I wrote this story some two-three months ago, originally in German, then translated to Danish and then to English. I was trying to find a place to get it published in paper form. But the information is likely a bit to obscure for anything mainstream, and no normal person reads the academic journals (and in addition I would need to throw a whole bunch of aca-gibberish on there before anyone would take it). I was busy with all kinds of other things and just about forgot about it. But I noticed this list of the Top 100 anthropology blogs (worldwide?) with this blog being listed (sorry, but I don’t think that list is to be taken serious, really) and that this blog still receives a few hundred hits daily (despite almost no new content for a year). And so I just thought this might be as good a place as anywhere to put it. So please, enjoy. And if you need the German or Danish version for anything, please contact me!
A Sandinista pig
Blanca Nella is a poor woman. She lives on the island Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua in the Central-American country of the same name.
In this country, the socialist Nationalist Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) came to power through a revolution in 1979. Throughout the 1980s, the country had to fight counterrevolutionary insurgencies financed by the Unites States with the help of Cuba and Eastern Europe. At the national elections in 1990, the Sandinistas lost, and for sixteen years the country was ruled by three neo-liberal governments, until the FSLN won the presidential elections in the fall of 2006. Daniel Ortega, who was elected president once already during 1984–90, now rules the country.
This is the story of a person who witnesses these times.
Nella would like to receive a pig from the government, but unfortunately she doesn’t have enough land to grow the food for it. Now that Ortega is president, there is such a program, called ‘zero hunger’.
The program is directed towards women and consists of a cow, a pig, a rooster, five hens, the building of the housing for cow and pig, seeds and food for the first few months as well as training in how to treat the animals. Altogether this is supposed to have a value of 1,500USD and the producer agrees on giving back 300USD of the income to other projects in the area, such as micro-credits.