i Patrick W. Staib Anthropology This dissertation is approved, and it ...

eaks my heart to think of it.)” Today, Doña Rosa is a steadfast Liberal and is against
any Sandinista efforts.
I appreciated spending time with her family because her views contrasted with the
primarily Sandinista perspectives that I had recorded while living in the majority
Sandinista neighborhood of Las Grietas. That day we discussed an array of topics having
to do with organic coffee production and local efforts at preservation of forests and wild
habitat. We touched on the topic of field burning since that day in particular my eyes
were stinging badly. Don Segundo responded with a compelling explanation.
En Nicaragua tenemos una enfermedad, nos enjarenamos. El Nica saca un
préstamo y luego no paga. Si ponemos un acuerdo de reforestar los cerros, los
mismos políticos despalan. O por ejemplo, Don Sergio Garcia vino al Chumpe
con permiso de sacar un palo, ¿y sabe que hizo? Se trozo 5 o 6 palos. ¿Quién le
va a decir difirente? No hay orden. Hasta el mismo oficial encargado de multar a
los que quemen sus parcelas pega fuego a sus campos. Es un desastre. Si los
mismos líderes fallan el orden social, ¿quién dice que nosotros, los pobres, vamos
a seguir el camino honrado, ¡por dios! (We have a sickness in Nicaragua. We
“screw” ourselves. The Nica [slang for Nicaraguan] takes out a loan and then
doesn’t pay. If we have an agreement to reforest our hills, the very politicians
continue to cut. Or for example, Don Sergio Garcia came to the Chumpe
[mountain] with a permit to cut one tree. You know what he did? He chopped
down 5 or 6. Who’s gonna say anything to him? There is no order. Even the very
officer in charge of fining those who burn their farms sets fire to his own fields.
It’s a disaster. If the very leaders flout the social order, who says that we, the
poor, will take the honorable path, for God’s sake!)
This response to my comments about farmers disobeying the burn ordinance
provided more detail than I had expected. Don Segundo put into perspective some of the
thoughts I had been unable to comprehend or articulate in my own field notes. Ironically,
Don Segundo’s stepson, Marvin Vanegas, is an organic coffee farmer who burns his
fields to plant hortalizas (garden vegetables). Marvin is Doña Rosa’s son and Javier’s
older brother. He is an evangelical Christian, a certified organic coffee farmer, and
member of the family’s base-level co-op, Carlos Fonseca.
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