Every Day We Live Is the Future: Surviving in a City of Disasters 9781477314173

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Every Day We Live Is the Future

Every Day We Live Is the Future

Surviving in a City of Disasters

Douglas Haynes

University of Texas Press Austin

Copyright © 2017 by Douglas Haynes All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2017 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-­7819 utpress.utexas.edu/rp-­form ♾ The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-­1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper). Library of Congress Cataloging-­i n-­P ublication Data Names: Haynes, Douglas, author. Title: Every day we live is the future : surviving in a city of disasters / Douglas Haynes. Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references. Identifiers: LCCN 2016058954 ISBN 978-­1-­4773-­1312-­1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-­1-­4773-­1417-­3 (library e-­book) ISBN 978-­1-­4773-­1418-­0 (non-­library e-­book) Subjects: LCSH: Managua (Nicaragua)—Social conditions—21st century. | Managua (Nicaragua)—Economic conditions—21st century. | Environmental justice—Nicaragua— Managua. | Urbanization—Nicaragua—Managua. | Rural-­urban migration—Nicaragua— Managua. | Poor—Nicaragua—Managua. | Women—Nicaragua—Managua. Classification: LCC HN170.M36 H39 2017 | DDC 306.097285/13—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058954 doi:10.7560/313121

For Yader, in memoriam For Dayani and Yadira, who taught me perseverance And for Iris, who gives me hope

Now o’clock, always now o’clock. In the Kingdom of the Poor, time doesn’t exist . . . how can you think about tomorrow when all your strength is used up trying to get through today? —Indra Sinha, Animal’s People

A pesar que a veces nada parece tener sentido, a la vez, nada tiene tanto sentido que Managua. (Although sometimes nothing seems to make sense, at the same time, nothing makes as much sense as Managua.) —M ercedes Moncada, Palabras mágicas: para romper un encantamiento

Contents

Map of Nicaragua viii Map of Managua ix Family Trees x

Prologue 1

Part One: Storms without Names 5 Part Two: Down from the Mountains 25 Part Three: Sheltering 111 Part Four: The Sum of Small Disasters 185 Epilogue 253 Author’s Note 257 Acknowledgments 261 Notes 265

Photographs follow page 110

Map of Nicaragua (by Joel Heiman)

Lak

e

Man

agu

a

La Chureca

H The Widows (Las Viudas)

35 Avenida

156

Barrio La Candelaria

Aryeri’s Squat

Parque Luis Alfonso Velásquez

1

Mercado Oriental

1

H Laguna de Tiscapa

2

Pan-America

n Highway

41 Avenida

El Gancho de Camino

Laguna de Asososca

Barrio Villa Vallarta

Barrio La Primavera

Sureste

El Pantanal Villa Virgen de Guadalupe

Pista Portezuelo

H

El Malecón Puerto Salvador Allende H Padre Fabreto Plaza de la Julio & H Shelter H Revolución

154

28

Universidad de Managua

Pista La

H Vélez Paiz Hospital H

Pista Ju

an Pablo

Sabana

La Mascota Hospital

II

H Lake

4

Las Mercedes Free Trade Zone

156 156

11 22

ry

226 226

er

et

rr

Bou

nda

Barrio 18 de Mayo

Ca

12 12

aa M a

ay

0

1 MI

Map of Managua (by Joel Heiman)

Managua

Map Detail Area

11

as

o

burbana

Pista Su

Managua

Lake Managua

26 28

Mu

de 0

l

ipa

nic

s Sierra

2 MI

22

4

4

a

gu Mana

154 154

Family trees of Yadira Castellón and Dayani Baldelomar (by Joel Heiman)

Every Day We Live Is the Future

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Prologue

Dayani Baldelomar’s gold-­rimmed front teeth gleamed, her smile as persistent as her determination to wrest a living from her fruit and drink stand in Managua’s Mercado Oriental (Eastern Market). Among at least ten thousand other vendors, Dayani worked seven days a week to earn just enough to feed her family of five. But the 2008 world food crisis was causing the prices of the fruits she sliced and bagged at her stand to soar. People also had less to spend. “Before, I would sell a minimum of a dozen watermelons a day,” she said. “Now, I’m happy if I can sell four.” For her family, this meant skimping on extras like soap and toilet paper. As Dayani told me and my group of US college students about the slim profit margin of her business, she handed us slices of mango and watermelon. Her straight, black hair was pulled back in a bun, revealing a high forehead and round, bronze cheeks. A white apron with deep coin pockets hung around her neck. Passing vendors bellowed, “¡Agua!” and idling buses chirred in front of Dayani’s stand. On a nearby stoop, a barefoot boy huffed glue from a glass jar. His T-­shirt hung on him like a dress. Dayani had three sons in school, she said, and she hoped one day she could get a wage-­paying job to help them more. But finding a job was improbable. Like Dayani, more than 70 percent of Nicaraguans labor in the informal economy—unregulated, untaxed, and often self-­ employed work—due to a lack of employment in the formal sector. In her twenty-­eight years, she had held only one job. She had worked as a seamstress in a Korean-­owned sweatshop, one of the few jobs available to women without a secondary education. Her twelve- to fifteen-­

2 Every Day We Live Is the Future

hour workdays made it impossible to see her sons, however. After nine months, she returned to vending in the market, where she had hawked food since moving to Managua from the countryside when she was nine years old. The more I learned about Dayani’s life during this visit to her stand, the more I wanted to know. She was entwined in forces defining the contemporary world, from the food crisis to the growing informal economy to the mass migration of rural people to cities. And these, I soon discovered, were just a few examples. She had also played a part in the global explosion of urban informal settlements—the so-­called slums that are home to one of every eight people on the planet. Dayani lived in a shantytown called Las Viudas—The Widows—on the flood-­prone shore of Lake Managua, “the world’s biggest toilet” according to renowned Nicaraguan scientist Dr. Jaime Incer Barquero. Like Dayani, her neighbor Yadira Castellón had migrated to Managua in the early 1990s. The two women became close friends, bonded by their tumultuous childhoods, their experiences of mothering seriously ill sons, and the particular challenges facing women in the city. Meeting Dayani and Yadira and visiting The Widows in May 2008 sparked big questions in me. What drives so many rural people to give up their lives on the land and move to sprawling cities such as Managua? What factors shape whether they can shake off poverty when they get there? And how does the combination of rapid urbanization, swelling inequality, and increasingly extreme weather threaten these urban pioneers’ chances of building secure lives? Between 2010 and 2015, I returned to Nicaragua eleven times to seek answers to these questions. I mostly looked for answers in the daily lives of people who inhabit zones of intersecting environmental, social, and economic vulnerabilities. I call these zones the Margins in this book. The Margins isn’t just a type of place; it’s shorthand for the chronic insecurity caused by slowly colliding problems, such as deforestation and lack of affordable housing, that almost never make the news. The convergence of these problems means an hour-­long downpour can jeopardize an unlucky low-­income family just as much as a superstorm. And as small disasters pile up, they can threaten entire neighborhoods and cities. The Widows—where Dayani and Yadira lived for more than a

Prologue  3

­ ecade—is one of these threatened neighborhoods, and Managua is d one of these imperiled cities. During the past twenty years, Nicaragua has been among the five countries most affected by extreme weather, as well as one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere. Nicaragua and especially communities like The Widows show how the places most disrupted by climate change are often least able to adapt to it. This book pre­sents the lived consequences of these facts for Dayani’s and Yadira’s extended families. I was drawn to these families in part by the remarkable twists of their paths to and through Managua. They are among the primary agents transforming Earth’s geography, ecology, and economy through urbanization. While the impacts of megacities have garnered much attention, little has been written about the faster-­growing, medium-­ sized metropolises such as Managua. The everyday triumphs and trials of people in the squats and markets of the world’s Managuas are overlooked, and their voices are almost never heard. Bearing witness to some of these people was my primary motivation for writing Every Day We Live Is the Future. Dayani’s and Yadira’s families don’t represent marginalized new urbanites everywhere, of course, but understanding their scrambles to survive does help draw a more complete picture of today’s headlong urban expansion. To construct this narrative, I relied heavily on the memories of Dayani and Yadira and their families and my observations of them. Although this process was as collaborative as I could make it, the result is wholly my own vision of what’s most important in what I’ve seen and heard. Writing this book inevitably required emphasizing some details and omitting others. I could never aspire to represent the entirety of the lives presented here. I do hope, however, that my account pre­sents them with all of the complexity and dignity I’ve witnessed. This book tells hard stories about seemingly unrelenting obstacles to escaping poverty, but these stories are also steeped in their protagonists’ steady hope. The hope required to leave home with nothing, start over in a strange place, and reinvent ways to make a living isn’t naïve. It’s commitment born of necessity, a steely struggle the people in this book call la lucha. In rare moments, such commitment transcends the struggle, like waking to a glowing dawn after riding out a storm and realizing you’ve been given another day.

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Epilogue

Just after Christmas 2014, Gabriel disappeared again from Dayani. He left home with Noel but soon ran away from him as well. Dayani’s spirits nosedived. She felt like she had done everything she could for Gabriel. And she was tired of her boyfriend Roberto’s drinking. When a friend secured her a job in a shop in Costa Rica, Dayani decided the hour to realize her dream of living abroad had arrived. In January 2015, she left her home and Edwin in The Widows. In Costa Rica, she’s one of hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguan workers. She feels more at peace there than she’s ever been, as if the demons of her old self have died. She has a new boyfriend and wants to get residency in Costa Rica. On the phone, she has rekindled her friendship with Yadira, which both women say will last forever. After Dayani left, Gabriel returned to The Widows, where he now lives with his girlfriend. He learned clowning from Noel and makes his living from it. Edwin lives in the market with Carmen and César and helps them fry and sell platanitos. Both brothers have dropped out of school, which pains Dayani perhaps more than anything. Despite the dramatic roller coaster of Dayani’s life, her story is ordinary in its extraordinariness. As Ana Narváez, the director of Women in Action, once said of Managua: “There are loads of Dayanis in this city.” The same could be said of Yadiras. On a global scale, too, many of these women’s struggles and achievements—like the places they’ve lived—are not exceptional. While the particularities of Dayani’s and Yadira’s stories are startlingly unique, their lives offer windows into the everyday choices and risks faced by many of the world’s rising number of city dwellers, particularly women.

254 Every Day We Live Is the Future

In an age of spreading cities, rising inequality, and increasingly extreme weather, the Global South’s urban pioneers are the true barometers of the world economy’s success. They experience economic and environmental crises first and hardest. The obstacles they confront are the obstacles to creating more just and sustainable societies. If we don’t address the floods, landslides, food and water insecurity, pollution, and disease that are disproportionately affecting the poorest citizens of the world’s metropolises, ecological and economic segregation will divide tomorrow’s cities even more than they already do. The consequences of these divisions are familiar: crime, decay, political dysfunction, and lost human potential, to name just a few. When new urbanites like Dayani and Yadira lack opportunities to use their intelligence and perseverance to build secure futures for their families and communities, the urban fabric frays. “A city is an agglomeration of individual dreams, a mass dream of the crowd,” Suketu Mehta writes in Maximum City. “In order for the dream life of a city to stay vital, each individual dream has to stay vital.” Just as the poor and their neighborhoods can’t be separated from a city without consequences for the body politic, rich countries can’t escape their entanglements with poor countries. US consumers, for example, depend on millions of Yadiras and Dayanis laboring in fields and sweatshops for next to nothing. And when personal and public disasters strike Nicaraguans and their neighbors in other Central American countries, many of them inevitably immigrate to places that offer more security, including the United States. Given the chronic insecurity of low-­income communities in cities like Managua, what’s astonishing is not that so many people emigrate but that many more don’t. Family is one thing that keeps people from leaving. Differences in Dayani’s and Yadira’s families have inevitably shaped their children’s divergent paths. But perhaps more striking is that these families’ similarities didn’t contribute to more comparable outcomes: entrepreneurial, hard-­working parents; engaged fathers and extended families; mothers who value education; close sibling ties. But these advantages aren’t always enough to overcome personal tragedy, mental illness, and the lack of options inflicted by poverty. When they are, it should be celebrated as remarkable, not as a basis for public policy that leaves everyone to sink or swim.

Epilogue  255

Since 2014, Yadira’s family has achieved a modicum of economic stability in their new home that they never had in The Widows. With a micro-­loan from Women in Action, Yadira started a food cart selling hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza on the corner in front of her house. This brought in cash on a daily basis while allowing Yadira to stay close to her children. Henry started a business, too. He owns and drives a caponera. But as Wendy neared her college graduation and became more independent, conflict sparked between her and Henry over his protectiveness. In June 2016, Wendy decided she had to leave. She moved to Costa Rica to live with Xiomara and look for work, which she couldn’t find in Managua. She’s had trouble landing a steady job, however, and it’s difficult for her to save money to send home. Feeling increasingly desperate, she’s considering migrating to the United States to join her cousin working in a cheese factory. When Wendy left, Yadira had to stop selling food to take care of Jason and the house, and she felt alone. The family’s unity began to fracture. Health problems also continued to hinder their ability to get ahead. In August 2016, Ana Teresa and María were hospitalized with Zika virus. Soon after, Yadira and Jason were diagnosed with the mosquito-­ borne virus chikungunya, which put Jason under close observation for days. Once out of the hospital, the girls battled through fevers to go to classes. María and Byron graduated high school in 2016. Ana Teresa is one year shy of finishing her pharmacy degree. Whether she finds the professional job she has long imagined when she graduates depends largely on her personal contacts and luck. She’s not alone. Half of the world’s population is under thirty and facing disproportionately high rates of unemployment, despite being increasingly educated. The importance of relationships and good fortune surfaces in Yadira’s and Dayani’s stories again and again. So does the importance of effective institutional safety nets—governmental and nongovernmental—for people who suffer misfortune or lack supportive relationships. High-­functioning infrastructure, urban planning, legal systems, and social services aren’t panaceas for poverty and degraded environments, but they can make marginalized families and communities more resilient to the forces working against them. Aid as simple as a

256 Every Day We Live Is the Future

functional roof, for example, can mean the difference between riding out a storm or drowning in it. And one thing is certain about the uncertain future of Managua and barrios like The Widows: storms, droughts, and heat waves will continue to threaten them. For years, temperatures have been rising, total rainfall has been declining, and deluges have been intensifying. Managua demonstrates that weather alone doesn’t forge disasters, however. It’s but one dimension of the episodic nature of disasters; they unfold gradually through accretion of converging vulnerabilities. One of these vulnerabilities is rapid, unplanned urbanization. While the number of city dwellers on earth grows, the number of recorded disasters is also growing, creating a gathering, permanent crisis. In order to create cities that can withstand the extremes of the changing climate, disaster must be redefined to incorporate how human decisions shape calamities and whom they hurt most. Residents of the urban Margins already know this, and they harbor the ingenuity needed to help adapt. As Rebecca Solnit writes, “The future, at least the sustainable one, the one in which we will survive, isn’t going to be invented by people who are happily surrendering selective bits and pieces of environmentally unsound privilege. It’s going to be made by those who had all that taken away from them or never had it in the first place.” In other words, the future is being made by people like Dayani and Yadira. Speaking of the daily scramble to survive in Managua, their friend Ana Narváez once told me, “For us, every day—every day we live—is the future.” In addition to evoking a profound personal vulnerability, this statement reminds us that the people shaping tomorrow’s cities don’t just occupy government offices or corporate boardrooms. They inhabit the shantytowns, the dumps, the playas, and the markets of the cities resurfacing the earth.

Author’s Note

Around the time Dayani and Yadira arrived in Managua, I wrote an article for my high school newspaper in Freeport, Illinois, criticizing the US role in Central America’s civil wars. I knew little of the region’s history and had never met a Central American. But I knew that being a US taxpayer implicated me in the human suffering caused by the wars in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador. In 2004, I traveled to Central America for the first time and began to better understand just how intertwined these countries are with mine. My four-­month stay shook the foundation of how I see the world, and I knew I had to go back. In 2008, when a colleague invited me to lead a group of students to Managua with him, I jumped at the chance and unknowingly began researching this book. Each time I returned to Managua over the next seven years, I more fully appreciated the economic, cultural, linguistic, and gender barriers that separated me from the people I was getting to know in The Widows. At the same time, I became more convinced that giving up trying to reach across these boundaries—even when they seemed insurmountable—was not an option. Giving up would mean the ignorance about Central America I grew up with had prevailed. But I knew I had to be conscious of my privilege and biases every step of the way. To undermine the limitations of my perspective as much as possible, I adopted the methods of immersion journalism. I followed Dayani and Yadira and their families at home, at work, and at school; shared meals and watched TV with them; slept in their houses on a few occasions; accompanied them to appointments; studied their photos and educational and legal documents; traveled with them to their rural birthplaces; recorded hundreds of hours of interviews with

258 Every Day We Live Is the Future

them, their families, and neighbors; and shot photos and video along the way. More than anything, I passed days with them on their patios and in the Mercado Oriental. They understood that their activities during my time with them would be documented, but whenever one of them asked me not to include something in this book, I obliged out of respect for their privacy. To corroborate and contextualize Dayani’s and Yadira’s families’ experiences, I conducted dozens of interviews with their extended families and friends, as well as with government officials, academics, and leaders of civil society in Managua. I also attended conferences and public events; conducted archival research in the Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica at the Universidad Centroamericana; and visited every corner of the city, including almost all the locations mentioned in this book. Though my work as a professor in Wisconsin kept me from being ever-­present in Managua, I witnessed many of the events and conversations in this book. Events I didn’t witness are reconstructed based on interviews with people who were present; published and government document accounts; online photographs and video; and my visits to the places where the events and conversations occurred. All dialogue was either noted or recorded by me, recounted precisely by at least one participant in the conversation, or published in articles or books. Any conversations that were not recounted precisely are summarized rather than quoted directly. Occasionally, quotations from interviews are included in scenes in a composite fashion. I’ve translated all dialogue from Spanish into English. I’m not a native Spanish speaker, but my facility with the language enabled me to avoid using an interpreter during my reporting in Nicaragua. This allowed me to develop relationships naturally and focus on the immediacy of my interactions. I did sometimes consult native Spanish speakers after the fact to ensure that translations of recorded dialogue are accurate. Any errors are my own, however. I’ve sometimes left certain Spanish words untranslated to more authentically capture the voices of people in the story. Conveying the singularity of these voices and their perspectives has been my priority. For this reason, I’ve chosen to rely primarily on the memories of the story’s main characters—especially Dayani and

Author’s Note  259

Yadira—to reconstruct their pasts, though, of course, memory is fallible. What these women and their families remember about their pasts shapes their sense of self and agency in the present. To continually qualify and question their memories would nullify their understanding of how they’ve arrived where they are. And this subjective understanding is the heart of this story, as it is the heart of any journey. All names in this book are real except for the following minor figures: Marilena, Nacho, Juana, David, Dr. Gómez, Lourdes, Marta, Nohelia, Pepe, and Chayo. These names have been changed to protect the identities of people who didn’t have the choice to participate in the telling of this story because they weren’t available to me. Finally, everyone in this book agreed to participate without any expectation of financial compensation. That said, the inconveniences my reporting caused would have been exploitative had I not compensated people in small ways. I bought meals for them when their participation in my reporting involved travel, and I generally paid for any food they provided me. In addition, I paid for their travel when it was only for the purpose of my reporting. More broadly, I contributed time, material donations, and proceeds from my published articles about Managua to the Women in Action community development project that Dayani and Yadira belonged to during the period of this book. I did not direct these donations to specific people in the book. I wanted to contribute to positive changes in the community as a whole. I also brought US students to volunteer with Women in Action three times during this period. One group of these students helped finance and construct improvements on Yadira and Henry’s house, as well as on other project members’ houses. Over the course of my reporting, many people in this book became my friends. For me, it would have been impossible to not befriend people with whom I shared so much over so many years, especially people who are so warm, interesting, and engaged. With friendship comes the desire to help. A portion of the proceeds from this book will be used to support community development and education in Managua. I hope that this book will prompt the desire to help in readers as well. In addition to Women in Action and its sponsoring organization, Compas de Nicaragua, there are many other outstanding non-

260 Every Day We Live Is the Future

profits working on social, economic, and environmental justice issues in Managua that always need support. While researching this book, I had the pleasure of learning about Los Quinchos, Pro Mujer, Centro Humboldt, Center for Development in Central America, and Wisconsin/Nicaragua Partners of the Americas. To learn more about the work of Women in Action and how to sponsor education for a child in The Widows or arrange a group work project there, see compas1.org.

Acknowledgments

Even before my reporting in Nicaragua began, I depended on communities of support there and in the United States. Without them, this book wouldn’t have been possible. It also wouldn’t have been realized without the financial and logistical aid of the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (UWO) Office of Grants and Faculty Development, the UWO Office of International Education, and the Fund for Environmental Journalism. On the ground, the people of Las Viudas, the Mercado Oriental, and La Primavera made me feel ever welcome. Their generosity and goodwill have been among the greatest gifts of my life and my greatest education. My deepest gratitude goes to the extended families at the heart of this book. Their patience with my regular intrusion in their homes and workplaces and their willingness to share intimate details of their lives are responsible for whatever virtues this book has. In particular, I’d like to thank Yadira Castellón, Henry Munguía, and their children Wendy, Ana Teresa, María, Byron, and Jason; Celia and Xiomara Castellón; Dayani Baldelomar and her sons Edwin and Gabriel; Noel Sánchez; Roberto García; Julio Baldelomar and Aryeri Rodríguez; and César Baldelomar and Carmen Bustos and their children Tere, Johana, Luis, and Juan. The following people, among scores of others, also graciously hosted and guided me in Managua and beyond: Ana Narváez, Erik Fletes, Osmani Narváez, Michael Boudreau, Tere Narváez, Chico Narváez, Jazmina Gamboa, Eva Julia Echaverry and Pedro Narváez, Tina Narváez and Orlando Argüello, Reyna Narváez and Francis Argüello, Pancho Narváez and Diana González, Yadira Narváez and her children, Edda Montes, Tatiana Andrade, Amalia

262 Acknowledgments

Gar­cía, Charlie Smith, Gerardo Pérez, Jorge Salazar, Wilmer Alvarez and Jseñia Salazar and their children Brayan and Estefanie, and Miguel Rodríguez. Mil gracias por todo. From 2010 to 2014, I conducted more than one hundred interviews in Nicaragua. Though all of them aren’t quoted in this book, every one of them helped me better understand the people and places featured in these pages. I’m especially indebted to the past and present members of Mujeres en Acción in Managua for sharing their stories, and I regret that they are too numerous to name here. Lorena Guerrero has been an invaluable friend and guide to the opaque workings of Managua city government. Gustavo Estrada, Luis Zavaleta, Leonardo Icaza, Karen Bonilla, and David Valdivia at the Alcaldía were also generous with their time, as were Héctor Cruz and Gabi Reyes at CIEE Managua, Natali Williamson and Alberto Vanegas of Los Quinchos, Salvador Montenegro and Kathrine Vammen at the Centro para la Investigación en Recursos Acuáticos de Nicaragua, Marvin Chamorro at the KfW Development Bank, Romer Altamirano at the Universidad Centroamericana, Ruth Herrera at IDEAS, Victor Campos at Centro Humboldt, Augusto Rivera at COMMEMA, and Miguel Reyes, Juana Aregñal, Oscar Díaz, and Suyén Pérez at the Ministerio del Ambiente y los Recursos Naturales. This book evolved from four articles I wrote between 2011 and 2013, pieces of which have been revised and incorporated here. I’m grateful to the following editors who supported and helped shape these early efforts to share the stories I heard in Managua: Jennifer Sahn at Orion, Ted Genoways at Virginia Quarterly Review, David Johnson at Boston Review, and Cyril Mychalejko at Upside Down World. Without the journalists of La Prensa, El Nuevo Diario, and Confidencial, the scope of this book wouldn’t have been possible. I’m grateful for their daily reporting in often challenging circumstances. I also relied on the monthly Revista Envío and the Nicaragua Network weekly news bulletin. In addition, the towering figure of integrity in Nicaraguan journalism, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, and his television news programs, Esta Noche and Esta Semana, provided inspiration and vital information when I was away from Nicaragua. For their insights, comments on drafts, and moral support, I’m indebted to Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Ron Rindo, Nadia Louar, Stew­

Acknowledgments  263

art Cole, Wendy Call, Paul Bogard, Rob Nixon, Christopher Hartmann, Elizabeth Dodd, Rocio Cortes, Stephanie Spehar, Jim Feldman, Rob Emmett, and Chris Cokinos. Ben Willett brought me to Central America in 2004, Chris Dale sent me to Nicaragua in 2008, and Ben Nickels inspired the audacity to make my reporting there a book. My research was ably assisted by Jessica Ruiz, Alma Mercado, Elizabeth Kay, Ezequiel Gómez, Kelly Maynard, Matt Raboin, and Anne Erb. Thanks also to Joel Heiman for his expert mapmaking and Larry and Anita Solan, who provided valuable support and a quiet place to write. My agent Wendy Strothman helped me shape the book’s structure at a critical time and persevered with me to see it in print. I’m also grateful to Kerry Webb, Robert Kimzey, Angelica Lopez-­Torres, Nancy Bryan, and the rest of the staff at the University of Texas Press for publishing this book with such enthusiasm and care. Kudos to Sally Furgeson as well for her thoughtful and thorough editing. Before I ever knew of Nicaragua, my parents David and Marilyn nurtured the curiosity that brought me there. My sister Christine and brother Ryan have also ceaselessly encouraged my writing. Above all, my wife Renata Solan sustained me through years of travel, unclear paths, and draft after draft. Her love, spirit, and sharp editorial eye contributed enormously to this book. Her commitment to seeing this story told never wavered, even when I did, and her support for my hours at my desk, even with a new baby, brought this book to fruition. My daughter Iris has given me renewed will to make the future more livable for her and her generation. I hope that this story will help do the same for her one day.

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Notes

Prologue 1 1

2 2 3 3 3

at least ten thousand other vendors: Benjamín Rosales and Erasmo Aguilar, “Riesgo Urbano—Caso de Estudio; Mercado Oriental Managua,” Revista Arquitectura + 1 (June 2016): 39. more than 70 percent of Nicaraguans: Amalia Morales, “El reino informal,” La Prensa, December 1, 2013. See also Manuel Orozco and Gloriana Sojo, “Thinking Differently About Nicaragua’s Development Challenges,” The Dialogue: Leadership for the Americas, April 29, 2016. home to one of every eight people on the planet: United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-­HABITAT), Urbanization and Development: Emerging Futures, World Cities Report 2016, 57. “the world’s biggest toilet”: Quoted in José Adán Silva, “NICARAGUA: Cleaning Up ‘World’s Biggest Toilet,’ ” Inter Press Service, March 16, 2009. Nicaragua has been among the five countries: Sönke Kreft, David Eckstein, Lukas Dorsch, and Livia Fischer, “Global Climate Risk Index 2016,” Germanwatch, November 2015. one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere: United States Central Intelligence Agency, “Nicaragua,” The World Factbook, January 12, 2017. See also Iván Olivares, “Nicaragua: penúltimo en pobreza,” Confidencial, February 4, 2015. the faster-­growing, medium-­sized metropolises such as Managua: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, “World Urbanization Prospects: The 2014 Revision, Highlights,” 2014, 15.

Chapter One 8 8

one of the world’s fastest growing cities: Envío Team, “There Is Nowhere Else Quite Like Managua,” Revista Envío, February 1989. the population of Managua had more than doubled: Marvin Villalta, “La cultura en el siglo XX. Proceso de transculturación,” in Managua y su historia: Un enfoque regional, ed. Jilma Romero, Virgilio Espinosa, and Luis A. Lobato (Managua: Grupo

266 Notes to Pages 8–11

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11 11

11 11

Editorial Acento, 2009), 248. See also Instituto Nacional de Información de Desarrollo de Nicaragua, “Población actualizada,” June 30, 2012. 40 percent of the population: Carlos Miranda and Ricardo Avilés, “La Managua reciente 1980–2006,” in Managua y su historia, 281. the most urbanized region in the world: United Nations Human Settlements Programme, “The State of Latin American and Caribbean Cities 2012,” August 2012, xi–­xii. Today, about one million people migrate: Chris Anderson, “An Urban Future,” To the Best of Our Knowledge, Wisconsin Public Radio, July 21, 2013. It’s one of more than one hundred and fifty squatter communities: Roy Moncada, “Asentamientos en zonas de riesgo,” La Prensa, October 25, 2014. Nearly all are located in high-­risk places: Ernesto Garcia, “Managua plagada de asentamientos,” El Nuevo Diario, October 25, 2014. One-­quarter of the city residents: Rafael Lara, “Analizan salidas al caos urbano,” El Nuevo Diario, September 24, 2014. The United Nations predicts that by 2050 three billion people: United Nations Department of Social and Economic Affairs, World Economic and Social Survey 2013: Sustainable Development Challenges, 2013, x. almost half of the world’s projected urban population: Worldwatch Institute, “Rapidly Urbanizing Populations Face Unique Challenges,” December 11, 2012. According to the World Health Organization: Ibid. it has already brought about a normal year’s rainfall: Wilder Pérez R., “Lluvias hicieron historia,” La Prensa, December 31, 2010. likely made more frequent by planetary warming: “Global warming doubles risk of extreme La Niña event, study shows,” phys.org, January 26, 2015. Lake Managua is rising: Ministerio del Ambiente y los Recursos Naturales de Nicaragua, “Situation Assessment of Rising Waters in Lake Xolotlán Caused by Rains in August–­October 2010,” September 30, 2010. One hundred miles of drainage ditches: Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo, “Plan de acción Managua sostenible,” December 2013, 32. Twenty-­some species of fish: Lorenzo López, interview by author, Laguna de Apoyo, Nicaragua, July 8, 2010. In 1928, the Nicaraguan government: Roger Norori G., Mayra Altamirano, and Thelma Corea, “Aspectos biogeográficos, una visión histórica,” in Managua y su historia, 35. See also Christopher Hartmann, “Accessing Trash: Conflict, Inequality, and the Managua Municipal Waste Site” (MA thesis, Ohio State University, 2010), 32. the city’s population was between thirty and forty thousand: Virgilio Espinosa, et al., “El departamento de Managua en el periodo de 1909 a 1979,” in Managua y su historia, 158, 202. metropolitan area of almost two million: Camilo Arriagada, Maren Jiménez, and Jorge Rodríguez, Región Metropolitana de Managua: localización, migración, y movilidad de la población, 1990–2005, (Santiago de Chile: Centro Latinoamericano y Caribeño de Demografía [CELADE]-­División de Población de la CEPAL, 2009), 22. In 2009, about half of Managua’s sewage: Marvin Chamorro, interview by author, Managua, Nicaragua, July 15, 2010. scientists say the water will never: Katherine Vammen, interview by author, Managua, Nicaragua, August 3, 2010.

Notes to Pages 11–17  267 11 11 13 13 13 13

13 13 13

14 14 14 14

15 15

“The lake is history”: Mercedes Moncada, Esta Noche, Canal 12, Nicaragua, July 10, 2012. mercury from a leaking chlorine plant: Envío Team, “There Is Nowhere Else Quite Like Managua.” Lake Managua rose thirteen feet: Nitlápan-­Envío Team, “Sketches of an Unexpected Tragedy,” Revista Envío, November 1998. Mitch was the Western Hemisphere’s deadliest: “Mitch: The Deadliest Atlantic Hurricane Since 1780,” National Climatic Data Center, January 23, 2009. it killed at least three thousand people: BBC News, “Mitch: A Path of Destruction” December 3, 1998. displaced more than four thousand Managuans: Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y El Caribe—CEPAL, “Nicaragua: Evaluación de los daños ocasionados por el huracán Mitch, 1998,” March 3, 1999, 17. See also Envío Team, “How Managua Saw the Passage of Hurricane Mitch,” Revista Envío, December 1998. destroyed approximately ten square miles: Jaime Wheelock Román, ed., Desastres naturales de Nicaragua: Guia para conocerlos y prevenirlos (Managua: HISPAMER, 2000), 91. As writer Suketu Mehta says: Suketu Mehta, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found (New York: Vintage, 2005), 537. Metrocentro opened just one month: José Luis Rocha, “Wiwilí con o sin Mitch: radiografía del subdesarrollo,” Revista Envío, December 1998. See also Florence E. Babb, After Revolution: Mapping Gender and Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Nicaragua (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001), 61. “Nicaragua has finally taken off ”: Quoted in Nitlápan-­Envío Team, “Sketches of an Unexpected Tragedy.” An expanding free trade zone boosted: Dennis Rodgers, “An Illness Called Managua,” Crisis States Research Centre Working Papers Series, No. 37, May 2008, 14. the worst-­paid garment workers in Central America: Marvin Villalta and Gloria López, “Expresiones culturales en el marco del proceso revolucionario,” in Managua y su historia, 308. The Widows was and still is slated: Alcaldía de Managua, Dirección de Urbanismo, “Diagnóstico y propuesta preliminar de intervención de los asentamientos espontaneos del sector oriental: Tabla sintesis de afectaciónes, Sector Oriental (Delegaciones Territoriales 5 y 6).” The Widows grew into a roughly two-­acre island: Ibid. Hundreds of tons of trash: Envío Team, “There Is Nowhere Else Quite Like Managua.” See also Benjamín Blanco, “Déficit de recolección de basura en 42 municipios,” El Nuevo Diario, November 13, 2014.

Chapter Two 17 17

For three months, it has been rising: Anne Pérez y Wilder Pérez, “Aumentan riesgos por más inundaciones,” La Prensa, September 8, 2010. One night, almost three inches fall: “7 mil damnificados,” El Nuevo Diario, August 29, 2010.

268 Notes to Pages 18–31 18 18 18 18 18 19 22 22 22 22 23 23 23 23 23 23 23

Between 1980 and 2010, the area: Dennis Rodgers, “An Illness Called Managua,” 10. a worldwide trend of decreasing urban density: Jeb Brugmann, Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities Are Changing the World (New York: Bloomsbury, 2009), 185–186. Each time it rains hard: “Lluvias son ya un ‘caso extremo.’ ” La Prensa, September 9, 2010. They have already brought more than a thousand: Ibid. By mid-­September, at least forty people: Wilder Pérez y Anne Pérez R., “Cae jefe del Sinapred en medio de fuertes lluvias,” La Prensa, September 10, 2010. the worst rain disaster ever: Ibid. The director of the Institute for Territorial Studies: Wilder Pérez, et al., “Alerta nacional por ciclón,” La Prensa, September 24, 2010. “We find ourselves”: Quoted in ibid. A swollen drainage ditch sweeps a pair of teenagers: Wilder Pérez R. y Anne Pérez Rivera, “Rios y lagos enfurecidos,” La Prensa, September 29, 2010. there are 50 percent more cases of acute diarrhea: United Nations Development Programme, Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BCPR), “Climate Risk Management for the Health Sector in Nicaragua,” January 2013. an epidemic that caused up to five hundred cases: Geiner Enrique Bonilla R., “Dengue tiene en vilo a países del Cono Sur,” La Prensa, September 10, 2010. On September 27, Lake Managua rises: Wilder Pérez R. y Anne Pérez Rivera, “Peligra Plaza de la Fe,” La Prensa, September 30, 2010. Hundreds of civil defense forces: “Más agua que el Mitch,” El Nuevo Diario, September 28, 2010. If it rises two more feet: Wilder Pérez R. y Anne Pérez Rivera, “Peligra Plaza de la Fe.” the new $1.3 million Puerto Salvador Allende: Empresa Portuaria Nacional Nicaragua, “Puerto Salvador Allende,” December 3, 2015. Most of this was built on ruins: Wilder Pérez R. y Anne Pérez Rivera, “Peligra Plaza de la Fe.” Despite government promises: Wilder Pérez R. y Anne Pérez Rivera, “Nivel del Xolotlan roza los 43 metros,” La Prensa, October 2, 2010.

Chapter Three 30

30 31 31

the longest dynastic dictatorship in Latin American history: Thomas W. Walker, “Introduction,” in Nicaragua Without Illusions: Regime Transition and Structural Adjustment in the 1990s, ed. Thomas W. Walker (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 1997), 3. During the latter years of this period, US marines: Frances Kinloch Tijerino, Historia de Nicaragua, 3era edición (Managua: Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica de la Universidad Centroamericana, 2008), 244. But again, the US military was terrorizing: Ibid., 4. “the most heavily US-­ trained military establishment”: Thomas W. Walker and Christine J. Wade, Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle, 5th ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 2011), viii.

Notes to Pages 32–42  269 32

“When Somoza fled, he represented”: Sergio Ramírez, Adiós Muchachos: A Memoir of the Sandinista Revolution (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2012), 94. 32 The Reagan administration allowed: Thomas W. Walker and Christine J. Wade, Nicaragua, 47. 32 Soon, the Contras were crossing the border: Stephen Kinzer, Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1991), 99. 32–33 They raided farms and villages: Ibid. See also Lynn Horton, Peasants in Arms: War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, 1979–1994 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1998), 128. 33 Refugees begin trickling: Stephen Kinzer, Blood of Brothers, 99.

Chapter Four 37

37 37 39

40 40 41 41 41 41 41 41 41 42 42

The region’s native Nicarao people believed: José G. Viramonte and Jaime Incer Barquero, “Masaya, the ‘Mouth of Hell,’ Nicaragua: Volcanological interpretation of the myths, legends and anecdotes,” Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 176 (2008): 6. they dubbed the mountain’s main crater “The Mouth of Hell”: Quoted in ibid. in 1529, Friar Francisco de Bobadilla: Ibid. The Oriental began in the 1930s: Benjamín Rosales and Erasmo Aguilar, “Riesgo Urbano—Caso de Estudio,” 38. See also Iván Antonio Rivera Méndez, Mercado Oriental: De la nada hacia la grandeza (Managua: Alcaldìa de Managua: Centros de Historia del Poder Ciudadano, 2014), 11. the market covered between seventy and one hundred and twenty acres: “Y el mercado los devoró,” La Prensa, May 20, 2007. See also Rafael Lara, “El Oriental, un mercado voraz,” El Nuevo Diario, January 28, 2015. As urban theorist Mike Davis writes: Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (New York: Verso, 2006), 27. a new metropolis of one million where one out of every three: Envío Team, “There Is Nowhere Quite Like Managua.” The US economic embargo and Contra War caused: Dennis Rodgers, “An Illness Called Managua,” 7. Inflation reached more than 33,000 percent: Thomas W. Walker and Christine J. Wade, Nicaragua, 55. See also Marvin Villalta and Gloria López, “Expresiones,” in Managua y su historia, 310. By 1995, an estimated 50 percent or more: John G. Speer, “The Urban Informal Economic Sector,” in Nicaragua Without Illusions, 266. Quiet side streets became: Ibid., 269. A third-­world Los Angeles: Envío Team, “There Is Nowhere Quite Like Managua.” a skyrocketing birthrate: Ana María Pizarro, “Good News, Bad News, Population Views,” Revista Envío, February, 1989. Thousands still lived in the ruined: Tracy Wilkinson, “20 Years after Quake, Poor Still Live in Managua’s Ruins,” Los Angeles Times, December 27, 1992. Roughly 40 percent of the city’s population: David Brown and Lisa Bornstein, “Whither Managua?: Evolution of a City’s Morphology,” (paper presented at the the 42nd Annual ISoCaRP International Congress, Istanbul, Turkey, 2006), 11–12.

270 Notes to Pages 42–62 42

illegal land markets that provided the majority of new housing: United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT), An Urbanizing World: Global Report on Human Settlements, 1996 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1996), 239.

Chapter Five 49 49 49

the biggest migration in human history: Jeb Brugmann, Welcome to the Urban Revolution, 39–41. Latin America’s largest open-­air dump: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo, “Programa de Desarrollo Integral del Barrio Acahualinca,” 2013. the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere: Thomas W. Walker and Christine J. Wade, Nicaragua, 56.

Chapter Six 52 55

Central America’s largest commercial center: Augusto Rivera, interview by author, Managua, Nicaragua, August 1, 2012. Nicaragua had the highest teen pregnancy rate: World Health Organization, Adolescent Pregnancy: Issues in Adolescent Health and Development (Geneva, Switzerland: Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development, Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization, 2004), 9.

Chapter Seven 58 58 58 58 59 59 59 61 62

the thousands of other migrants who arrived in Managua: Camilo Arriagada, Maren Jimenez, and Jorge Rodríguez, Región Metropolitana de Managua, 43. Combined unemployment and underemployment: John G. Speer, “The Urban Informal Economic Sector,” 265. Three out of every four laborers: Envío Team, “Just the Facts: A Poor Country, Part 1,” Revista Envío, October 1991. which left thousands of public workers without jobs: Marvin Villalta and Gloria López, “Expresiones,” in Managua y su historia, 307. See also Thomas W. Walker and Christine J. Wade, Nicaragua, 106–107. La Chureca is an epithet meaning: Christopher D. Hartmann, “Garbage, Health, and Well-­Being in Managua,” NACLA Report on the Americas 47, no. 4 (2013): 62. Soon, city-­owned and private trucks were regularly dumping: Christopher D. Hartmann, “Uneven Urban Spaces: Accessing Trash in Managua, Nicaragua,” Journal of Latin American Geography 11, no. 1 (2012): 150. it was about the size of fifty soccer fields and received: Ibid., 148–150. “The city trash trucks pass through all of this barrio”: Quoted in “La vida actual de 2009–10 (Life Struggles from 2009–10),” hartmannc.wordpress.com. With unemployment and migration to the city peaking: Francis Kinloch Tijerino, Historia, 340.

Notes to Pages 62–115  271 62 65 65

one of the safest in Latin America: Leyla Jarquín, “Nicaragua en el top de la seguridad ciudadana en Latinoamérica,” El Nuevo Diario, May 27, 2014. Hurricane Mitch engulfed all of Central America and hovered: Jaime Wheelock Román, ed., Desastres Naturales de Nicaragua, 149. more than a foot of rain fell daily: Ibid., 149–150.

Chapter Eight 69

69

Around fifteen thousand people worked: Lucas van Wunnik and Anna Escuer Costa, “Can the Maquiladora Industry Act as a Catalyst for Industrial Development in Nicaragua? Some Thoughts Based on the Study of Nien Hsing Textile Co.,” (paper presented at the 48th Congress of the European Regional Science Association, Liverpool, United Kingdom, August 27–31, 2008), 7. A single pair of the men’s jeans: Ibid., 12.

Chapter Ten 81 81 81 81 90

Streets wound through: Augusto Rivera, interview by author. Every day, hundreds of thousands: “Y el mercado los devoró,” La Prensa, May 20, 2007. The vast majority of the workers there: Luís Nuñez Salmerón, “Mercado Oriental, monstruo que se traga a Managua,” El Nuevo Diario, March 23, 2010. By 2020, two out of three workers: Robert Neuwirth, Stealth of Nations: The Global Rise of the Informal Economy (New York: Pantheon, 2011), 19. This is one reason the survival rate: Sabrina Tavernise, “Chronic Diseases are Killing More in Poorer Countries,” New York Times, December 4, 2014.

Chapter Eleven 95

Such deals gained Nicaragua: “Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index Historical Comparison of the Americas,” InSight Crime, January 8, 2014.

Chapter Thirteen 114 115 115 115

One hundred and ten families—more than five hundred people: Gurbih Dinarte Narváez, “Alcaldía Cierra Albergue de Padre Fabreto,” Dirección de relaciones públicas e internacionales de la alcaldía de Managua, February 9, 2012. There are fifteen other full shelters: Anne Pérez Rivera, “Drama, pobreza, espera y prohibiciones en albergues,” La Prensa, April 13, 2011. They house more than five thousand people: Ibid. couples get married, babies are born: Alberto Mora, “Entrevistas a Compañera Daysi Torres, Alcaldesa de Managua y al Doctor Gustavo Porras,” La Lucha Sigue, October 24, 2010.

272 Notes to Pages 115–117 115 116 116 116 116 116 116 117 117 117 117 117 117 117 117 117 117 117

117 117

But the shelters bring people: Anne Pérez Rivera, “Drama, pobreza, espera y prohibiciones en albergues.” More than a thousand new homes are needed: Ibid. Ortega announces that a site: Wilder Pérez R. and Anne Pérez Rivera, “Nivel del Xolotlán roza los 43 metros,” La Prensa, October 2, 2010. The city’s name is derived: Flor Fonseca Robleto and Martha Matute Hernández, “Managua en el periodo colonial,” in Managua y su historia, 64. For thousands of years, Lake Managua provided: Ibid., 65. By the time American archaeologist E. G. Squier visited: E. G. Squier, Nicaragua: Its People, Scenery, Monuments, Resources, Condition, and Proposed Canal (New York: AMS Press, 1973), 403. “Towards evening all the women of Managua”: Ibid., 399–400. The daily ritual of filling water jugs: Marvin Villalta, “La cultura en el siglo XX. Proceso de transculturación,” in Managua y su historia, 241. “would go to fatten the fish”: Quoted in Roger Norori G., Mayra Altamirano, and Thelma Corea, “Aspectos biogeográficos, una visión histórica,” in Managua y su historia, 35. the city pumped drinking water from two crater lakes: Roberto Sánchez Ramírez, El recuerdo de Managua en la memoria de un poblano (Managua: PAVSA, 2008), 37. See also Marvin Villalta, “La cultura en el siglo XX,” in Managua y su historia, 241. As Managua grew: Danilo J. Anton, Thirsty Cities: Urban Environments and Water Supply in Latin America (Ottawa, CA: IDRC, 1993), 124. one of the lakes became polluted: Benjamín Blanco and Douglas Carcache, “Abastació a los indios,” La Prensa, June 24, 2003. a volcanic aquifer beneath the city: Antonio Plata Bedmar et al., “Relación entre el lago de Managua (Nicaragua) y las aguas subterráneas y su etorno,” Ingeniería Civil (CEDEX) 121 (2001). Most of the city’s water now comes: Rezaye Álvarez M., “Managua se podría quedar sin reservas de agua subterráneas,” La Prensa, March 5, 2016. On average, homes connected to municipal water lines: Ibid. Within a distance of only seven miles: Rafael Lara, “Luchan por reducir riesgos e inundaciones en Managua,” El Nuevo Diario, December 14, 2014. Through much of the city’s history, dry tropical forest: Roger Norori G., Mayra Altamirano, and Thelma Corea, “Aspectos biogeográficos, una visión histórica,” in Managua y su historia, 29–31. But by the 1860s, coffee production: Norma Hernández Sánchez, Luis Gaitán Lugo, and Marcela Farrach García, “Managua durante el siglo xix (1821–1909),” in Managua y su historia, 123–124. See also Roger Norori G., Mayra Altamirano, and Thelma Corea, “Aspectos biogeográficos, una visión histórica,” in Managua y su historia, 32. At the beginning of October 1876: Emiliano Chamorro, “Hace 124 años un aluvión sepultó a media Managua,” La Prensa, October 4, 2000. most of the city’s residents: Norma Hernández Sánchez, Luis Gaitán Lugo, and Marcela Farrach García, “Managua durante el siglo xix (1821–1909),” in Managua y su historia, 116. See also Pablo Emilio Barreto Pérez, “¡Managua, Managua! Aluvión de 1876, ¿Managua podría ser destruida por otro aluvión?” pabloemiliobarreto.wordpress.com, July 7, 2010.

Notes to Pages 117–120  273 117

The refugees fled to a church: Emiliano Chamorro, “Hace 124 años un aluvión sepultó a media Managua.” 118 unbeknownst to people below, a seething reservoir formed: Gratus Halftermeyer, Managua a través de la Historia 1846–1946 (León, Nicaragua: Editorial Hospicio San Juan de Dios, 1943?), 30–31. 118 Survivors trudged through mud: Marcia Traña Galeano, Apuntes sobre la historia de Managua (Managua: Aldilá Editorial, 2000), 112. 118 After the rains stopped, cadavers washed up: Gratus Halftermeyer, Managua a través de la Historia 1846–1946, 30–31. 118 In 1876, rich and poor alike: Ibid. 118 Almost half of the city’s informal settlements: Ernesto Garcia, “Managua plagada de asentamientos.” 118 Between 1926 and 1982, Managua flooded: Jaime Wheelock Román, ed., Desastres naturales de Nicaragua, 162. 118 deforestation around the city: Roger Norori G., Mayra Altamirano, and Thelma Corea, “Aspectos biogeográficos, una visión histórica,” in Managua y su historia, 37. 118 displacing hundreds of poor families: Ibid., 146. 118 a 1931 earthquake that killed more than a thousand people: Ibid., 90. 118 In 1954 and 1955, heavy rains swelled the lake again: Oficina Nacional de Urbanismo, Ministerio de Fomento y Anexos, Managua, Nicaragua, Control de aluviones: Investigacion del drenaje pluvial de la ciudad de Managua, July 1957. 118 These floods were aggravated by ditches: Ibid. 118–119 One newspaper headline from October 1954: “Tremendos aguaceros con vientos huracanados causan innumberables daños en todo el país,” La Prensa, October 26, 1954, 1. See also “6 muertos en plena capital por las tremendas corrientes,” La Prensa, October 7, 1954, 1. 119 Many roads out of the city were left impassable: Oficina Nacional de Urbanismo, Control de aluviones. 119 A 1973 study by two urban planners: Lawrence Mann and Wilhelm von Moltke, Informe sobre un proceso de planificacion y diseño urbano para la reconstruccion y desarrollo de Managua, September 1973. 119 Rather than rebuilding downtown: “Managua 72,” Observatorio Urbano, Universidad Centroamericana, 2012. 119 enough rubble to fill eight US capitol building rotundas: Ibid. 119 The east and west sides of Managua now flood: Jaime Wheelock Román, ed., Desastres naturales de Nicaragua, 146. 120 In mid-­October, President Ortega declares a nationwide state: “Gobierno decreta emergencia sanitaria por leptospirosis,” tortilla con sal, October 17 2010. 120 It has infected more than five hundred people: Ibid. 120 Health workers go house to house: Geiner Bonilla and correspondents, “Leptospirosis más letal,” La Prensa, October 20, 2010. 120 Within weeks, the outbreak slows: “Nicaragua logra frenar el avance del brote de leptospirosis,” La Prensa (Panama), November 6, 2010. 120 A record-­breaking Pan-­American dengue outbreak: Zachary S. Wettstein, et al., “Total Economic Cost and Burden of Dengue in Nicaragua: 1996–2010,” American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 87, no. 4 (2012): 616–622.

274 Notes to Pages 120–123 120 120 120 120 120 121 121 121 121

121 121 122 122 122 122 122 122 122 122 122 122 123 123

From 1996 to 2010, the annual cost of dengue: Ibid. 5 percent of the country’s health care: Pan American Health Organization, Health in the Americas, 2012 Edition: Regional Outlook and Country Profiles (Washington DC: PAHO, 2012), 48. Historically, Nicaragua grows most of its supply: Thys Hoekman, “The Global Food Crisis & the Nicaraguan Bean,” August 2008, panama.nlembajada.org. But the rains ruined much of the country’s: Luis Eduardo Martínez, “Frijol escaso y caro en los mercados,” La Prensa, September 12, 2010. causing the price to peak: United States Agency for International Development Famine Early Warning Systems Network, “Nicaragua Price Bulletin,” July 2011. popular, vitamin-­rich foods like tomatoes: Geiner Enrique Bonilla R., “Frijoles llegan a 22 córdobas,” La Prensa, October 4, 2010. Three of the six pumping stations: “NICARAGUA: Entrevista a los compañeros Gustavo Sáenz y Marcelino Jiménez Director Ejecutivo y Director de Operaciones de ENACAL,” tortilla con sal, January 25, 2011. At least fifteen hundred blocks of the city: Rafael Lara, “Mejoramiento vial en calles desnudas,” El Nuevo Diario, January 15, 2015. See also Anne Pérez and Wilder Pérez R., “Reubican a refugiados,” La Prensa, October 8, 2010. Getting around on the city’s decades-­old buses: “Flota de buses vieja y peligrosa,” La Prensa, March 16, 2010. See also Gobierno de Nicaragua y Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo (PNUD), “Proyecto NIC10-­59044 ‘Promoción de un Transporte Ambientalmente Sostenible para Managua Metropolitana,’ ” July 2008. the truckloads of waste that the market generates: Mauricio González, “El Oriental produce 140 metros cúbicos de basura al día,” El Nuevo Diario, June 27, 2016. Neighboring vendors have had to close their businesses: “Basurero insoportable en Mercado Oriental,” El Nuevo Diario, October 22, 2010. But when refugees heard rumors that Managua would be abandoned: Marcia Traña Galeano, Apuntes sobre la historia de Managua, 116. “They want to move the capital?”: Quoted in ibid. Responding to this popular sentiment: Ibid. Over the next decade, workers from the rest: Virgilio Espinosa, et al., “El departamento de Managua en el periodo de 1909 a 1979,” in Managua y su historia, 201–203. They constructed schools, a university: Ibid. More than a dozen fault lines: Instituto Nicaragüense de Estudios Territoriales, Dirección General de Geofísica, “Managua—Fallas Geológicas y Centros Volcánicos,” June 2000. An initial government report recommended: Glenn Garvin, “Haiti quake fear: What if recovery looks like Managua’s?” McClatchyDC, February 15, 2010. “The entire city must be blown up.”: Quoted in ibid. Later, however, four out of five post-­earthquake studies: Instituto Nicargüense de Estudios Territoriales, “Microzonificación Sísmica de Managua,” June 2000. Despite strongman Somoza’s rhetoric about the patriotic job: Thomas W. Walker and Christine J. Wade, Nicaragua, 32. Some officials in President Ortega’s administration: Luis Zavaleta, interview by author, Managua, Nicaragua, October 31, 2014. “This is an ecological, economic, and social problem”: Quoted in Edgar Barberena, “Un cientifico nica profeta en todo terreno,” El Nuevo Diario, November 1, 2008.

Notes to Pages 123–135  275 123 123

more than ten thousand people have lost their homes: Wilder Pérez R., “Lluvias hicieron historia.” Among the fatalities were one journalist and five Red Cross officials: Geiner Enrique Bonilla, Irma Palacios, and Auxiliadora Martínez, “Ortega brinda homenaje a las víctimas,” La Prensa, October 5, 2010.

Chapter Fourteen 128 128 128 128 128 128 129 129 129 129 129 129 129

On December 17, Managuans wake shivering: "Ola de frío afecta a Centroamérica," Radio La Primerisima, December 18, 2010. Since 1980, the city’s average temperature: United Nations Development Programme, “Climate Risk Management,” 22–23. Only 1 percent of the native forest: Roy Moncada and Lucía Navas, “Managua está en serio riesgo por deforestación,” La Prensa, June 17, 2015. Hotter-­than-­normal days and nights: United Nations Development Programme, “Climate Risk Management,” 22–23. This increasing heat, combined with decreasing rainfall: Ibid., 34. And when it does rain: Ibid., 22. Between 1991 and 2010, an average of two extreme: Sven Harmling, “Global Climate Risk Index 2012: Who Suffers Most from Extreme Weather Events? Weather-­Related Loss Events in 2010 and 1991–2010,” Germanwatch, November 2011. the equivalent number of dead out of the total population: Carl Bialik, “We Still Don’t Know How Many People Died Because of Katrina,” FiveThirtyEight, August 26, 2015. In proportional economic terms, the direct damage: “Hurricane Sandy’s Impact, By the Numbers (INFOGRAPHIC),” Huffington Post, October 29, 2013. a country of only six million with a gross national income: World Bank, “Nicaragua,” 2016, data.worldbank.org. And all the climate trends: Rezaye Álvarez M., “Advierten panorama apocalíptico,” La Prensa, April 21, 2015. Recognizing this, the Managua city council approves: El 19 Digital, “Alcaldía declara no habitables Costas de Lago de Managua,” Radio La Primerisima, December 19, 2010. In the new year, the city government announces: Anne Pérez Rivera, “Cambian planes con casas para damnificados,” La Prensa, January 14, 2011.

Chapter Fifteen 133 134 135

The rain destroys two houses: Anne Pérez, “Lluvia de anoche dejó dos casas destruidas y 261 inundadas,” La Prensa, July 7, 2011. Hundreds of people—many of them barefoot: Raúl Arévalo Alemán, “Imagen de la Sangre de Cristo tiene 463 años,” La Jornada, April 18, 2011. While the first 2011 flood victims arrive: Anne Pérez Rivera, “Evacuan las primeras familias por el invierno,” La Prensa, July 16, 2011.

276 Notes to Pages 135–145 135 136 136 139

140 141

141 141 141

one of eight shelters left with evacuees from 2010: Anne Pérez Rivera, “Se alarga espera en albergues,” La Prensa, August 5, 2011. Forty families from the shelter: Eugenio Flores, interview by author, Managua, Nicaragua, July 13, 2011. The night before, Ortega had announced: Anne Pérez Rivera, “Se alarga espera en albergues.” Sixteen blocks of streets are being paved: Maribel Centeno Pérez, “Asentamiento Villa Vallarta Recibe ‘Proyecto de Desarrollo Integral’ que Benificia 1850 Inhabitantes,” Dirección de Relaciones Públicas e Internacionales de la Alcaldía de Managua, May 17, 2011. See also Redacción Central, “Mejorarán condiciones de habitantes del barrio Villa Vallarta,” La Voz del Sandinismo, May 13, 2011. In Nahuatl, Xolotlán means place of the god Xólotl: Dr. Rocio Cortes, personal communication, November 1, 2011. See also Michael Graulich, Myths of Ancient Mexico (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1997), 109–110, 119. The tracks were left thousands of years ago: Hans-­Ulrich Schmincke, et al., “Walking through the volcanic mud: The 2,100 year-­old Acahualinca Footprints (Nicaragua) II: The Acahualinca people, environmental conditions, and motivation,” International Journal of Earth Sciences 99 (2010): S279. See also Rafael Lara, “Comprobarán edad de las Huellas de Acahualinca,” El Nuevo Diario, July 16, 2016. Evidence suggests that fifteen or sixteen men: Hans-­Ulrich Schmincke, et al., “Walking through the volcanic mud,” S279. Some archaeologists have speculated that the people: Ibid. “How many times will the Nicaraguan foot repeat”: Pablo Antonio Cuadra, “Inestabilidad de las ciudades nicargüenses,” El Nicaragüense (Managua, HISPAMER, 2014), 95.

Chapter Sixteen 143

144 144 144 144 144 144 145

the lake has risen more than three feet: Jessie Ampié, “887 familias pueden ir a albergues,” El Nuevo Diario, October 24, 2011. See also Jessie Ampié, “Un muerto y 31, 534 afectados por lluvias,” El Nuevo Diario, October 25, 2011. See also “Nicaragua: Boletín meteorológico informativo,” tortilla con sal, October 22, 2011. the workers spray the interiors and patios: Carla Torres Solózano, “Mezclas contra el dengue,” La Prensa, June 12, 2013. But in 2011, at least, the number of dengue cases: Róger Almanza G., “Zancudero insoportable,” La Prensa, December 18, 2011. The press counts the city’s losses: Jessie Ampié, “Un muerto y 31, 534 afectados por lluvias.” More than one thousand houses: Ibid. Almost two hundred miles of roads: Ibid. Sixteen drainage ditches: Ibid. But the lake is still rising one to two inches a day: Jessie Ampié, “Lago traga patios y casas,” El Nuevo Diario, October 31, 2011. See also Jessie Ampié and Laura Rodríguez, “Evacuan a primeras 23 familias de zona costera de Xolotlán,” El Nuevo Diario, November 1, 2011.

Notes to Pages 145–147  277 145 145 145 145 145 145 145 145 145 145 146 146 146 146 146 146 147 147 147 147 147

Evacuees from these barrios trickle: Jessie Ampié, “Un muerto y 31, 534 afectados por lluvias.” When twenty-­three new families move in: Jessie Ampié and Laura Rodríguez, “Evacuan a primeras 23 familias de zona costera de Xolotlán.” “There are children who sleep on the floor”: Quoted in Adelia Sandoval and Wilder Pérez, “Evacuan por subida del lago,” La Prensa, November 1, 2011. “This is hell, being stuck in here”: Quoted in Jessie Ampié and Laura Rodríguez, “Evacuan a primeras 23 familias de zona costera de Xolotlán.” Even after the rains stop, close to 10 percent: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Deputy UN Humanitarian Chief Catherine Bragg Press Statement on Central America Floods,” November 8, 2011. Nationwide, the rains have killed sixteen people: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Nicaragua 2011 Flash Appeal,” October 28, 2011, 1. The destruction also includes: “Nicaragua: Consolidado de afectaciones por lluvias del 11 al 23 de Octubre 2011,” tortilla con sal, October 24, 2011. a tropical depression engorged: Joe Romm, “Up to 5 Feet of Rain in 10 Days Spurred by Warming Waters is ‘One of the Most Dramatic Disasters in its History,’ Prez Says,” Climate Progress, October 29, 2011. “This was the latest in a long series of annual crises”: Quoted in United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Deputy UN Humanitarian Chief Catherine Bragg Press Statement on Central America Floods.” Before the 2011 and 2010 torrential rains: Anne Pérez Rivera, “40 barrios vulnerables en Managua,” La Prensa, June 19, 2010. on a per capita basis, Nicaraguans get: World Food Programme, “Country Programme Nicaragua 200434 (2013–2018),” December 21, 2012, 6. They are also eating less meat: World Food Programme, “Executive Brief—­Nicaragua: Effects of the Financial Crisis on Vulnerable Households,” May 7, 2010. Like poverty, climate change is: Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). “Other countries are responsible for the production and emission of CO2”: Quoted in Agencia EFE, “Centroamérica no quiere más muertos que ocasiona el cambio climático, dice Funes,” La Prensa, October 25, 2011. Nicaragua and Honduras rank among the world’s five countries: Sönke Kreft, et al., “Global Climate Risk Index 2016,” Germanwatch, November 2015, 6. Yet, the twenty-­nine countries of Central America: United Nations, “Climate Change: A Regional Perspective,” February 2010. When Ortega first ran for president in 1984: Thomas W. Walker and Christine J. Wade, Nicaragua, 53, 77, 78, 169. For Ortega, the floods were a “blessing from heaven”: Héctor Cruz Feliciano, interview by author, Managua, Nicaragua, November 8, 2011. “Last year we had the same problems”: Ibid. A spike of support for Ortega: “Nicaragua: Entrevista al Profesor Tomás Valdés Director de la Consultora Siglo Nuevo y Marcos Valle, Director del INIDE,” tortilla con sal, October 28, 2011. most of which benefits Managuans: Envío Team, “Last-­Minute Pre-­Election Fears,

278 Notes to Pages 149–160

149 150 151 151 151 153

Questions and Warning Signs,” Revista Envío, October 2011. See also Envío Team, “A Civic Fiesta, Less than Healthy Competition or Utter Chaos?” Revista Envío, September 2011. See also Arlen Pérez, “Ortega promete desde el gobierno,” El Nuevo Diario, September 11, 2011. protesters attacked the Municipal Electoral Council building: Carter Center, “The November 2011 Elections in Nicaragua: A Study Mission Report of the Carter Center,” 10, cartercenter.org. Daniel Ortega has won in a landslide: Ibid., 5. Four political activists are shot dead: European Union Election Observation Mission, “Nicaragua: Final Report General Election and Parlecen Elections November 2011,” 22, eods.eu “The 6 November elections constituted a deterioration”: Ibid., 3. But in December, the shelter’s coordinator tells: Dirección de las Relaciones Públicas e Internacionales de la Alcaldía de Managua, “Alcaldía Cierra Albergue Padre Fabreto,” February 9, 2012. Managua’s secretary general, Fidel Moreno, promises: “El mejor regalo de Navidad: nuevas viviendas para 25 familias albergadas,” La Voz del Sandinismo, December 25, 2011.

Chapter Seventeen 157 157 158 158 158 158

158 159 159 159 159 160

“While the World Bank/NGO approach to slum upgrading”: Mike Davis, Planet of Slums, 78–79. NGOs function as a form of “soft imperialism”: Ibid. Only one out of every three young people: Ricardo Guerrero, “Disempleo juvenil afecta a 400 mil,” El Nuevo Diario, April 5, 2014. This situation has caused more and more young people to leave: Ibid. one quarter of pregnant women in Nicaragua: Leyla Jarquín, “Nicaragua con más menores embarazadas,” El Nuevo Diario, October 31, 2013. This gives the country one of the highest: Katherine C. Lion, Ndola Prada, and Chris Stewart, “Adolescent Childbearing in Nicaragua: A Quantitative Assessment of Associated Factors,” International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health 35, no. 2 (June 2009): 91. The head of Managua’s civil defense forces: “Gobierno traslada nuevas familias a Villa Guadalupe,” Asociación Amigos de Cuba, aac.org.ni. Around noon, when all the families: Redacción Central, “Ya tienen 335 familias sus nuevas casas in Villa Guadalupe,” La Voz del Sandinismo, Feburary 8, 2012. Behind the eight hundred houses: Ibid. “We are returning the right of these families”: Dirección de las Relaciones Públicas, Alcaldía de Managua, “Alcaldía Cierra Albergue Padre Fabreto.” The police station, school: Ibid. “It would be foolish to pass from one distortion”: Jeremy Seabrook, In the Cities of the South: Scenes from a Developing World (New York: Verso, 1996), 197.

Notes to Pages 161–212  279

Chapter Eighteen 161 161 161 164 164

In one lakeside barrio, a tornado: Nicaragua Network, “Nicaragua News Bulletin (May 29, 2012),” May 29, 2012. Two fishermen drown: Ibid. More than a thousand houses are damaged: Tiara Sánchez Vargas, “Ineter prognostica más lluvias en Nicaragua,” La Prensa, May 30, 2012. About half of Nicaraguans regularly express: Ricardo Guerrero, “Nicas con menos ganas de emigrar,” El Nuevo Diario, January 15, 2015. An estimated one million to 1.2 million Nicaraguans: Rafael Lara, “El impacto de la migración en la familia,” El Nuevo Diario, August 31, 2013. See also Anna Brown and Eileen Patten, “Hispanics of Nicaraguan Origin in the United States, 2011,” Pew Research Center Hispanic Trends, June 13, 2013. See also Zach Dyer, “Nicaraguans Don’t Follow Other Central Americans to US, Choosing Costa Rica Instead,” Tico Times, August 27, 2014.

Chapter Nineteen 178 178 179 179 179 179 179 179 179 179

In 2010, a historic Pan-­American dengue epidemic killed: “América Latina se moviliza contra el dengue, que dejó mil muertos en 2010,” Cubadebate, January 13, 2011. Approximately 85 percent of Managua’s children: “Dengue,” Sustainable Sciences Institute, 2017, sustainablesciences.org/dengue. As informal settlements fuel unplanned urbanization: World Bank, “The Dengue Mosquito Bites and Makes Latin America Sick,” April 7, 2014. In the second half of the twentieth century: Tom Clarke, “Dengue Virus: Break-­Bone Fever,” Nature, April 18, 2002. An estimated 100 million cases: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Division of Vector-­Borne Diseases,” April 2, 2016. In some countries, its impact compares: Clarke, “Dengue Virus.” In Southeast Asia, dengue is: Ibid. Dengue may become even more common: United Nations Development Programme, “Climate Risk Management,” 31. A recent study conducted in Nicaragua’s major cities: Ibid., 30. By December, more than five thousand cases: “Cuatro muertos por dengue,” El Nuevo Diario, December 19, 2012.

Chapter Twenty-­Two 212 212 212

Hundreds of homes are damaged: Roy Moncada y Rezaye Álvarez, “Alma enfrenta las lluvias con obras menores,” La Prensa, October 1, 2013. More than seven thousand cases of dengue: Vladimir Vásquez, “El dengue nos sigue matando,” La Prensa, November 13, 2013. Over twenty-­plus years, Los Quinchos has helped: “Los Quinchos, 22 años rescatando niños de la calle,” El Nuevo Diario, April 10, 2013.

280 Notes to Pages 220–227

Chapter Twenty-­Four 220 220 220 221 221 221 221 221 221 222 222 222 222 223 223 223 223 223 223 226 227 227 227

When the trembling stops forty-­five seconds: “Presidente Daniel Ortega decreta Alerta Roja ante emergencia por terremoto,” El 19 Digital, April 11, 2014. the 6.2 earthquake struck ten kilometers below the lake’s surface: “Alerta roja en Nicaragua tras terremoto de 6.2,” La Prensa, April 10, 2014. where two hundred people have been injured by falling debris: Associated Press, “New quake shakes on ‘red alert’ Nicaragua,” Al Jazeera, April 14, 2014. By midnight, more than three hundred and fifty aftershocks: “Alerta roja en Nicaragua tras terremoto de 6.2,” La Prensa. “simply trust in God and trust all of the capacities God gives us”: Quoted in “Presidente Daniel Ortega decreta Alerta Roja ante emergencia por terremoto.” the 6.2 tremor activated the same fault that caused the 1972 earthquake: Roy Moncada and Miriam Martínez, “Terremoto y alerta roja,” La Prensa, April 11, 2014. 80 percent of Managua’s houses have been built without: Equipo Envío, “Post Terremoto,” Revista Envío, June 2014. Managua’s population has more than tripled since 1972: Agencia EFE, “Se cumplen 42 años del terremoto que destruyó Managua,” La Prensa, December 23, 2014. “To tell the truth, we’re a little worried”: Quoted in Luis Felipe Palacios, “La amenaza de los volcanes Momotombo y Apoyeque,” ABC.es, April 18, 2014. A second earthquake of 6.6 on Friday afternoon: “Sismo de 6.6 sacude el Pacífico de Nicaragua,” La Prensa, April 11, 2014. On Palm Sunday, two shallow tremors beneath the lake: Candy Gomez, “Dos temblores se registran en Managua el 13 de abril 2014,” starMedia, April 14, 2014. though at 5.1, it was strong enough: “Third Nicaraguan Tremor Raises Fears of Quake to Come,” BBC News, April 14, 2014. From April 10 to May 3, 661 aftershocks: Equipo Envío, “Terremoto—daños físicos,” Revista Envío, May 2014. More than a third of these collapse entirely: Ibid. more than fifteen hundred people are evacuated: Velia Agurcia, “Lo que el terremoto dejó,” El Nuevo Diario, April 10, 2015. One quarter of the schools in Managua: Equipo Envío, “Terremoto—daños físicos.” nearly a month of classes are cancelled: Ibid. These include the Beacon of Peace constructed over fifteen thousand buried guns: Rafael Lara, “Al rescate del Parque de la Paz,” La Prensa, January 4, 2013. would have required more than $2 million: Roy Moncada, “¿Destruirán el parque La Paz?” La Prensa, December 30, 2012. the hottest July on record in Nicaragua: “Nicaragua ante el peor enscenario por la sequía,” El Nuevo Diario, August 7, 2014. the worst drought since 1976 has ruined much: Ibid. See also Sam Jones, “Nicaraguans Told to Eat Iguanas as Drought Threatens Food Crisis,” Guardian, August 14, 2014. Thousands of cattle have starved to death: Sam Jones, “Nicaraguans Told to Eat Iguanas as Drought Threatens Food Crisis.” Beans cost more than a dollar a pound: United States Agency for International Development Famine Early Warning Systems Network, “Nicaragua Price Bulletin,” September 2014.

Notes to Pages 227–237  281 227 227 230 230 230 230 230 230

The El Niño phenomenon fueling the drought: “Nicaragua ante el peor enscenario por la sequía.” “The variability of the climate is starting to become”: Quoted in Sam Jones, “Nicaraguans Told to Eat Iguanas as Drought Threatens Food Crisis.” four inches of rain lash parts of Managua: “Lluvias afectaron 28 barrios,” Radio La Primerisima, August 27, 2014. Drainage ditches overflow and collapse: “Managua inundada tras intensa lluvia,” La Prensa, August 27, 2014. See also Benjamín Blanco, “Horror bajo lluvia,” El Nuevo Diario, August 28, 2014. Almost one hundred and fifty houses and a hospital are flooded: “Managua inundada tras intensa lluvia,” La Prensa. one man suffers a fractured spine when water pushes: Benjamín Blanco, “Horror bajo lluvia.” “a blessing . . . despite the problems we had”: Quoted in “Lluvias afectaron 28 barrios,” Radio La Primerisima. “as climate change becomes more dramatic”: Quoted in “Incer Barquero advierte sobre posible aluvión en Managua por deforestación de cuenca sur,” Nicaragua Hoy, August 28, 2014.

Chapter Twenty-­Five 233

the size of about sixty-­three Super Walmarts: Rafael Lara, “El Oriental, un mercado voraz.” See also Walmart, “Our Business,” 2017, corporate.walmart.com. 235 The deluge brings between two and three inches: Lizbeth García, “Managua llora a sus muertos,” El Nuevo Diario, October 18, 2014. 236 This is exactly what happened: “Desastre natural,” Bolsa de Noticias, October 20, 2014. 236 The area is declared uninhabitable: Roy Moncada, “Más familias a los albergues,” La Prensa, October 21, 2014. See also Ernesto García, “Desalojan zonas peligrosas,” El Nuevo Diario, October 18, 2014. 236 in part for financial reasons: Leonardo Icaza, interview by author, Managua, Nicaragua, October 31, 2014. 236 During the rain, a thirty-­foot-­high concrete wall: Lizbeth García, “Managua llora a sus muertos.” 236 A landslide tumbled down behind the wall: Ibid. 236 Swarms of firemen and Red Cross and civil defense forces searched: Carlos Sali­ nas M. and Wilfredo Miranda A., “Tragedia en barrio ‘18 de Mayo,’ ” Confidencial, October 17, 2015. 236 in the white beams of headlamps and TV cameras: Ibid. 236 Toward dawn, in a frenzy of digging and shouting: Lizbeth García, “Managua llora a sus muertos.” See also Carlos Salinas M. and Wilfredo Miranda A., “Tragedia en barrio ‘18 de Mayo.’ ” 236–237 the landslide killed nine, including two children and three teenagers: Lizbeth García, “Managua llora a sus muertos.” 237 Almost all of them live in places that are inappropriate: Ernesto García, “Managua plagada de asentamientos.”

282 Notes to Pages 237–251 237

This is good enough for Managua’s municipal authorities: Leonardo Icaza, interview by author. 237 No one is prosecuted: Roy Moncada, “Tragedia en el 18 de Mayo no se investigó,” La Prensa, October 15, 2015. See also Nicaragua Network, “Nicaragua News Bulletin (October 21, 2014),” October 21, 2014. 237 October’s storms contibuted to twenty-­eight deaths: Nicaragua Network, “Nicaragua News Bulletin (October 28, 2014),” October 28, 2014. 237–238 In Managua more than five thousand people were evacuated: Ibid. 238 the almost thirty thousand evacuees of the previous five years: Rafael Lara, “Managua más golpeada en 2014,” El Nuevo Diario, October 30, 2014. 238 “The impact of small disasters is particularly worrying because”: United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Enhancing Urban Safety and Security: Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 (Sterling, VA: Earthscan, 2007), 168. 238 Developers have little incentive to follow: Leonardo Icaza, interview by author. 238 By 2030, these cities alone will likely cover: Jeb Brugmann, Welcome to the Urban Revolution, 186. 238 More than half of all the concrete ever used: Adam Vaughan, “Human Impact Has Pushed Earth into the Anthropocene, Scientists Say,” The Guardian, January 7, 2016. 238 a half-­ denuded, thousand-­ foot-­ high volcanic cone called Motastepe: Graziella Devoli, “Reconocimiento de la Susceptibilidad por Movimientos de Ladera en el Cerro Motastepe, Managua,” Instituto Nicaragüense de Estudios Territoriales, July 2002, web-­geofisica.ineter.gob.ni. 238 People living in the suburbs at the mountain’s base: Roy Moncada, “Motastepe cada día más ‘pelón,’ ” La Prensa, July 30, 2013. 239 This new complex extends almost two miles: “Proyecto costero en Managua,” El Nuevo Diario, May 14, 2016. 239 forty-­three-­foot-­tall, saffron-­colored steel trees: Roy Moncada and José Adán Silva, “US$3.3 millones en ‘Los Árboles de la vida,’ ” La Prensa, November 3, 2015. 239 Each tree costs $25,000: Ibid. 239 the entire Managua watershed could be reforested: Mabel Calero and José Adán Silva, “ ‘Arbolatas son un derroche,’” La Prensa, November 6, 2015. 240 A week before, civil defense forces forcibly evacuated: Tania Cerón Méndez, “Evacuan a familias del Barrio Rubén Darío,” El 19 Digital, October 27, 2014. See also Rafael Lara, “Desorden en evacuacion del ‘Rubén Darío,’ ” El Nuevo Diario, October 29, 2014. 240 Some wanted to leave: Rafael Lara, “Desorden en evacuacion del ‘Rubén Darío.’ ” 240 Many claim that the government cleared the barrio: Ibid.

Chapter Twenty-­Six 247

251

Some of the hundreds of thousands of Nicaraguans: Virgilio Espinosa et al., “El departamento de Managua en el periodo de 1909 a 1979,” in Managua y su historia, 236. See also Carlos Miranda and Ricardo Avilés, “La Managua reciente,” in Managua y su historia, 281. the cost of a basket of basic necessitites: Wendy Álvarez Hidalgo, “Canasta básicia

Notes to Pages 253–256  283 subió C$1,400,” La Prensa, August 10, 2014. See also Instituto Nacional de Información de Desarrollo (INIDE), “Valor de la Canasta Básica Agosto 2016,” mitrab.gob.ni /documentos/canasta-­basica.

Epilogue 253 254 255

256 256 256

In Costa Rica, she’s one of hundreds of thousands: Josué Bravo, “Migración nicaragüense hacia Costa Rica se estabiliza,” La Prensa, Feburary 9, 2015. “A city is an agglomeration of individual dreams”: Suketu Mehta, Maximum City, 539. Half of the world’s population is under thirty: Ben Piven, “Youth Unemployment Major Lag on Human Development, UN report Says,” Al Jazeera America, December 14, 2015. See also “Youth Unemployment Crisis Easing but Far from Over,” International Labour Organization, October 7, 2015. For years, temperatures have been rising: Centro Humboldt, “Enfrentamos la crisis ambiental más profunda de la historia reciente,” Revista Envío, May 2016. the number of recorded disasters is also growing: United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Enhancing Urban Safety and Security, 171. “The future, at least the sustainable one”: Rebecca Solnit, The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness (San Antonio, TX: Trinity University Press, 2014), 81.