To Reap With Joy

The year and a half since the victorious revolution in Nicaragua has brought great strides in the reconstruction of the country as well as a successful literacy campaign directed toward all sectors of the population, which reduced the national average illiteracy rate from 50 per cent to 13 per cent. The continuing work is marked by the same spirit of mercy and reconciliation that led Tomas Borge, a Sandinista who had been tortured by Somoza's National Guard, to return to his torturer and say, "I have come to get my revenge; my revenge is that I forgive you."

The following is excerpted from the personal journal of Peter Hinde, a Carmelite priest and Sojourners correspondent who has spent more than eight years in Latin America.--The Editors

The Victory
July 19,1979: Church bells are ringing out the news to the refugees: "Peace in Nicaragua!"

Dictator Anastasio Somoza fled two days ago to Miami, ending a 45-year Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua. Today his National Guard High Command fled to Honduras in 25 planes with 186 people--officers and their families.

News of bands of National Guard retreating through the border area, taking reprisals as they go, unsettle people here in Triunfo, Honduras, just three miles from the border. But everyone is up with life and song. Radio Nacional of Nicaragua has been taken over for liberation messages and songs.

In the midst of ringing church bells, a group of young Nicaraguans came bounding into the parish to embrace everyone in sight, calling for a march through the town.

My own spirit has quickened these days. The psalm for Lauds, the morning prayer of the church, resonates with all that is taking place around us:

Sing to the Lord a new song,
for God has done marvelous things...
Hear, O peoples, the word of the Lord,
proclaim it in distant lands...
For the Lord has redeemed Jacob,
rescued him from the hand of the strongman...
Yahweh who dispersed Israel will unite it,
will guard them as a pastor does the flock...
They will come with shouts to the heights of Zion!

Only days ago, the refugees who suffered aerial attacks from Somoza's planes were arriving at the rate of a hundred a day. Now the flow in the reverse direction has accelerated, bringing Triunfo back to its normal, quiet routine. These few days, however, have been a hubbub of activity, as the Nicaraguans organize themselves and move out.

A young man with a suitcase passed me in the church door and said, "We are going...I want to give you thanks." We exchanged comments about the people setting out in every imaginable vehicle--owned, rented, or borrowed. The ordinary quiet afternoons were punctuated with shouts of children and youth loaded on trucks and buses as they did a farewell turn around the plaza and headed out of town.

Two hundred people left one camp at Yusguare to walk the 140 kilometers back to Managua in order to fulfill a vow they had made. Men and women, young and old, some barefoot and fasting, headed off in pilgrimage singing hymns; echoes of the psalms, recounting the return of the Israelites from their exile. People are streaming back to their homes, hoping to find them intact; some already know that they return to ruins.

"Nicaragua was a classic fruit of the system," is the analysis I am hearing from the most Christian of people. But liberation is a call to Abrahamic faith--to hope against hope, against tremendous odds. Who could have predicted that the most authentic and widely participated in people's revolution in Latin America would occur in Nicaragua?

Past the Red Sea
A month after the victory, the National Confederation of Religious of Nicaragua came forth with a declaration which reflects the hope of the people:

...Nicaragua has finally and forever passed the Red Sea, leaving slavery behind to walk to the Promised Land of Nicaragua, free and creative of her own destiny in the assembly of nations.

We give thanks to God for the awakening of the brotherhood of all peoples of America and the world which showed itself in solidarity with the suffering of our people.

God has passed through Nicaragua with an arm strong and liberating. Signs of his marvelous presence in the midst of our people in struggle were and continue to be the hunger for justice for the poor and the oppressed; the courage in the struggle; the presence of women in the struggle; the example of unity, hospitality, and comradeship, the responsibility with which each one takes up the task of reconciliation; and finally, the generosity in victory. This gives a joy--full of hope--that brings the entire nation to dream of a tomorrow, better for all and not just for a few.

We are quite aware of what this Nicaragua revolution means for all peoples, especially in Latin America. God calls us to give the best of our energy and our life to accompany the process of reconstruction, bringing to it the light of our faith in Christ.

"Don't think back on what has happened, nor dwell on former days...Look! I am doing something new! Don't you see it is already springing into being?" (Isaiah 43:18)

Songs of the Struggle
Each town had its stories to tell of the heroic liberation struggle. Learning these stories was one of the first steps of the people's taking over the creation of their own history. The Church, as well, was forced by this revolutionary generation to reread its own history, to reread the Scriptures in the light of what the Lord of history had done in this country.

The songs of the liberation struggle, particularly those in the liturgy, fill the air:

You are a God of the poor, a God human and simple;
A God who sweats in the street, a God of lined face.
And so I speak of you as my people speak;
You are a God-Worker, a Christ-Laborer.

You walk hand in hand with my people...
You eat a popsicle in the park with Pancho and Jose
And even protest when the concessioner doesn't sweeten the
syrup.
You are a God of the poor.

I've seen you in the circus putting a merry-go-round together;
I've seen you checking the tires of a truck in a gas station
With your leather gloves and overalls.
You are a God of the poor.

So starts the Mass, with music as daring as the words. The Kyrie, "Lord have mercy," indeed challenges the compassionate God of love:

Christ, O Christ Jesus, identify yourself with us!
Lord, Lord my God, identify yourself with us!
Christ, Christ Jesus, be in solidarity with us!

And the following is a faith-filled song which is daring and most popular among the people, "Christ Is Already Born in Palacaguina":

On the mountain of Iguana, deep within the range of the
Segovias,
I saw a strange splendor as a dawn in the middle of the night.
The cornfields were ablaze, the Milky Way exploded
And it rained light over by Moyogalpa, by Telpaneca and
Chichigalpa.

Christ is already born in Palacaguina;
Born of Chepe Pavon and a certain Mary
Who goes most humbly to iron the clothes
Of the lazy wife of the landowner.
Jose, the poor carpenter, hammers all day;
He has rheumatic hands suffered by those of his trade...

Reconstruction in Esteli
Esteli...a city reappearing from under the tumbled walls, burned and fallen roofs, torn-up streets, tangled and shredded telephone and light wires. People are working to put back the millions of adoquinas--pavement bricks--that they pulled up from the streets in fierce determination to defend their neighborhoods.

The adoquina became the symbol of the overthrow of Somoza, who enriched himself with his monopoly production of these cement bricks. They were used to barricade every street corner and to bottle up the National Guard in their barracks. Now the flow of traffic is back to normal...almost.

After cleaning the debris on the streets, the workers with shovels and wheelbarrows are beginning to clean out the insides of buildings. Crews are putting roofs back on where walls are still intact, and scraping and scouring floors scorched with fire and caked with rain-soaked debris. The buildings still standing whose walls and roofs look like sieves from heavy machine-gun fire are being patched up.

Thirty-five thousand of the former 45,000 residents have returned. In the process, the food supply has stretched thin. Rations for two days must last seven or be supplemented by diminished family resources; the market is struggling to get itself back together with something more than handfuls to display. The lines for emergency food are disappearing as the neighborhood committees discover ways of getting rations more directly to each household.

The June harvest was in large part frustrated or lost in the war. The next harvest is due in December. Sowing basic crops for internal consumption should reduce considerably the need for food from outside the country by May or June of 1980.

So the people tighten their belts and bear the burdens of liberation. One thing more certain for them than the arrival of help from outside are the crops in the fields near the towns and cities. The communal, labor-intensive style of work of the people in their own fields--now restored to serve their priority needs--gives pride and morale. And with the simplest of technology, the promise of the Lord is fulfilled: "They who sow in sorrow, shall reap in joy!"