Yorlis Luna, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, October 18th 2021
Our Nicaragua, this beautiful county, of blue skies and sweet water seas, hides so many stories that it makes a lump in the throat, examples of falling down and getting up, examples of hard work and struggling against the current.
In times of pandemic and the systemic crisis of ruthless capitalism, the most difficult thing is to build hope at the local level, so honouring the present is honouring the life and struggles of ordinary people. Men and women, who do not stop and who push us to bring out the best in ourselves.
Cooking nacatamales. Photo: El 19 Digital
Doña Xiomara wakes up every day at 4 am to prepare what she sells in the municipal market. Among her main products are the nacatamales, which she proudly proclaims are made with love. She sells them with coffee, bread or tortillas. You can take them away or have them in.
Dona Xiomara is always smiling as she tells me about her granddaughter, who is in her third year at the public university.
Through the uproar going on all around us someone shouts that it’s going to rain. In the melee the market sellers talk and help each other, as if they were all ants or bees from the same colony, moving as if they were all one living being like one big family.
As if realizing what I was thinking, she smiles and says to me "we are all one family here". She tells me about her recipe "not too much achiote, not too much salt, not too much acid", it is a traditional recipe in this area.
The rain stops and you can hear different radio stations, men and women of all ages work hard to deliver popular food. Some clean fish, others clean vegetables or grains, all have patience, firmness and constancy. They are always doing something with food.
Every kind of food and product that is made here is not something instantaneous, it is a process inside and outside the market. It is a gigantic network of silent daily work and solidarity.
Photo: El 19 Digital
For example, to prepare the nacatamal, the maize is provided by the women tortilla makers; the grinding of all the ingredients is done by an old man; the raw pork is provided by the couple next door who also sell fried pork and chicharon; the onions, chili peppers and potatoes are provided by the cheerful young woman who works with her grandmother and younger sister in the vegetable section; the achiote comes from the man who sells spices, the banana leaves are provided by a peasant family.
In this way there are many networks with knowledge and traditional skills that sustain a local economy, aneconomy that moves with reality but above all with another ethic, with another moral, the moral that is reflected in the affection and in the little bit extra that they give you when you buy something.
The stands of the popular market are new, everything is new, each stand has a place to heat the food, washing areas, and electricity. It is a dignified space to work.
Outside the market the caponeras, motorcycle taxis and old vans bring and carry everything. The streets have recently been paved and a few blocks away you can also enjoy decent sports fields and playgrounds.
By the time I finished eating my nacatamal Doña Xiomara already knew all about my life and I knew about hers, a warm and unplanned meeting of affectionate gossip.
Doña Xiomara's and other families work in peace and security - not only the economy is recreated, but also the care and culture, the disobedience, the traditional Mesoamerican diet, the maize culture and its roots which continue to shape our present, are recreated.
The real and deep Nicaragua, that works day by day and that with all senses awake embraces the land it walks on.