The 19th of July

I have never experienced anything like I have today. The 19th of July marks the day of victory for the Sandinistas. Today is the 30 year anniversary of that. It seemed like everyone was heading into Managua for the celebration and I have never seen that kind of national pride. In the States, we have more pride for our sports teams and schools than we do in our nation. As we headed into Managua, it looked like the telephone poles had a new coat of red and black, every car, van, bus, dumptruck, motorcycle, and taxi was filled with people and sandinista flags were flying everywhere. The streets were crowded, the bombas loud (and often), and the temperature was extremely high. We made our way (10 white people and Bergman--we stuck out just a bit) into the main plaza where the festivities were taking place. We got as close to the main stage as possible, but were still pretty far away. The people around us were "muy sandinista" as Bergman's daughter put it and were very excited. When they played a sandinista song, every single person was singing along. Hands were raised high, flags were flying, and the people were cheering as one. We stayed in the main plaza long enough to hear the beginning of Daniel Ortega's speech (and no, I really have no idea what he was saying but it was just cool to say that I heard him in person) and then found some food and more water and shade. We didn't stay too long just because it was really too hot and too crowded. However, I'm glad I had a chance to experience something like that--it was one of those times like, wow, how did I get to see something like this?

Sorry about the lack of photos. I'll post a link to all of my photos when I get home. It just takes too long to upload them here. Only 8 days left. I could definitely stay longer.