 You can see all these guys. Yeah, I can see all these nice guys over there. Yeah. Hi. What's going on, my friends? How much? How are you? I'm pretty fine. Thank you. So you are living in Burlington? Yeah. Oh, great. Yeah. Do you all understand anything Spanish? Yeah, a little bit. A little bit. Hola. Como esta? Muy bien. Hola. Did you know what I just said? Yeah, vamos. Vamos. Yeah, let's go. Hi. My name is Bonifaz. I'm with Olivier and Jeremiah. We'll be interviewing Dixie and hi. Also, we'll be asking you a couple of questions if that's okay with you. Great. Great. Yeah, you can ask all the questions you want. Okay. All right. We'll start with where do you live? Okay. I live in Nicaragua. There's a place on the east coast of Nicaragua named Puerto Cabezas. It'd be like Port Head in Spanish. So I live in this community here in Puerto Cabezas where there's like 100,000 people live here. Wow. And they have different indigenous groups that live. We have the Miskitos, which is an indigenous group. Then we have what we call the Afrodescendants, which is the Creole people and the Garifonas. Then we have the Spanish-speaking people that speak in Spanish. So it's a multicultural community where we are live and they have the big ocean. It's on the Caribbean coast anyhow, on the Caribbean coast. So we have the ocean in front, the big ocean in front. And this place is almost everyone knows one another because we meet them at the supermarket. We meet them in the park at the baseball field. And this Puerto Cabezas is a sister city with Burlington. Have a long history of building up and constructing this sister city program. So in the past, we had a lot of exchange with Burlington. They had a baseball team went from Puerto Cabezas to Burlington to play baseball with the kids in Burlington. And that was something. Then we have artists that goes over there to see cultural songs and different groups. So it's a nice place. So I really invite you all someday to come down here. So you all really look like some people from Puerto Cabezas. You all come to Puerto Cabezas. Someone will go up to you and talk in Miskito thinking that you are Miskito. Or maybe someone will go and talk to you in Creole. Hey brother, what's going on? Hey, all things going brother, nice, cool, nice. That's Creole. It's great to see you all and this afternoon, definitely. Yeah, we'll see you too. Yeah. So how is the weather like? Is there snow in Puerto Cabezas? Okay, Puerto Cabezas is too wetter we got. It's from January, February, March, April, is when they have the sun. It's sunny, really hot, a lot of strong suns and it's really hot. May, June, July, August, November, it's a lot of rain. It's rain. So we only have two stations and I would say it's sunny and rain. So it's nice because when it's too hot, someone's called for the rain, some kind of way and the rain just comes, you understand? So at this moment, we have rain. It's raining right now, but there is no snow. We don't have snow, it's just tropical, you know, it's just tropical. So it's just, it's two seasons, raining season and hot season we call it, you know, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, that reminds me a lot of where we come from in Tanzania. We also have only rain and summer pretty much. So that's really cool. Oh, that's great. That's great. So yeah, I come from Tanzania, sorry. Yeah, me and this guy come from Tanzania and he comes from Malawi. Oh, okay, great, great. Can you tell us about the history of the city or the country in general? Okay, I mean, the history of Puerto Cavesa goes a way back, a way back, you know. There was a time when the British, the British people that had the Caribbean coast colonized, was colonized by the British. It's not by the Spanish people. The Spanish people colonized the west coast of Nicaragua, but here on the east coast was the British. The British people, they are the one who colonized us and the way of colonization of the British was different than the Spanish people. The Spanish people was much more violent. They killed a lot of people and they didn't allow the people on the west coast to speak their own language. They obligate them to speak Spanish. They teach them to speak Spanish. Here on the Caribbean coast, the British people didn't do that. They create a commercial relationship with the people from the coast. So that's why a lot of groups, like the indigenous groups, the Miskito indigenous, they maintain their language. The Garifanas, which is another Afro-descendants group here, they maintain their language because they didn't have a lot of violence yet in the way of colonizing. So that is one phase of our history. And then we have another stage where there is a long conflict between the west coast of Nicaragua and the Caribbean coast because the Spanish people from the west coast of Nicaragua, they want, after the British people went, the West Coast of Nicaragua people, they want to colonize us. They want us to talk Spanish only also and things like that. So that's why a lot of people from the coast start to claim for the autonomy. They wanted to go get the self-government and this claim went on for a lot of years. Finally, after a conflict, they had a civil war in the Caribbean coast. After that civil war, they recognized that the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua is a multi-ethnic society and they have right for their self-government and they have right to talk their own language, to have their own way of seeing their life and stuff like that. This part of Nicaragua, we belong to Nicaragua, but we are living an autonomy, we under an autonomous law and the autonomy is what it means is that it gives us the right to organize or according to our tradition and to speak our own language, to develop our own economical program. This is something that we are still struggling, but we are still there. In those times, they didn't have a university here in the Caribbean coast. Most of the universities was in the west coast, in the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. So when someone like come out of secondary school and was really hard to go to a university because the west coast had a total different culture on the east coast people. So anytime when we go to the west coast, it was a big problem because they used to talk Spanish and many of us didn't know much to talk Spanish and it was hard. So that much people had the opportunity to study at that time. In this moment, thanks for the autonomy process, we have two universities in the Caribbean coast. We have Urakan, which means the university of the Caribbean coast, and then we have another university by the name of Abico, which means Black Indian and Caribbean university. In these universities, especially in the university where it goes, the students have the right to talk with their own language in class. No one can discriminate them to talk in their own language. So in the section of school, you hear people talking Miskito, you hear people talking Creole, you hear talking Spanish, and all of them have the right to do it. So that is something that we conquered with the autonomy process. And in the village, they had a lot of village around here where the indigenous people lived, and the indigenous people have their own right to organize their social organization according to their traditional way of doing it. So we have this, we have the leader that we call Wista. Wista is the one who administrates justice in the community. And then they have Wista, it's like a judge, you know, but it's Wista. But the way how they administrate justice in the community is totally different, and the way how the West schools do it. Because here, you know, if someone do anything that is not right in the community, they have to go to the judge, and the judge don't have like a building, you know, with all this chair in front. I know the judge is walking in the community, goes to people's house, talk to people, and administrate justice in that way. So, you know, they have their own traditional way of doing this. That is what in the village there. And in Puerto Cabeza, they have two areas. They have urban area, where it's like the city, the little city, and then they have a lot of different community village that we call indigenous village around it, around it, you know. So in the city, in the city is like almost 80,000 people live, you know, in the city. But when I say city, I don't mean that when I say a lot of big building out of concrete and no, here the house is, most of the house is out of wood. It's out of wood, and you know, you know, so the people live simply here, and you know, they try to enjoy life taking advantage of the nature that's around them, you know. The sea, people go to the sea, go catch fish, they go catch shrimps, catch lobster, you know. So a lot of people work on the ocean, but then they have a group of people also that work with them, agriculture, you know, producing different food for for self-sustainable. Wow, that's a lot of history. But I was going to ask you, like, since you've been here in Wellington before, like, do you notice any difference, or like, are they kind of the same in like a way, or is it super different? Yeah, it's it's different. I mean, it's different, you know, Burlington, I mean, Burlington is a small little city, you know, that's what I get to like Burlington, I'm really smart. But people over here, I don't know, maybe because the sun is hot, people are here is much more, you know, more like hey, hey, hey, you know, like, they will show you on the street, you know, like, someone see me on the street walking, they will show, hey, Dixie, what's going on, brother? You know, it's like, you know, and, you know, it's a lot of noise here, a lot of music going on, you know, a lot of, you know, people are, you know, more like, you know, in Burlington, in Burlington is much like more silence. Nobody talk loud, and when it's snowing, you get more silence, you know. Yeah, everybody gets, you know, I mean, that is, you know, but I mean, they have nice people over there also, you know, or here, our people is much more like, and the way how our people speak and talk, we will say that they are fighting between one, but we are not fighting, that's the way we talk, you know, we say, hey, brother, we're going to Yemen, Yemen, Yemen, everywhere, come on, come, come, come on, let's go play basketball, man, you know, it's like, it's like, you know, so, you know, that's, you know, we are more, more like, you know, extrovertile, we call that in Spanish, I don't know, but, you know, but in Burlington, people are, you know, much more silence, much more polite, they would say, hi, good morning, good morning, you know, and that stuff, so, so, you know, that, that, that's what it may well be, the difference maybe, but I mean, Burlington is a nice place, everything looks like it's really organized, and here we don't have things much organized here, you know, here anything could happen, any minute, you understand, I mean, there's no crime here, no big crime and stuff go on, you understand, it's just like, you know, yeah, yeah, what was your favorite things when you were here? Like, yeah, something you did? Um, make I say, I went, that's that time when I went, the, the mayor name was Peter Klaven, Peter, and Peter, he had a skiff, and he, when he invited me and take me to give, you know, to tour on his skiff, so both of us went out, we went on the dock and we get in his skiff, and, um, afterwards, you know, Peter went out on the lake, there's a big lake, right? So I, Peter and I was, um, we were like, you know, doing a little tour on his skiff, and then just in a few, a few, a few minutes, or I would say a few minutes, I just heard like a siren was coming, when I look, I saw, is that was like the police, those police on the boat, you know, so I said, what's going on Peter? I mean, this is what, so the police came and asked Peter for some, this paper, you know, his, you know, his license and his, you know, stuff like that, and then Peter giving his license, but look guys, something wasn't good there, something was, was like, you know, so the police said, no, some people were, I don't know what they, you know, but the police telling that you have to get going back to the dock, you understand? And um, Peter said, oh, okay, all right, okay, we, so Peter told me, let's go in because, you know, and stuff like that, that not happening in Puerto Cavesa, Peter is the mayor, I mean, here, no police can come and tell the mayor what to do, you understand? You know, and stuff like that, so that was something like, really impact me because I said, what, I mean, is that, is that way what I see that, the follow rules, you understand? Which is good in a society to follow rules, you know, here, here, you know, police would say, okay, you don't, you didn't have this paper in, you know, you need to, you know, okay, the mayor may tell people, I will do it when I go in someday, don't worry, you understand? And it's like that. It's like, it's totally different. I'm so glad. The other thing that surprised me, one, one afternoon we went up to a restaurant there to go eat this lobster, I think it was a lobster and crab restaurant, and we were there, but I mean, as a group of us there, when they shared me my, my, my soup or my plate with, with this, with this lobster or something, I tried to taste it, but when I taste it was like, seemed like it didn't need some salt. So I, I called you, I called the waitress and I told her, I told her, I need to, you know, we need more salt in this thing, come on. She brought this salt to me and then she told me, don't worry, I'm not, she's not going to charge me for that, that food, you know? And I said, why? Yeah, I said, why? That's it, you know, I'm not going to charge you, you know? So in my mind, I said, well, I should go every day and say that you don't have enough salt. So maybe I could get, you know, I get some, you know, but things are, you know, so, you know, it was great. I was, I was really interested being there in, in Burlington. Yeah. It sounds like you had a great time here. Oh yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Well, so what, what do you do in, in, in your place? Okay. There are two things I do here. One, you know, we still have this sister city program going on between Burlington and Puerto Cabezas. So I'm, I'm like, like, like, like someone who tried to connect our people also, you know, to, to the sister city, you know, because there was a time when the sister city program was, was, was from mayor to mayor, you know, the mayor from Burlington, the mayor, the mayor in Puerto Cabezas, but no, it's different. It's from people to people, you know. So, so we try to connect, like, really would like to connect. Do you all go, say a secondary school there in Burlington? Yeah. Are you able to answer a secondary, so how we can do to connect a secondary school here so you all can have this interact with them? You understand? Like, yeah, like, like someone that in this, in, in the same grade where you are, you know, they, you know, get people from here so they can connect with you all and talk to you all. You all can exchange video, maybe you can take with your phone, you can take a little video of your house or anything, send it to us over here and our students will, you know, send it also what they do here. So you all can see the type of houses here, how the yards, how people is and, you know, stuff like that. Okay. I, that is one thing I do. So you try to, you know, try to keep up, you know, keep up that sister to the program. The other thing I, I belong to a university. I'm a professor of the university also. I am the university of Urakang, you know, what I did there being a professor, but also I'm coordinate all this community extension program that the university had. The university have a program that have to do with community extension. So I go as a lot to the village, talk with the leaders, indigenous leaders, talk with cruel people, the Afro-descendants people and try to help the Afro-descendants people, help the indigenous people to, to, to, to strengthen their, their, their social organization. So we, from the university, we, we try to bring in some technical way of doing the things so they can, you know, and stuff like that. And I really love my job because I'm not there sitting down in my office eight hours a day. You know, I just really like, just go in my office and I just punch on the clock with my finger and then I come out in the, in the communities, go around. You understand? So, you know, that's why there's a lot of people know me here in Porto Caves. And we have been working with young people. We're working with all leaders, leaders with women groups. And we also, we're working with some people that had problems with drugs addiction also because we have that in our community also, you know, a lot of young people are, you know, taking drugs and stuff like that. So we have a special program to try to help them, you understand, to give them other options, make them play sport, make them, make them, make them, you know, paint or and play guitars, play, you know, and stuff like that. Yeah. Before Bounty and Porto Caves became sister cities, how, how did they connect to become sister cities? Okay. As you all remember, when I was talking a little about the history, we had a civil war here, right? A civil war here in the Caribbean coast. And that war goes, went on, a lot of people was dying. And then during that war, they didn't have a lot of foods and a lot of clothes and everything had been getting, you know, and there was a ship, a boat back up here around the Caribbean coast and the coast here with people from Burlington, you know, the first people from Burlington came down and the war what we had here was like, there was the American government, some kind of way, you know, helping, trying to overthrow one government here with Sandinista government. And then a lot of people from Burlington didn't agree with that. You know, so they came here to try to help us and, okay, you know, precisely the war was in the whole Nicaragua, but Burlington precisely determined that they wanted to come to Porto Cavesa, you know, and they came here and, you know, they bring foods, they bring clothes in, they bring different aids here, different, you know, for the people and things like that. And they meet with the major from here, Porto Cavesa. The major went to the dock and received them and then that's how this whole thing started like that, you know, and then, you know, that's, and then Burlington always were willing to help the people from Porto Cavesa, you know, and Porto Cavesa was really, they're really grateful for that, you know, real thanks to Burlington and things go on, things went on, you know, they went for, you know, more and just only giving stuff, but also constructing and strengthening culture and strengthening friendships and relationships in the two cities, you know, in Burlington and Porto Cavesa. I mean, it's like, it started in the 80s, so you can imagine, you know, how long this thing going on, you know, you understand, you know, it started like in the 80s and now who is, you know, we are, we are older, we have older brother, younger, you know, in this whole sister city program, you know, yeah. So like before we wrap up, do you guys have any questions to us? Nice to meet you, man. Yeah, great, great, great. This conversation was lovely, we loved it. And also, yeah, I mean, you are, you are my brother. Yeah, it was awesome. Okay, so, so you all can say goodbye in your language? Yeah, quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet. So, um, do you have any questions that you want to ask us before we close the conversation? Oh, sure, exactly. I mean, how, when, how comes you come from Tanzania, from a women, a women to Burlington? We were in a refugee camps, so. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Long story. Long story, yeah, another history. That's another history, yeah. And you are like, you love Burlington? Yeah, it's nice. It's cold. I love the weather. But school is nice here. Yeah, okay, everything's nice. Just snow. Just snow, yeah. Just snow. Oh, okay. So do you guys, do you all play any sport? Any sport? Of course. Yeah, I do cross-country running and I do skiing during the winter. Cross-country skiing. Oh, okay. And I play soccer. Football, okay. Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah, so. Thank you. You mean, you mean. Cross-country out here. Okay. All right, no, that's great. I mean, they play a lot of young, a lot of young kids here. I mean, play a lot of sport here, you know, they play football, the baseball, you know, and softball, volleyball. They had a big tournament three days ago here, big volleyball tournament, you know, when they bring all of these players from the different village and the different, you know, bring them here to Puerto Cabezas. So they had like a week, you know, with all these visitors here playing volleyball and football, also playing football, also, you know, so it was nice, you know, having all these students here from secondary, most of them are from secondary, you know, and they were here in Puerto Cabezas, yeah. So many similarities. Yeah, thank you so much for your time. And we hope in the near future, we'll be able to have the same conversation because we love this conversation. Oh, great. Yeah, yeah, as I said before, I mean, I can connect, maybe I will talk to Megan and send some, you know, to Megan that we can connect some schools, you know, so we can, you can get these kids in your age, so that, you know, you can talk with them and, you know, I could bring them, you know, so we can, you know, just, you know, we can come over and stuff. Yeah, we can come over too. Yeah, you come over. Oh, yeah, that would be great. All right. Hey, here we have a big, big party that's going on in the month of May. We call it May, yeah, we call it May Pole. Wow, don't worry, Megan will bring us. Okay, okay. Yeah, you have to come to see the May Pole, because May Pole is from the Afro-descendants' culture, you know. Yeah, they have this tree that they plant in the middle of the street and they put fruits around it and the dance around it. Dance, nice, heavy music around it, and when the dance is because it's called the, called the rain, the rain could come down, you know. You know, dancing. Oh, you know, okay. You know, dancing, I don't care if that is happening. You're going to start right now. Yeah, okay, maybe you can come and dance May Pole here. He would like to dance for you. Yeah, okay. That's great. Thank you. Megan, yeah, Megan, I want to say bye. I'll think about it. Sure. Hi, Tixie, thank you so much. So, we'll get in touch about maybe meeting with some students too. Definitely, I think that would be great. You know, get these students, yeah, so they can meet with them. Yeah, okay. What was it in May? Sounds of May, we got away from COVID to, you know, we got away from COVID numbers. You didn't talk about that. You guys, what, you're a 4% vaccination rate? It was 4% a couple of weeks ago, now it's went up a little bit more. Oh, dang it. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're at 90% here. 90%? I know, I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If we could ship our extra vaccines to you, we would. Oh. Yeah, that would be great. That would be great. We could go out with them together or... Yeah. Yeah, here is different. It's not easy to get the vaccine, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Someone said that in the first countries, the vaccine is chasing the people, you know? Yeah. In our country, we are chasing the vaccine. That's a really good analogy. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. All right. Thanks so much. Okay, see you all, bro. Thank you. I'll do it again. Yeah. Hey, we meet again. Definitely. There we meet again. Yeah. Yeah. In Miskito, they will say, Cri, Crival Pravaya. Cri, Crival Pravaya. Crival Pravaya. Yeah. I would say there we meet again. Yeah, there we meet again. Yeah. Yeah. Or in Swahili, we say Kuaheri. Kuaheri. Okay, Kuaheri. Kuaheri. Kuaheri. Okay. Great. Good. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Good to see.