Tag: U.S. Contra forces
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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…
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My First Look Down the Barrel
Dear Reader: I’ve been writing about my life in Nicaragua during the Sandinista-Contra war. This is from the archives. It’s one essay of a four-part series on guns, which can be found on The Writing Bull. The man was drunk. He had reason to be. The enemy had come through his small town in northern…