Making fireworks in Nicaragua, literally

Meanwhile, I’ve spent sizable chunks of the last few years traveling around the world to visit borrowers in Bosnia, Lebanon, Cambodia, and so on, writing a book about Kiva and microfinance while meeting as many loan recipients as I can. That’s why I’m here. (You can find more about the book on my site if you’re interested.)

Here in Nicaragua, a Fundación León 2000 loan officer has kindly led me to Luis Alberto’s door in a working-class quarter of León, and Luis’s family has immediately welcomed me with cold drinks, family photos, wedding pictures, and stories.*

We’ve talked about business as well: the fireworks trade has high periods around holidays, so depending on the calendar, Luis Alberto may have eight, ten, maybe a dozen men working for him. (Knock-on job creation like this can be a positive side effect of many microloans, not always apparent in a Kiva profile.) At the time of my visit, he employs about a half a dozen men, all at a work site safely far from any residential area. Would I like to see it?

So now, trying to return his trusting spirit, I’ve followed Luis Alberto to his outdoor explosives-making workshop along this rural Nicaraguan road. As he places a single three-walnut-sized firework on the ground, my inner Cub Scout kicks in, compelling me to check the wind direction, raise my arms to warn nonexistent traffic, and scan the ground worriedly for some kind of makeshift ear protection. (Look! Two squirrels! That should work!)

I’m also hoping that this one demonstration will be the only kaboom that I hear. The manufacturing work is all done by hand, with people sitting between bins filled with various powders, fuses, and kaboom-containers, creating each firework with assembly-line repetition: grab one of these, scoop some of this into there, mash it down with this metal thing, and repeat.

In skilled hands, each firework takes about 45 seconds to make. The guys are friendly and eager to demonstrate the process for their skittish American visitor. Tengo miedo un poco, I manage to summon from my gringo-watching-telenovelas Spanish. I’m a little afraid. This brings only friendly laughter — it’s perfectly safe, they tell me. I should try it myself and see! Um... okay.

The results, in my hands: grab one of these, scoop some of this into there, drop that thing by accident, spill the powder back into the bin, get some of it on my pants, grab one of these again, and so on. Five minutes later: one firework and all ten fingers. A moral victory.

Now I’m dripping in sweat from the heat. And I’ve only been out here for maybe an hour, tops. These men work up to ten hours a day, but they have dreams and families to work for, so there it is.

As with nearly every client and business I’ve visited in these travels, I can barely imagine the patience and physical endurance involved. All I can map it to: when I was growing up in Ohio, my dad spent his entire adult life doing manual labor to support our family. He’d work in a warehouse, take third shift, lay sod in the hot sun, whatever was necessary. It’s hard to look at these workers in Nicaragua—or anywhere I’ve visited—and not see at least some resemblance. And my dad obviously had things a lot easier, given a minimum wage, occupational health and safety regulations, and so on.

One of the cruelest stereotypes about economic struggle is that it’s caused by a lack of hard work. Just one day in the field with microlending clients should be enough to convince anyone otherwise.

Finally, out in the street, ready to demonstrate the results of all the handiwork, Luis Alberto has the happy grin of a teenager. He’s 63 years old, mind you, and he speaks to his employees more as a father than as a boss. But when he’s about to light a fuse, he has the same smile he must have had when he was a kid.

Finally: match, fuse, ba-BAMM! We giggle like ten-year-olds. For one gorgeous instant, language, age, religion, and nationality disappear. It’s only one moment, sadly, and a Beavis and Butthead one at that. But this was hardly the only such moment of connection.

On my arrival at Luis Alberto’s home, recall, the discussion was immediately of things that matter everywhere: work, love, marriage, age, death, hope for the children, pride in small victories. I bet you feel connected to all of that, too, even through a computer, wherever you are.

I can’t change the birth lottery, any government, nor the slightest whim of the global economy. I don’t pretend for one second that my $25 loan or the afternoon I spent counting and re-counting my fingers (Ten? Yes!) with Luis Alberto, by themselves, had any great effect on his life.

But I can and do feel grateful to be able to help this gentle, funny man to create great effects in his own life, to provide a home for his family and employment for those around him.

And after visiting clients from Kenya to the Philippines , when I look at the Kiva website and scan through the thousands of photos and stories, I can only feel excited for more.

* Incidentally, I don’t volunteer to clients that I’m a lender. An indebtedness vibe would not only feel kinda gross, but factually inappropriate, what with pre-disbursed funds and the likelihood that some other Kiva lender would have invested in the loan if I hadn’t. I’ll admit that I’m a lender if anybody asks, but almost nobody does, and it seems a lot friendlier, simpler, and more accurate just to say that I’m an American interested in their lives. This is certainly true.

© 2013 Bob Harris