Nicaraguan Mother’s Day with Moisés Gadea

May 30 is Mother’s Day in Nicaragua, and a special guest helped us celebrate this with our host mothers: Nicaraguan singer-songwriter Moisés Gadea. Gadea has toured internationally, but he prefers to perform for small intimate gatherings, which worked out very well for us. He and his percussionist Camilo performed at our SST house for an exclusive audience of students, host mothers and several other special guests. Simply put, it was marvelous.

Gadea’s set list included original songs on a variety of subjects, from love and greed to social justice and mother earth to the everyday calls of the tortilla vendors on the streets of most Nicaraguan cities and towns. He also performed a well-known song from Carlos Mejia Godoy’s Misa Campesina [Peasants’ Mass], which we learned about recently in the context of liberation theology as well. It was a great opportunity for us to make connections to multiple themes and ideas we’ve been exploring this first month in Nicaragua.

An added bonus for us was a special request from one of the host mothers for a number from country coordinator Dalena. We were thrilled to hear this beautiful impromptu performance of Guerrero del Amor (a poignant song about Nicaragua’s struggle for self-determination amidst external interference, intervention and aggression) by Dalena, with Moisés on guitar and Camilo on percussion.

In addition to being extremely talented, we found Gadea to be gracious and friendly as we visited with him after the concert. Although he wasn’t able to bring CDs with him, he made arrangements with our country coordinator to get discs to anyone in the group who is interested. I’m sure some of us will be buying every CD he’s got!

Co-leaders Lisa & Jen