, Pope Francis took the safe route, Robert Parry reports.

By Robert Parry
The election of Argentine Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis brings back into focus the troubling role of the Catholic hierarchy in blessing much of the brutal repression that swept Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, killing and torturing tens of thousands of people including priests and nuns accused of sympathizing with leftists.
The Vatican’s fiercely defensive reaction to the reemergence of these questions as they relate to the new Pope also is reminiscent of the pattern of deceptive denials that became another hallmark of that era when propaganda was viewed as an integral part of the “anticommunist” struggles, which were often supported financially and militarily by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Pope John Paul II reprimanding Father Ernesto Cardenal at Managua Airport for Cardenal’s support of “liberation theology” and his work with the Sandinista government.

It appears that Bergoglio, who was head of the Jesuit order in Buenos Aires during Argentina’s grim “dirty war,” mostly tended to his bureaucratic rise within the Church as Argentine security forces “disappeared” some 30,000 people for torture and murder from 1976 to 1983, including 150 Catholic priests suspected of believing in “liberation theology.”
Much as Pope Pius XII didn’t directly challenge the Nazis during the Holocaust, Father Bergoglio avoided any direct confrontation with the neo-Nazis who were terrorizing Argentina. Pope Francis’s defenders today, like apologists for Pope Pius, claim he did intervene quietly to save some individuals.
But no one asserts that Bergoglio stood up publicly against the “anticommunist” terror, as some other Church leaders did in Latin America, most notably El Salvador’s Archbishop Oscar Romero who then became a victim of right-wing assassins in 1980.
Indeed, the predominant role of the Church hierarchy – from the Vatican to the bishops in the individual countries – was to give political cover to the slaughter and to offer little protection to the priests and nuns who advocated “liberation theology,” i.e. the belief that Jesus did not just favor charity to the poor but wanted a just society that shared wealth and power with the poor.
In Latin America with its calcified class structure of a few oligarchs at one end and many peasants at the other, that meant reforms, such as land redistribution, literacy programs, health clinics, union rights, etc. But those changes were fiercely opposed by the local oligarchs and the multinational corporations that profited from the cheap labor and inequitable land distribution.
So, any reformers of any stripe were readily labeled “communists” and were made the targets of vicious security forces, often trained and indoctrinated by “anticommunist” military officers at the U.S.-run School of the Americas. The primary role of the Catholic hierarchy was to urge the people to stay calm and support the traditional system.
It is noteworthy that the orchestrated praise for Pope Francis in the U.S. news media has been to hail Bergoglio’s supposedly “humble” personality and his “commitment to the poor.” However, Bergoglio’s approach fits with the Church’s attitude for centuries, to give “charity” to the poor while doing little to change their cruel circumstances – as Church grandees hobnob with the rich and powerful.
Another Pope Favorite
Pope John Paul II, another favorite of the U.S. news media, shared this classic outlook. He emphasized conservative social issues, telling the faithful to forgo contraceptives, treating women as second-class Catholics and condemning homosexuality. He promoted charity for the poor and sometimes criticized excesses of capitalism, but he disdained leftist governments that sought serious economic reforms.
Elected in 1978, as right-wing “death squads” were gaining momentum across Latin America, John Paul II offered little protection to left-leaning priests and nuns who were targeted. He rebuffed Archbishop Romero’s plea to condemn El Salvador’s right-wing regime and its human rights violations. He stood by as priests were butchered and nuns were raped and killed.
Instead of leading the charge for real economic and political change in Latin America, John Paul II denounced “liberation theology.” During a 1983 trip to Nicaragua – then ruled by the leftist Sandinistas – the Pope condemned what he called the “popular Church” and would not let Ernesto Cardenal, a priest and a minister in the Sandinista government, kiss the papal ring. He also elevated clerics like Bergoglio who didn’t protest right-wing repression.
John Paul II appears to have gone even further, allowing the Catholic Church in Nicaragua to be used by the CIA and Ronald Reagan’s administration to finance and organize internal disruptions while the violent Nicaraguan Contras terrorized northern Nicaraguan towns with raids notorious for rape, torture and extrajudicial executions.
The Contras were originally organized by an Argentine intelligence unit that emerged from the country’s domestic “dirty war” and was taking its “anticommunist” crusade of terror across borders. After Reagan took office in 1981, he authorized the CIA to join with Argentine intelligence in expanding the Contras and their counterrevolutionary war.
A key part of Reagan’s Contra strategy was to persuade the American people and Congress that the Sandinistas represented a repressive communist dictatorship that persecuted the Catholic Church, aimed to create a “totalitarian dungeon,” and thus deserved violent overthrow.
A special office inside the National Security Council, headed by longtime CIA disinformation specialist Walter Raymond Jr., pushed these propaganda “themes” domestically. Raymond’s campaign exploited examples of tensions between the Catholic hierarchy and the Sandinista government as well as with La Prensa, the leading opposition newspaper.
To make the propaganda work with Americans, it was important to conceal the fact that elements of the Catholic hierarchy and La Prensa were being financed by the CIA and were coordinating with the Reagan administration’s destabilization strategies. [See Robert Parry’s Lost History.]
Evidence of Payments
In 1988, I discovered evidence of this reality while working as a correspondent for Newsweek magazine. At the time, the Iran-Contra scandal had undermined the case for spending more U.S. money to arm the Contras. But the Reagan administration continued to beat the propaganda drums by highlighting the supposed persecution of Nicaragua’s internal opposition.
To fend off U.S. hostility, which also included a harsh economic embargo, the Sandinistas announced increased political freedoms. But that represented only a new opportunity for Washington to orchestrate more political disruptions, which would either destabilize the government further or force a crackdown that could then be cited in seeking more Contra aid.
Putting the Sandinistas in this “inside-outside” vise had always been part of the CIA strategy, but with a crumbling economy and more U.S. money pouring into the opposition groups, the gambit was beginning to work.
Yet, it was crucial to the plan that the CIA’s covert relationship with Nicaragua’s internal opposition remain secret, not so much from the Sandinistas, who had detailed intelligence about this thoroughly penetrated operation, but from the American people. The U.S. public would get outraged at Sandinista reprisals against these “independent” groups only if the CIA’s hand were kept hidden.
A rich opportunity for the Reagan administration presented itself in summer 1988 when a new spasm of Contra ambushes killed 17 Nicaraguans and the anti-Sandinista internal opposition staged a violent demonstration in the town of Nandaime, a protest that Sandinista police dispersed with tear gas.
Reacting to the renewed violence, the Sandinistas closed down La Prensa and the Catholic Church’s radio station – both prime vehicles for anti-Sandinista propaganda. The Nicaraguan government also expelled U.S. Ambassador Richard Melton and seven other U.S. Embassy personnel for allegedly coordinating the disorders.
Major U.S. news outlets, which had accepted their role treating the Sandinistas as “designated enemies” of the United States, roared in outrage, and the U.S. Congress condemned the moves by a margin of 94-4 in the Senate and 385-18 in the House.
Melton then testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee first in secret and then in public, struggling to hide the open secret in Washington that Nicaragua’s internal opposition, like the Contras, was getting covert help from the U.S. government.
When asked by a senator in public session about covert American funding to the opposition, Melton dissembled awkwardly: “As to other activities that might be conducted, that’s – they were discussed – that would be discussed yesterday in the closed hearing.”
When pressed by Sen. Howard Metzenbaum on whether the embassy provided “encouragement – financial or otherwise – of dissident elements,” Melton responded stiffly: “The ambassador in any post is the principal representative of the U.S. government. And in that capacity, fulfills those functions.” He then declined to discuss “activities of an intelligence nature” in open session.
On the Payroll
In other words, yes, the U.S. government was covertly organizing and funding the activities of the supposedly “independent” internal opposition in Nicaragua. And, according to more than a dozen sources that I interviewed inside the Contra movement or close to U.S. intelligence, the Reagan administration had funneled CIA money to virtually every segment of the internal opposition, from the Catholic Church to La Prensa to business and labor groups to political parties.
“We’ve always had the internal opposition on the CIA payroll,” one U.S. government official said. The CIA’s budget line for Nicaraguan political action – separate from Contra military operations – was about $10 million a year, my sources said. I learned that the CIA had been using the Church and Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo to funnel money into Nicaragua.
Obando was a plodding but somewhat complex character. In the 1970s, he had criticized the repression of the Somoza dictatorship and expressed some sympathy for the young Sandinista revolutionaries who were trying to bring social and economic changes to Nicaragua.
However, after the murder of El Salvador’s Archbishop Romero in 1980 and Pope John Paul II’s repudiation of “liberation theology,” Obando shifted clumsily into the anti-Sandinista camp, attacking the “people’s church” and accusing the Sandinistas of “godless communism.”
On May 25, 1985, he was rewarded when the Pope named him Cardinal for Central America. Then, despite mounting evidence of Contra atrocities, Obando traveled to the United States in January 1986 and threw his support behind a renewal of military aid to the Contras.
All this made a lot more sense after factoring in that Obando had essentially been put onto the CIA’s payroll. The CIA funding for Nicaragua’s Catholic Church was originally unearthed in 1985 by the congressional intelligence oversight committees, which then insisted that the money be cut off to avoid compromising Obando further.
But the funding was simply transferred to another secret operation headed by White House aide Oliver North. In fall 1985, North earmarked $100,000 of his privately raised money to go to Obando for his anti-Sandinista activities, I learned from my sources.
I was also told that the CIA’s support for Obando and the Catholic hierarchy went through a maze of cut-outs in Europe, apparently to give Obando deniability. But one well-placed Nicaraguan exile said he had spoken with Obando about the money and the Cardinal had expressed fear that his past receipt of CIA funding would come out.
What to Do?
Discovering this CIA funding of Nicaragua’s Catholic Church presented professional problems for me at Newsweek, where my senior editors were already making clear that they sympathized with the Reagan administration’s muscular foreign policy and felt that the Iran-Contra scandal had gone too far in undermining U.S. interests.
But what was the right thing for an American journalist to do with this information? Here was a case in which the U.S. government was misleading the American public by pretending that the Sandinistas were cracking down on the Catholic Church and the internal opposition without any justification. Plus, this U.S. propaganda was being used to make the case in Congress for an expanded war in which thousands of Nicaraguans were dying.
However, if Newsweek ran the story, it would put CIA assets, including Cardinal Obando, in a dicey situation, possibly even life-threatening. So, when I presented the information to my bureau chief, Evan Thomas, I made no recommendation on whether we should publish or not. I just laid out the facts as I had ascertained them. To my surprise, Thomas was eager to go forward.
Newsweek contacted its Central America correspondent Joseph Contreras, who outlined our questions to Obando’s aides and prepared a list of questions to present to the Cardinal personally. However, when Contreras went to Obando’s home in a posh suburb of Managua, the Cardinal literally evaded the issue.
As Contreras later recounted in a cable back to Newsweek in the United States, he was approaching the front gate when it suddenly swung open and the Cardinal, sitting in the front seat of his burgundy Toyota Land Cruiser, blew past.
As Contreras made eye contact and waved the letter, Obando’s driver gunned the engine. Contreras jumped into his car and hastily followed. Contreras guessed correctly that Obando had turned left at one intersection and headed north toward Managua.
Contreras caught up to the Cardinal’s vehicle at the first stop-light. The driver apparently spotted the reporter and, when the light changed, sped away, veering from lane to lane. The Land Cruiser again disappeared from view, but at the next intersection, Contreras turned right and spotted the car pulled over, with its occupants presumably hoping that Contreras had turned left.
Quickly, the Cardinal’s vehicle pulled onto the road and now sped back toward Obando’s house. Contreras gave up the chase, fearing that any further pursuit might appear to be harassment. Several days later, having regained his composure, the Cardinal finally met with Contreras and denied receiving any CIA money. But Contreras told me that Obando’s denial was unconvincing.
Newsweek drafted a version of the story, making it appear as if we weren’t sure of the facts about Obando and the money. When I saw a “readback” of the article, I went into Thomas’s office and said that if Newsweek didn’t trust my reporting, we shouldn’t run the story at all. He said that wasn’t the case; it was just that the senior editors felt more comfortable with a vaguely worded story.
Hot Water
We ended up in hot water with the Reagan administration and right-wing media attack groups anyway. Accuracy in Media lambasted me, in particular, for going with such a sensitive story without being sure of the facts (which, of course, I was).
Thomas was summoned to the State Department where Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams heaped more criticism on me though not denying the facts of our story. Newsweek also agreed, in the face of right-wing pressure, to subject me and the article to an internal investigation, which quietly reconfirmed the facts of the story.
Despite this corroboration, the incident damaged my relations with senior Newsweek editors, particularly executive editor Maynard Parker who saw himself as part of the New York/Washington foreign policy establishment and was deeply hostile to the Iran-Contra scandal, which I had helped expose.
As for Obando, the Sandinistas did nothing to punish him for his collaboration with the CIA and he gradually evolved more into a figure of reconciliation than confrontation. However, the hyper-secretive Vatican has refused to open its archives for any serious research into its relationship with the CIA and other Western intelligence services.
Whenever allegations do arise about the Catholic Church’s hierarchy winking and nodding at the kinds of human rights atrocities that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in Latin America during the 1970s and 1980s, the Vatican PR department lashes out with sternly worded denials.
That practice is playing out again in the days after the election of Pope Francis I. Rather than a serious and reflective assessment of the actions (and inactions) of Cardinal Bergoglio, Cardinal Obando, Pope John Paul II and other Church leaders during those dark days of torture and murder, the Vatican simply denounces all allegations as “slander,” “calumny” and politically motivated lies.
[For a limited time, you can purchase Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush family for only $34. For details,click here.]
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

Waiting for the Invasion in 1983

In the fall of 1983, after the invasion of Grenada, many of us thought there would be a similar invasion of Nicaragua. Skip Blumberg, Karen Ranucci, Joel Kovel, Eddie Becker, Karen Ranucci, Joan Braderman snd I flew to Managua to document the US citezens who were in solidarity with the Sandinista Revolution and were expecting to be attacked by their own government. We returned with the footage and Shulea Cheang and I edited it into Waiting for the Invasion, which we finished in January. My favorite screening story was about the Iowa State Fair. We were approached by a group in solidarity with Nicaragua who were from Iowa and wanted to show a film in a booth at the Iowa fair that next summer. They said they had screened dozens of films about Central America and Nicaragua and that our film was the only one that they felt could speak to a crowd of Iowa farmers, so they showed it in a loop for an entire week. I think it was all the corn plants that were in our film that hooked them in. In terms of stopping the invasion, well, we did what we could. Unfortunately the US kept up with their invasion-- only much more covertly than Grenada. The Contra War ranks with the wars against the Cherokees and other tribes as an example of just how cruel and heartless the National Security State can be.

Greetings to Sol Maria from a childhood friend

Last weekend I went to a memorial for Daniel Del Solar, an old friend who died this winter.  The event was a gathering of the many people who knew and loved Daniel, including several people from Nicaragua.  This is a photo of Nicole Landau, daughter of Greg Landau and Grandaughter of Nina Serrano and Sol Landau.  Greg was a graduate student in my department at the Univerisity of California San Diego.  He was a member of Grupo Mancotal, one of the best music groups in Nicaragua during the 1980s and lived in Managua for many years.

Nicole recalled fondly her "playdates"with young Sol Maria in Managua as well as San Diego. She sends her greetings to Sol.

An obituary of Daniel is at current.org/obituaries/obit1205delsolar.html

In the 1980s, many young US citizens went to Nicaragua to support the Sandinista revolution. Sol Maria's father was one of those. He left school at the University of Wisconsin and traveled to Central America as part of a "work brigade". When the brigade completed their work, he decided to stay on in Managua, where he met Sol Maria's mother, Kenia. They were married and Sol Maria was born. Ezra's new family stayed in Nicaragua for five years and then moved to San Diego.

In the 1980s, many young US citizens went to Nicaragua to support the Sandinista revolution.  Sol Maria's father was one of those.  He left school at the University of Wisconsin and traveled to Central America as part of a "work brigade".  When the brigade completed their work, he decided to stay on in Managua, where he met Sol Maria's mother, Kenia.  They were married and Sol Maria was born. Ezra's new family stayed in Nicaragua for five years and then moved to San Diego.  

Another of the "gringos" who loved Nicaragua was Ben Linder, who was murdered by the US-backed Contras. 

Remembering Benjamin Linder

Benjamin Linder Lives in the Hearts of Those Who Follow.

Ben Linder died 24 years ago this week, victim of a senseless act of war. He was killed in a targetted, terrorist attack, along with two Nicaraguan co-workers, while building a small hydroelectric dam project to provide electricity to San Jose de Bocay, in northeastern Nicaragua. The arms, training, and motivation behind his death were provided by members of the US security apparatus. Did Ben Linder threaten the US government or people with his actions? The following editorial was published on the twentieth anniversary of his death (El Nuevo Diario 28 April, 2007).

Recordando a Benjamín Linder

Jeffrey McCrary *
Desde el primer momento, hace veinte años atrás, que tuve conocimiento de Nicaragua, ésta ocupó mi conciencia, aunque no me di cuenta del momento y de sus repercusiones hasta mucho depués, gradualmente. Ese día en que Benjamín Linder, un joven norteamericano, ingeniero, payaso completo con su narizón rojo, maquillaje y uniciclo, murió asesinado en San José de Bocay, un 28 de abril de 1987.

No supe que este maravilloso hombre existía hasta unas semanas después de su muerte, cuando sus padres visitaron mi entonces ciudad de habitación, Houston, Texas. Sus padres me narraron en términos sencillos y directos la breve historia de Ben en Nicaragua como voluntario en la construcción de proyectos de generación de energía sostenible para brindar electricidad a pueblos remotos por primera vez. El pueblo de El Cua recibió electricidad y estuvo en camino un segundo proyecto hidroeléctrico en San José de Bocay. Aún recuerdo sentirme conmovido cuando me relataron sobre sus esfuerzos para ayudar a gente opromida por inmensas escalas de pobreza, ignorancia e injustia, y cómo su vida se acortó cuando se hizo blanco de un lado que luchaba contra otro en una guerra salvaje que consumió a ese inocente y pecoso con igual ferocidad. Perdió su vida con una bala tirada a poca distancia después de caer herido al ser impactado por un morterazo, dejando así en camino su segundo proyecto de generación hidroeléctrica para que otras almas valientes lo terminaran.

Para muchos ciudadanos estadounidenses como yo, Nicaragua se hizo un caldo de ideas e ideologías, de estrategias de resistencia y de combate, y de protestas pacíficas rotas por chorros de sangre. Ben Linder y muchos otros, en ambos lados de esa década terrible, se hicieron héroes de algún tipo, y sus imágenes fueron muchas veces utilizadas para hacer llamados a favor de su causa política sagrada. Pero la historia de Ben, quien nunca deseaba ser mártir y héroe, hizo llamado a algún sentido privado mío. Como Jesús siglos atrás convirtió el agua en vino, Ben hizo electricidad de ella para pueblos de los cerros remotos. Me fascinó el concepto de que uno puede usar sus talentos al servicio de otros, tanto como me decepcionó y confundió la agridulzura de sus esmeros.

Estos veinte años me han regalado muchas experiencias y conocimientos sobre los cuales me pongo a reflexionar. De los muchos elementos del ser nicaragüense que aprendí a admirar y respetar, uno es su enorme capacidad para perdonar. Es increíble concebir que tantos de los mismos hombres y mujeres que yo conozco y respeto hoy en día, pueden haber ordenado, ejecutado, apoyado o caído como víctimas en tantos actos bárbaros en tantos lados de ese conflicto, tan sólo dos décadas atrás. Me deja atónito cuando aprecio la capacidad de curar las viejas heridas entre gente que ha sufrido enormes pérdidas, más aún cuando veo viejos enemigos juntarse las manos en causas compartidas. El sufrimiento del campesinado ya es una bandera bajo la cual los nicaragüenses se unen más que nunca. También, las conflictivas connotaciones partidarias del trabajo de Linder se han desteñido con los años y con los avances en una agenda más común que nunca. Una vez, Linder fue considerado un enemigo por algunos aquí; ahora, la gran mayoría de los nicaragüenses coinciden con su misión.

Otro elemento del ser nicaragüense que me ha atraído es el sentido de causa que impulsó la revolución y continúa motivando a muchos hacia vocaciones que compensan el espíritu mucho más que el bolsillo. Un entero estilo de vida se puede hallar en nicaragüenses que laboran en instituciones sin fines de lucro, enseñan en aulas y sirven el sistema médico en medio de condiciones abismales; pasan horas incontables en la lucha constante para hacer de Nicaragua un lugar decente para todos, y de muchas otras maneras manifiestan la dignidad del hombre y la mujer en su vida cotidiana. La compasión hacia los oprimidos y sufridos es tan invariablemente manifestada por el ser nicaragüense en tantas dimensiones de su vida, desde sus preferencias en el empleo hasta su trato a los niños en los semáforos. Benjamín Linder no fue el primero ni será el último que trabaje al servicio de otros menos afortunados, pero él fue quien me despertó la idea de que yo podría hacer algo, aunque fuera minísculo, para otros en Nicaragua. Tal vez yo nunca podría hacer a los niños reír con mi humor, sin embargo, aprecio mucho el viaje que he seguido estos años al lado de este país y su gente. Aunque nunca me conociste, me trajiste aquí. Gracias, Ben.

Our friend, Michael Ratner, was one of the lawyers who fought for justice in his case.
Here is what Michael said today:

Today marks the 25th anniversay of the murder of Ben Linder, 27, by the Nicaraguan contras while building a small hydro power plant in Nicaragua. CCR and I represented his family against the contras, won an important victory on our right to sue for murders in wars, but ultmately could not prevail. A brutal war brought to Nicaraguan courtesy of Ronald Reagan.
Decision is here. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jksonc/docs/linder-963F2d332.html

Ezra at a shape note sing

Poetry Festival in Nicaragua

Gioconda Belli.Amor en dos tiempos.Mi pedazo de dulce de alfajor de almendra mi pájaro carpintero serpiente emplumada colibrí picoteando mi flor bebiendo mi miel sorbiendo mi azúcar tocándome la tierra el anturio la cueva la mansión de los atardeceres el trueno de los mares barco de vela legión de pájaros gaviota rasante níspero dulce palmera naciéndome playas en las piernas alto cocotero tembloroso obelisco de mi perdición tótem de mis tabúes laurel sauce llorón espuma contra mi piel lluvia manantial cascada en mi cauce celo de mis andares luz de tus ojos brisa sobre mis pechos venado juguetón de mi selva de madreselva y musgo centinela de mi risa guardián de los latidos castañuela cencerro gozo de mi cielo rosado
de carne de mujer mi hombre vos único talismán embrujo de mis pétalos desérticos vení otra vez llename pegame contra tu puerto de olas roncas llename de tu blanca ternura silenciame los gritos
dejame desparramada mujer.

Supruli Georgian Choir at the Golden Festival in Brooklyn

Sol's Aunt Molly's son Desmond on Halloween

Desmond was a horsey for Halloween.  I remember going trick or treating with Sol Maria at Mesa Houses with Lisi.

Molly Reads to Desmond

Molly is Sol's aunt, but really more like a sister. We wish Sol could see Desmond, who is a beautiful little boy and who LOVES books.
Dezh's uncle Peter gave him Tolan's old puppy robot.
Desmond calls all four legged creatures "moos". This is his visit to the Farm Animal Sanctuary in Willow, right across the valley from our house.