La zona franca is the name of the ridiculously gigantic sweatshop located on the edge of town. La zona franca could ironically be translated (following the Spanish definition of franca) in several ways:
1. The Liberal Zone
2. The Open-Hearted Zone
3. The Generous Zone
4. The Fair Zone
5. The Disengaged Zone
6. The Priveleged Zone
7. The Exempt Zone
I could be wrong, but I don´t think Atlantic Apparel (the company that owns the sweatshop) intended to express the first 4 meanings. In fact, I know that the seventh translation is the one that fits the best. La zona franca is one of many Export-Free Trade Zones throughout the world. Companies are invited into fledgling economies such as Nicaragua´s with the economic incentive of legal tax evasion. For the first five years in Nicaragua the company does not need to pay any taxes. Additionally, with such a desperate need for employment and lack of government monitoring, these companies can evade federal wage and worker protection laws. It really is an exempt zone, a lawless land, or rather a land where the companies make the laws that the workers must follow.
The other day I went to visit (although I wasn´t allowed to enter) the sweatshop right outside of Granada. The plant is a good 3 to 4 football field lengths long, and fits 1500 employees per shift. From sewing to ironing to management, the size of a small town is employed under one massive roof. This sweatshop in particular specializes in pants such as Carhartts, Levis and Urban Outfitter.
Visiting the sweatshop was a strangely intriguing excursion. Perhaps because I was able to stand in front of the reality of what was previously an abstract concept. But at the same time, I know several workers and ex-workers in this zona franca. I went with my Spanish teacher Maria, whose husband works there. She told me all about the conditions, which I wasn´t allowed to witness first-hand. To avoid wasting time, workers must stay on the grounds all day long and either bring their own lunch or eat at the company´s restaurant, which gets deducted from their weekly wage (about 20 to 50 dollars a week). Massive fans ventilate the main nave of the building while air-conditioned offices line the sides. Workers work in teams, assembly certain pant parts all day long. One of my teachers used to put the seam in the pant leg. If one worker was inefficent, the whole group suffered because of it. Previously, workers were paid per production.
I asked my language teacher what her feelings are towards la Zona Franca. She said that it did create jobs where there weren´t any before. Now more people are employed and have a little bit more money. She thinks it is good, generally, but then said that she hopes (knocking on wood) that she never, ever has to work there herself.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
the spoon incident
Eating beans and cream (or beans and creams as I like to call it) for dinner is not a very satisfying meal for an epicurean vegetarian such as myself. But I'm quick on the problem-solving front, especially in matters of food. Longing for more and better food, I bought myself some peanut butter and crackers and stashed them in my room at my host family's house as an extra snack. In retrospect, this all seems like some sort of clandestine operation when all I really wanted was just something more to eat between meals.
As every peanut butter eater knows, peanut butter is a gooey, messy substance which requires a utensil to get out. Therefore, one hungry night I borrowed a spoon from the kitchen of my host family in order to indulge in secret. Forgetful me forgot to return the spoon the next day and it just got lost in an abyss of books and clothing. Hence, the spoon stayed in my room for a few days until one day, while eating lunch, I eavesdropped on a rather terse conversation between my host sister, Auxilladora, and the maid, Elvira.
First some background information about maids in Nicaragua....
Maids are referred to as empleadas, or employees in Spanish. They can be found in most middle or upper class Nicaraguan homes. Las empleadas in Nicaragua work 8 to 9 hour days, 6 days a week cooking, cleaning and washing clothes in exchange for a very meager income of 1500 cordobas (about 75 dollars) a month and lunch each workday. Let's compare that to the wage of a sweatshop worker (of which there are many in Granada) earning $150 a month, working 40 some hours a week. Not much, huh?
Anyway, back to the story.
While my Spanish has dramatically improved, I am still not up to par for eavesdropping on Nica conversations in other rooms. However, I listened closely and heard the maid, Elvira, declare the following "una cuchara" (a spoon) , "cuesta cinco pesos" (costs 25 cents) and "me voy" (I´m leaving).
At the mention of the cuchara a light bulb went off in my head. The spoon in my room! I still needed to return it to the kitchen! But wait -I thought- Elvira and Auxilladora couldn't possibly be arguing over said spoon. Not sure what was going on and needing to know, I approached Elvira after my host sister left the kitchen and asked,
"Excuse me, were you talking about a spoon?"
"Yes, they think that I stole their spoon but I didn't. Perhaps I accidentally threw it away. I don't know."
¨Oh no,¨ I thought as I realized said spoon was the spoon resting quietly in my room. "I am so sorry. There has been a huge misunderstanding. I have the spoon in my room. I used it to eat peanut butter a few days ago and it completely slipped my mind to return it to the kitchen the next day. I am so, so sorry."
Elvira laughed nervously, shaking her head and sighing in relief.
I promptly returned the spoon and continued apologizing profusely.
I explained the whole situation to my host sister, the only family member in the house at the time, and she laughed about it and told me not to worry. But I still did.
I left the house that day I feeling awful and responsible for the wrong accusation and silly- turned-sour situation. I was the spoon thief, even though it was unintentional. Why did they accuse Elvira of stealing a spoon without speculating over other possibilities first? Who counts their spoons anyways? A spoon is a spoon....or is it different here in Nicaragua where people´s homes aren't overflowing with stuff like any average American home?
The next day I was relieved to see Elvira still working in the house after declaring her departure the day before. Elvira was glad to see me as well. In secret she whispered to me that she was leaving, that the family had apologized to her, but she had had enough. She said she didn´t know how long she would go without working, if she would be able to find another job easily, but she was still going to leave.
Oh, how I wished that day that I could just take this honest and hardworking woman and her children and grandchildren with me back to the States where she could work and probably live more comfortably. Where (even in spite of the down-spiraling economy and all the complaining) there are so many more employment opportunities.
Nothing seemed fair that day and disparities seemed enormous and a spoon seemed to mean a whole lot more than I ever would have imagined.
As every peanut butter eater knows, peanut butter is a gooey, messy substance which requires a utensil to get out. Therefore, one hungry night I borrowed a spoon from the kitchen of my host family in order to indulge in secret. Forgetful me forgot to return the spoon the next day and it just got lost in an abyss of books and clothing. Hence, the spoon stayed in my room for a few days until one day, while eating lunch, I eavesdropped on a rather terse conversation between my host sister, Auxilladora, and the maid, Elvira.
First some background information about maids in Nicaragua....
Maids are referred to as empleadas, or employees in Spanish. They can be found in most middle or upper class Nicaraguan homes. Las empleadas in Nicaragua work 8 to 9 hour days, 6 days a week cooking, cleaning and washing clothes in exchange for a very meager income of 1500 cordobas (about 75 dollars) a month and lunch each workday. Let's compare that to the wage of a sweatshop worker (of which there are many in Granada) earning $150 a month, working 40 some hours a week. Not much, huh?
Anyway, back to the story.
While my Spanish has dramatically improved, I am still not up to par for eavesdropping on Nica conversations in other rooms. However, I listened closely and heard the maid, Elvira, declare the following "una cuchara" (a spoon) , "cuesta cinco pesos" (costs 25 cents) and "me voy" (I´m leaving).
At the mention of the cuchara a light bulb went off in my head. The spoon in my room! I still needed to return it to the kitchen! But wait -I thought- Elvira and Auxilladora couldn't possibly be arguing over said spoon. Not sure what was going on and needing to know, I approached Elvira after my host sister left the kitchen and asked,
"Excuse me, were you talking about a spoon?"
"Yes, they think that I stole their spoon but I didn't. Perhaps I accidentally threw it away. I don't know."
¨Oh no,¨ I thought as I realized said spoon was the spoon resting quietly in my room. "I am so sorry. There has been a huge misunderstanding. I have the spoon in my room. I used it to eat peanut butter a few days ago and it completely slipped my mind to return it to the kitchen the next day. I am so, so sorry."
Elvira laughed nervously, shaking her head and sighing in relief.
I promptly returned the spoon and continued apologizing profusely.
I explained the whole situation to my host sister, the only family member in the house at the time, and she laughed about it and told me not to worry. But I still did.
I left the house that day I feeling awful and responsible for the wrong accusation and silly- turned-sour situation. I was the spoon thief, even though it was unintentional. Why did they accuse Elvira of stealing a spoon without speculating over other possibilities first? Who counts their spoons anyways? A spoon is a spoon....or is it different here in Nicaragua where people´s homes aren't overflowing with stuff like any average American home?
The next day I was relieved to see Elvira still working in the house after declaring her departure the day before. Elvira was glad to see me as well. In secret she whispered to me that she was leaving, that the family had apologized to her, but she had had enough. She said she didn´t know how long she would go without working, if she would be able to find another job easily, but she was still going to leave.
Oh, how I wished that day that I could just take this honest and hardworking woman and her children and grandchildren with me back to the States where she could work and probably live more comfortably. Where (even in spite of the down-spiraling economy and all the complaining) there are so many more employment opportunities.
Nothing seemed fair that day and disparities seemed enormous and a spoon seemed to mean a whole lot more than I ever would have imagined.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
trash talk
Learning a language not only involves learning vocabulary and grammar, but also includes learning how languages shape perception. Learning a language requires a serious reevaluation of how you think.
Searching for a word in a dictionary and finding it doesn´t exist or can only be explained with many words, or learning a new word and finding it has no exact translation to your native language is foder enough for a linguistics dissertation. I´m not currently pursuing a Ph.D, so I´ll save that for another time. However, I would like to point out one word that I just can´t concisely convey in Spanish, and what that does and does not mean in this Spanish-speaking culture.
Litter
–noun
1.objects strewn or scattered about; scattered rubbish.
2.a condition of disorder or untidiness: We were appalled at the litter of the room.
3.a number of young brought forth by a multiparous animal at one birth: a litter of six kittens.
–verb (used with object)
4.to strew (a place) with scattered objects, rubbish, etc.: to be fined for littering the sidewalk.
5.to scatter (objects) in disorder: They littered their toys from one end of the playroom to the other.
Please ignore the third definition of litter as a noun....what I´m getting at here is the verb.
My first week here I rode the bus and watched the woman next to me nonchalantly throw her garbage out the window. Woah, I thought. This is a serious no-no. Everyone - even kindergarten students - know that littering makes you a litterbug, and nobody wants to be that.
I wrote about litter for my Spanish class and realized that this verb just does not exist in such a concise format. Instead, the verb to litter translates to "to throw trash on the ground." My Spanish teacher understood what I meant, of course, but also noted that she only recently has started to make an effort to throw away trash ¨in its place¨and then asked me what do we do with our trash in the U.S.?
But who am I to criticize the ways of waste in Nicaragua? While I might not litter (throw bottles out of windows and drop wrappers on the ground) I sure do use a lot more than the average Nicaraguan, and let´s not forget all that invisible waste that spews out of car tailpipes in the form of carbon dioxide. Yup. The results are in. I may not be wasteful, but I sure do waste a lot... even though it might not be so obvious on a macroscopic level when I do it.
There are plenty of valid reasons (which I won´t get into here) to throw away trash and reuse and recycle when you can. In the U.S., recycling tends to have more to do with environmental awareness than economic thrift. In Nicaragua, reusing comes far ahead of recycling...down to a drop of water (many families collect rain water to use to wash clothes and probably for to bathe with as well). Small children collect tin cans to turn in for the deposit. With such an absence of recycling facilities and discourse on environmentalism, why then are the Nicas winning the reduce , reuse and recycle race?
The answer is simple: for economic, not environmental concerns.
Although the resting grounds of unwanted goods (a.k.a landfills) exist in U.S and Nicarauga, there is a huge difference between those in the U.S. and those in Nicaragua.
In Managua, there is a landfill called La Chureca
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW6a9Zp3Agc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtN4FgIKT2c&feature=related
It´s not only a landfill, but also a home to 1500 people (more than 600 of which are children, 130 families) who make their living - or survive - on what everyone else throws away.
This desperation made me arrive at the question...why? What is the difference between homeless people begging in the street and those that choose to go live in La Chureca? How can whole families - adults and children- live and work there?
Perhaps it is a matter of dignity.
It is certainly due in part to the complexities of the economy, disorganization of the government and absence of social services for the people.
So life goes on and even the unemployed find some way to work. Age is irrelevant. Walking through the streets of Granada you can find street children selling gum, breakdancing for tourists, making roses out of sweet grass- each of these activities has become a common sight for me. A sight so common that it becomes strangely normal in such a short period of time.
¨What would this city look like if it were cleaner and better maintained?¨ I asked myself as I walked my daily walk through downtown Granada.
What would the world look like without waste, without overconsumption, with equal distribution of resources?
Searching for a word in a dictionary and finding it doesn´t exist or can only be explained with many words, or learning a new word and finding it has no exact translation to your native language is foder enough for a linguistics dissertation. I´m not currently pursuing a Ph.D, so I´ll save that for another time. However, I would like to point out one word that I just can´t concisely convey in Spanish, and what that does and does not mean in this Spanish-speaking culture.
Litter
–noun
1.objects strewn or scattered about; scattered rubbish.
2.a condition of disorder or untidiness: We were appalled at the litter of the room.
3.a number of young brought forth by a multiparous animal at one birth: a litter of six kittens.
–verb (used with object)
4.to strew (a place) with scattered objects, rubbish, etc.: to be fined for littering the sidewalk.
5.to scatter (objects) in disorder: They littered their toys from one end of the playroom to the other.
Please ignore the third definition of litter as a noun....what I´m getting at here is the verb.
My first week here I rode the bus and watched the woman next to me nonchalantly throw her garbage out the window. Woah, I thought. This is a serious no-no. Everyone - even kindergarten students - know that littering makes you a litterbug, and nobody wants to be that.
I wrote about litter for my Spanish class and realized that this verb just does not exist in such a concise format. Instead, the verb to litter translates to "to throw trash on the ground." My Spanish teacher understood what I meant, of course, but also noted that she only recently has started to make an effort to throw away trash ¨in its place¨and then asked me what do we do with our trash in the U.S.?
But who am I to criticize the ways of waste in Nicaragua? While I might not litter (throw bottles out of windows and drop wrappers on the ground) I sure do use a lot more than the average Nicaraguan, and let´s not forget all that invisible waste that spews out of car tailpipes in the form of carbon dioxide. Yup. The results are in. I may not be wasteful, but I sure do waste a lot... even though it might not be so obvious on a macroscopic level when I do it.
There are plenty of valid reasons (which I won´t get into here) to throw away trash and reuse and recycle when you can. In the U.S., recycling tends to have more to do with environmental awareness than economic thrift. In Nicaragua, reusing comes far ahead of recycling...down to a drop of water (many families collect rain water to use to wash clothes and probably for to bathe with as well). Small children collect tin cans to turn in for the deposit. With such an absence of recycling facilities and discourse on environmentalism, why then are the Nicas winning the reduce , reuse and recycle race?
The answer is simple: for economic, not environmental concerns.
Although the resting grounds of unwanted goods (a.k.a landfills) exist in U.S and Nicarauga, there is a huge difference between those in the U.S. and those in Nicaragua.
In Managua, there is a landfill called La Chureca
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW6a9Zp3Agc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtN4FgIKT2c&feature=related
It´s not only a landfill, but also a home to 1500 people (more than 600 of which are children, 130 families) who make their living - or survive - on what everyone else throws away.
This desperation made me arrive at the question...why? What is the difference between homeless people begging in the street and those that choose to go live in La Chureca? How can whole families - adults and children- live and work there?
Perhaps it is a matter of dignity.
It is certainly due in part to the complexities of the economy, disorganization of the government and absence of social services for the people.
So life goes on and even the unemployed find some way to work. Age is irrelevant. Walking through the streets of Granada you can find street children selling gum, breakdancing for tourists, making roses out of sweet grass- each of these activities has become a common sight for me. A sight so common that it becomes strangely normal in such a short period of time.
¨What would this city look like if it were cleaner and better maintained?¨ I asked myself as I walked my daily walk through downtown Granada.
What would the world look like without waste, without overconsumption, with equal distribution of resources?
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