Guerilla history

Today I went to the Mercado Orientale again with Esmeralda, Fatima and Brenda. I had to go to the bank, and they had to buy Christmas presents for all of the staff. Mercado Orientale is huge... We went to a corner of the market where they sell plastic goods. The store sells all sizes of tupperware, plastic chairs, colanders (for making juice), garbage cans, barrels, buckets, dishes, cups, baskets, etc., in all different colors. Esmerelda bought large buckets, that they´ll fill with rice, beans, sugar and oil for all the staff members. We took a taxi to the other end of the market to a Comedor (little outdoor restaurant), owned by a woman named Linda. It looks like one of the carts that sell Puerto Rican food in Humboldt Park, except made of cement and painted blue. She grills a different kind of meat every day, and today was chicken. While marinated chicken was smoking on her grill, I casually asked Esmeralda if she´d known any guerillas during the war. She said, ¨my husband fought in the war and died in the mountains on October 15, 1987. He worked in a bank, and was called to duty, where he died.¨ She´d told me before that she'd been a widow for 19 years, but didn´t go into any more detail. Esmeralda then recounted that her nephew had fought in the war and her sister. When the Sanidinistas los power in 1990, she lost her job and moved to Miami, where she knew no one. She hasn´t been back since. Also, Esmeralda's son Mario was called to duty at the age of 13 to fight the contras (Mario lives in the barrio too and just finished putting ceramic tile on the floor of our bathroom. His daughter Judy, 7, is hanging out in the cyber right now.) Esmeralda went into the mountains with a group of women looking for him, to take him home. A truck drove them to a certain point, and she walked the rest of the way. Doña Brenda`s husband also went to fight for the guerillas (Doña Brenda is my spanish teacher, but only of dirty words-I won´t tell you what she´s taught me so far...). He survived, although I have yet to meet him...

Esmeralda said that many families in the barrio fought against the contras or have loved ones who died fighting. These memories are vivid still, and seem to live on in the younger generation as well who are very politically concious. Che t-shirts are everywhere, but you get the sense that they actually mean something here, that people take action on his ideals rather than hold him up merely as a symbol. I think I´m going to hear more of these stories as I get to know more people here...