Mid-morning on Friday May 15 we headed for Estelí, a city of about 120,000 residents located in the dryer northern region known as Las Segovias. Often referred to as a “cowboy town” in travel guides, Estelí sits more than 2600 feet above sea level and is surrounded by mountain peaks, forests, cattle ranches, coffee farms and tobacco plantations.

First on our itinerary was a stop in Sébaco Valley, located about halfway between Jinotepe and Estelí. There we talked with Felix Miranda of ACORDAR, the Alliance to Create Opportunities for Rural Development through Agro-Enterprise Relationships. Funded in part by the U.S. Agency for International Aid. ACORDAR helps small and medium farmers by providing technical assistance, technology and infrastructure to improve competitiveness and increase sales in local, regional and international markets.

The project focuses on fruits, vegetables, coffee, beans, cocoa and other high value crops. It is expected to help 5400 poor families directly and to generate over 23,000 full time jobs over the 2.5 years of funding. Included in the plans is a new commercialization center in Sébaco.

Several agricultural engineers then took us out to one of the 85 small farming cooperatives that are benefiting from ACORDAR. (Interestingly, we learned that most of the papayas grown at this cooperative are sold to Wal-Mart Corporation.) For more information about ACORDAR, see http://nicaragua.usaid.gov/bulletinnovember07_2.html

The next morning in Estelí we met with a group of women at the Galería de los Heroes and Martires. These were some of the hundreds of women in the region with sons or daughters who died either during the revolution of the late 1970s or the counterrevolution of the 1980s. Some of the women themselves also fought as members of the military or the civil militia.

Estelí was bombed several times by Somoza during the final months of his dictatorship, and it later became a frequent target of attacks from the contras (which included many members of Somoza’s former National Guard). We heard stories of courage, pride, desperation and tragic loss, and we witnessed first-hand the long-term effects of war on those who are left behind to pick up the pieces.