Beware of the Perfume

Image via WikipediaElection day in neighbouring Nicaragua.....and it looks as if Ortega will be re-elected for a third term in a landslide.
The guerilla fighter of the Sandinista uprising against the Somoza dictatorship has become, in his turn, corrupt and keen to hang on to power to the extent of managing to manipulate the bodies overseeing the constitution to allow him a previously forbidden third term of office.
Enriching himself and his cronies he is hand in glove with business and the Catholic Church, whose influence is shown by the ban on abortion in Nicaragua, causing misery to the poor and no inconvenience to the rich, who, in the manner of the Republic of Ireland and the U.K., just carry their unwanted foetuses to Costa Rica for elimination while the Church follows the example of Nelson.
But he'll be re-elected, all the same.

I'd been in the garden when my Nicaraguan friend called round, having headed down there after a heavy downpour to pick the beans before they became tough and stringy.
The sun had come out and as I slushed through the wet grass the heavy scent of the canna india was in the air, pink pom pom blossoms hanging down over the green and yellow leaves perched high on the top of the tall bare stems.

I don't know what these beans are called, but they look like oversized asparagus peas, four lines of frills running their length and they make a wonderful soup - as long as they haven't gone woody.

An easy going recipe too, with not too much emphasis on quantities.

Dice and sweat off some onions, then add the beans, cut into pieces, chicken stock and either fresh tomatoes or tomato puree...just until the stock turns rose in colour if the latter.
Cook until the beans are soft, then puree and seive and add cumin to taste.
It is a soup recipe I have from friends in France...for using up the stringy beans, but it works wonders with these as well and is a good stand by in the freezer.

The bean patch was in full blossom...a wave of lavender blue flowers the length of the section of poles over which they run, and the scent was overpowering...sweet, soft and sensual.
John Clare would have recognised this New World equivalent of his field of English broad beans...

A beanfield full in blossom smells as sweet
As Araby, or grove of orange flowers;
Black-eyed and white, and feathered to the feet
How sweet they smell in morning's dewy hours!
When seething night is left upon the flowers
And when morn's sun shines brightly o'er the field
The bean bloom glitters in the gems of showers,
And sweet the fragrance which the union yields
To battered footpaths crossing o'er the fields.

Faced with such beauty, how could the mind think any ill? But moralists over the years seem to have a thing about the influence of flowers.....

The families of saffron pickers around Pithiviers were warned to keep the sexes separated during the evening sessions of removing the pistils from the mauve flowers....the mind boggles at the inferences drawn by the unco' guid from the activity, but their minds always seem to turn to filth unthought of by others.
Likewise the dangers of beanfields....was it the scent, or was it the possibilities of concealment that drew down the wrath of the self proclaimed godly?

Seeing my friend waving from the top of the garden, I went back, past the tilapia ponds and the papyrus which is now, with the perversity of all plants with runners, extending across the steps rather than parallel to them. I shall wait until it establishes on the other side and then cut out the bits on the steps...but that's for the next rainy season.

Aha, says he. Beans! Doesn't Pythagorus tell us to abstain?

Because of farting, or because of voting?

Today...voting!

We go inside to drink coffee, and I ask him how it is that Ortega is so popular.

Well, it's not as if people don't know how he has become over the years...but what's the alternative?
He does provide education, services, and keeps the economy going despite all the interference from the U.S., so people have jobs, and after these floods and landslides the back up has been pretty good...the Sandinistas have been handing out building materials to repair houses in poor areas...and, above all, he's not seen as 'perfumado'.

Perfumado?

Oh, it's a term for those who think they're superior...an elite...better than ordinary people...living in a different world.
He might be getting greedy, but he's still seen as one of the people, and while that lasts, he'll stay in power.
He's got rid of the worst of the poverty, too. Well, you've seen Honduras.

I had.

And it's not just the poverty....people know what happens when you have a U.S. backed government in power...they remember Somoza and if they didn't they have the example of Honduras next door.

Ortega might be greedy, but he offers freedom from fear...and that's worth a lot when you've known it.