Tag: Sandinista revolution
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The Tracer Bullets
The battle between the Sandinista and Contra soldiers broke out in a valley just below us. Michelle and I were walking to a village in the northern mountains of Nicaragua. It was dusk. The road was more a ledge on the side of the mountain. Just over the lip, in a small dip in the woods,…
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Why I’m better off living in a war zone
Three months ago I had a psychotic attack, one brought on by childhood trauma and a heavy batch of manic depression. It was horrible. My family, I put them through hell one more time. Since then, I have been writing myself out of the madness. This blog has been a place for me to think…
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War Moments: The Orange
I will never forget the man with the orange. Michelle and I were packed in the back of a truck, alongside twenty other hitchhikers. It was six in the morning and already hot as hell. Nicaragua during the dry season–the dust, the winds, the sun that decided to get closer to the region that day,…
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Exploding Cows
Hitchhiking was common in Nicaragua during the Sandinista-Contra war. So was waiting. If the enemy forces–the U.S. backed Contra–were nearby, the Sandinista military would close off all the roads, to keep civilians from getting caught in a battle. Then there were the cows. And the landmines. Michelle and I sat on the edge of a…
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Learning, and losing (at the most inconvenient times), your Spanish
In Nicaragua, Michelle and I lived way up north, near Honduras. Managua, the country’s capital, is in the south, and a long way away, especially for hitchhikers. That’s how everyone got around: standing on the shoulder, sticking out a finger (not your thumb–in Nicaragua, you point to where you want to go), waiting for a…