Nicaragua is a little known country in Central America--yet we all have images of this country. What are yours? I have three that I remember before visiting.
New Years Day 1973. My mother, a huge baseball fan, tells me at breakfast that Roberto Clemente had just died in a plane crash. At eight years old I had a baseball card of Mr. Clemente, but not much knowledge of him or what he was doing when he died. My father regaled me with Clemente stories--he had the best arm in the majors, could hit for average and hit the long ball--he could do it all and better than his more famous contemporaries such as Aaron and Mays.
My mother told me that he was a good man, a humanitarian, and he had been helping people in the Caribbean and Central America that were suffering. I vaguely remember that he was flying to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake hit Managua around Christmas 1972. We now know that he was flying on a DC-7 on his fourth trip to Managua after it had been reported that the Samoza's were taking the supplies that he and many others provided and selling it to people suffering in Managua.
Fast forward to 1987 and we all remember watching Oliver North on the TV telling Congress about a grand scheme to sell Iran weapons so the money could be funneled into a group called the contras in Nicaragua. Huh? I remember being puzzled about this mess and why people cared about this place called Nicaragua.
At about the same time as the hearings, the band U2 released its now famous album the Joshua Tree, with a stirring song called "Bullet the Blue Sky." This song, which was about civil war in El Salvador and Nicaragua, became a powerful song and political statement on US policy in Central America that has been etched in my mind every time I have seen U2 perform.
Posted By David Guy
That is interesting, I never Knew that!
ReplyDeleteLove you, maren