Nicaraguans honor trade, cultural exchange with Bainbridge.
ISLA DE OMETEPE, NICARAGUA – A group of 20 Bainbridge Islanders were converging down the dusty side streets of Altagracia, Ometepe Island, to the music of a small street band.
They were playing outside the office of Bainbridge-Ometepe Sister Islands Association. Our office is just a block north of the main plaza.
Lining the high sidewalks as we approached were many young people, all wearing T-shirts commemorating 20 years of cooperation between Bainbridge and Ometepe.
They were all scholarship students, past and present, from the other side of the island and the port town of Moyogalpa. There was clapping and hugging and then we began together to form an informal parade to Ruben Dario, the elementary school and site of the celebration.
As we entered the grounds there was a sign on the Arlen Siu preschool building, announcing that it was our first project together, completed in 1989. The entire school grounds were decorated and chairs set up for five hundred on the outdoor basketball court.
The sound system was in place and people began to arrive. It was 4 p.m., so most of the heat of the day was gone and a gentle breeze blew through the trees and the view was clear of Concepcion, the 5,000-foot volcano that formed the backdrop of the celebration.
For weeks, both our small office staff of three – Dorita Gutierrez, office manager, Maria Estela Alvarez, coordinator of our scholarship program, and Linda Tanner, the current volunteer from Bainbridge – and a committee formed of all those from Ometepe who had come to Bainbridge to celebrate BOSIA’s 15th and 20th anniversaries, planned the Dec. 19 event.
Dr. Alvarado was digging holes for the flower poles to be placed, while Marcos Cordoncillo cut greenery for the posts and Mirna Sevilla, the principal of the school, coordinated the decorating. Truck after truck kept arriving with yet more chairs and tables from many different places on the island.
There would be food for everyone and two huge cakes in the form of our two islands. Bainbridge appeared as large as Ometepe, though it is actually a third the size, but every harbor was detailed.
More than 400 invitations had been hand carried to individuals all over Ometepe during the week prior to the celebration. The invitations indicated that while each person invited would be responsible for his/her own transportation to the event, we had arranged for return transportation by truck to even the most remote areas of the island.
This was a very important part of the invitation, since nearly no one has their own means of transportation, beyond walking and there are no buses anywhere in the evening.
The mayor of Altagracia, Crecencio Oporto Ruiz, was the first to speak. He welcomed everyone, especially those who had traveled from Bainbridge for the event. He told us that the long term relationship with Bainbridge was very important to people all over Ometepe and that the mayor’s office wanted to be supportive, however possible.
Maria Elena Martinez, the principal of Ruben Dario school in 1986, gave a brief history of the early days of the relationship.
What followed were folkloric dance presentations from the children of Ruben Dario and from Si a la Vida, a special program for street kids who have taken to the streets of Managua to avoid an impossible homelife. BOSIA has supported this project in a number of ways over the years.
Next, those from Bainbridge were invited to the stage for a short presentation.
We sang “Silent Night” and “Jingle Bells” (in both English and sign language). We learned how to sign the songs from Nancy, who teaches sign on Bainbridge and interprets there. We did this since one of our most recent projects with Ometepe was to provide a month long Nicaraguan sign language course to the 40 deaf children and their parents from all over the island.
We then heard a beautiful song composed by a blind teenager, who sang and played guitar. BOSIA has also matched the supporters of the blind on Bainbridge with the supporters and blind on Ometepe.
Since we were losing the natural light and the volcano Concepcion was slowly fading into the night, it was time for one last rousing speech by the mayor of Moyogalpa, Luis Morales, where he reminded us again of just how profoundly this relationship had changed Ometepe over a generation and his hope that it would only strengthen in the next generation.
He said there should be a large statue put up to extole the many wonderful successes over the years of our work together.
With that we all clapped and laughed and thought how much more powerful are all the thousands of little connections we have made were, compared to some statue in the plaza.
We then had great food and music to dance to and it was only then that we realized that half of our delegation was under 30, and for them this was the best part of the celebration.
Now and then we heard it announced that another truck was leaving for some part of the island.
It was a celebration of the very special relationship between two islands so distant from one another, with different languages and cultures, and yet so close indeed.
Kim Esterberg is the founder of the Bainbridge-Ometepe Sister Islands Association.
