last day of field work

While I'm not leaving for a few more days, yesterday was my last day of "trabajo de campo"-- I took the microbus (minivan) leaving Managua at 5:30am for Chinandega, then another bus (big, old yellow schoolbus) for an hour to the rural community of Villa 15 de Julio, which sits in the lowlands surrounding the highest volcano in Nicaragua, San Cristobal. The bus ride is long and tiring, and the suffocatingly hot weather in Chinandega makes fieldwork there hot and sweaty. (there's a reason coca cola is the most popular soft drink here!) Yesterday I interviewed three abuelas that i had met the week prior when I conducted a workshop for SJM in this same community. Each of these three grandmothers has more than one adult child who has migrated - to Spain, the U.S., Costa Rica, and El Salvador. Needless to say, migration from the rural communities of Chinandega is very common. One of the abuelas I interviewed has a son who attempted migration to the U.S. and was deported from México three times before finally making it across the border (just goes to show where people are desperate, they will try, try, and try again, no matter how many walls, "migra" agents, armed gangs, or other obstacles are in their path). This same woman also has a daughter in Spain and is raising three children of this mother migrant. Her younger daughter also attempted migration to Spain and was detained 3 days by Spanish migration authorities before being sent back to Nicaragua. So many stories, so many lives, so many emotions... While I'm finishing up field work, the work of data analysis lies before me, and the responsibility of writing up these stories with the same conviction and honesty with which they were shared with me...