UPDATE 22nd May
Took a day off yesterday and went out and about visiting Masaya, Catarina, Niquinomo – there are still roadblocks here and there (please note roadblocks here really do BLOCK the road, they are not moveable little orange plastic cones in the middle of the highway!) which are undoubtedly impeding the movement of traffic and therefore of commerce. Catarina was totally closed down, I have never seen it like that, no shops, no restaurants, no guitar players asking to croon something romantic in exchange for a few pesos. Nothing. And it rained, it poured - which added to my general feeling of desolation.
However desolate, the country is peaceful and trying to go about its business. The roadblocks around La Concha are down and public transport is running fairly normally. We are going to Masaya today to visit our artisan workers who are also doing their utmost to work normally.
There are almost daily marches against the government but these remain peaceful.
The National Dialogue continued yesterday. Utterly remarkable how the government spokesman (the presidential couple no longer attends the dialogue, I guess they could not stomach the students shouting at them) completely avoided voicing any responsibility whatsoever for the deaths of now over 70 people, the vast majority of whom were students protesting peacefully the weekend of the 18th April and subsequent days. A positive development is that the findings of the CIDH were accepted ..
“The IACHR gathered documentary and audiovisual evidence, and heard hundreds of testimonies that reveal grave violations of human rights during a month of protests, characterized by the excessive use of force by state security forces and armed third-parties,” the report said.
The dialogue continues on Wednesday.

La Mariposa news is mixed. We continue to receive cancellations of the few bookings we still have. However, with the money we have saved and raised through an incredible number of donations I calculate we can survive 3 months at our present rate of expenditure (everyone on half pay and penny pinching all over the place!!)….setting up our agricultural cooperative is also proceeding apace and I will post photos of that in the next few days. It is a very exciting and hopeful initiative which we should have undertaken anyway. Sometimes one needs to be shocked into doing positive stuff…..