Re-thinking (III)

So, what’s happening after that first failed attempt?.

Right now I am trying to get access to a place where they hardly ever allow anyone from outside their community. It’s one those places I have always wanted to know more about. It’s difficult, and Christmas time is not helping to get things done, but if I get that permission, I will soon have something interesting to show. If doesn’t work out, my panic alarms will set off loudly. For now, I just keep my fingers crossed!

In the mean time, I am spending 90% of my MA time working on the theory/research project. I know that it is a lot of time for something that is worth much less than the other part but… how am I suppose to write 2500 words on something I know (knew) close to nothing if I don’t give it that much reading time?

I decided early on that Vietnam was not going to be my research topic. It’s hard to spend months researching on something I have no interest in nor any personal conection with. So, instead, as I had just come back from Nicaragua and I was reading Gioconda Belli’s “The Country Under My Skin”, I chose to do something on the Nicaragua’s Revolution.

I have been reading a lot about poetry and revolution and looking at photos such as Susan Meiselas’. I have even had the chance to exchange a few emails with Lou Dematteis, the photographer who in 1986 took the famous photo of downed U.S. soldier Eugene Hasenfus.

I am enjoying the process and it’s getting more and more interested as I read, however, at the same time, it becomes harder and harder to have in mind two different research projects at the same time. That’s why at some point I thought that perhaps I could do both projects on topics related to Nicaragua. For that reason, I have been trying to get in touch with Nicaraguan’s living in Tenerife hoping to find some powerful personal stories.

But so far, the interesting part of this search in that, altough there is a Consulate of Nicaragua in the island, there doesn’t seem to be any Nicaraguans living here. At least, the Consulate people don’t know anyone and, the people keeping track of inmigrants’ associations in Tenerife, have no registry of any association of Nicaraguans. They said that there are associations of most South and Central American countries, but none of Nicaragua. I’ll keep working on that.

Another thing that is happening is that, having been twice to Nicaragua in the last three years, it’s only now that I am getting to understand their history and struggle to become what they are today. And, as a consequence, some of the images I took there, have acquired a completely different meaning to me.

I would have so many questions to ask the people there now. Hector, I am thinking of you and your quietness, so many things I could had asked. But I’ll be back, I am sure.

I will be back!

Posted in Assignment, Re-think.