that being said, i went to my first socialist rally-- sandinista, in fact-- last thursday and i can safely say that it was one of the most surreal events of my twenty-two years.
let me give you a little history: on july 19, 1980, the sandinistas, led by daniel ortega, overthrew somoza's infamous dictatorship, ending the bloody civil war. every year since then july 19 has been marked as "Dia Libre"-- loosely translated as freedom day. now don't get confused, this is not nicaragua's independence day... that comes in september when the nation commemorates its independence from spain (in case you haven't figured this out yet, nicas like to party and take whatever chance they can get to have a festival). dia libre is just the sandinista's opportunity to say "hey, look at the cool thing we did. oh, by the way, if we give you lots of booze, some flags and let you climb telephone poles, will you mind forgetting about the years of uncool things we did after that?"
this year, now that daniel ortega is back in power, the event was bigger than ever and included a fiery speech by venezuela's hugo chavez. that, in addition to the cuban flags and chanting of propaganda songs, reminded me that i'm not in kansas anymore. well, that and the thousands of red and black clad nicas shouting "viva sandino!"the highlights of our day included boarding a bus boasting a sandinista flag in each window in which the passengers passed around shots of ron plata (the cheapest rum you can buy here), watching numerous human pyramids fall when the tops got a little over zealous with their flags and standing on my tiptoes (with a kid on my hips, as always) to see some authentic nicaraguan dancing. we didn't stay for ortega's speech-- our nica hosts wanted to leave before it got dark-- but i hear it's the same every year so no biggie.
that's all i have for now... my bed is calling my name.
bendiciones
No comments:
Post a Comment