Long Hours, Bad Food, No Pay--Life Is Harsh for Foreigners Aiding Sandinistas

The pale skin of the Finnish volunteers turned pink as they picked coffee beans under a warm sun in the central Nicaraguan mountains.

Chatting in Finnish, they plucked the ripe beans from rows of coffee plants and dropped them into straw baskets tied around their waists.

The 40 Finns working in the fields near Matagalpa are among 600 foreign volunteers who will travel to Nicaragua this year to help harvest its largest crop and biggest moneymaking export.

Some come to show support for the Sandinista government, at war with U.S.-backed Contras. Others say they are here to help the needy. And others just want the experience.

Most of the leftist government’s economic and military aid comes from the Soviet Bloc. But the coffee-picking volunteers this year came from the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Australia, Greece, Mexico and East Germany.

Barricada, the newspaper of the ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front, said a total of 8,000 foreign volunteers this year will help out in the cotton fields, construction of housing and schools and other projects, in addition to picking coffee.

For the Finns, the 5-week adventure cost about $1,100 for air fare and other arrangements.

The volunteers are up before dawn and work until 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday. They sleep in stone buildings in sleeping bags lined on wooden planks. They eat rice, beans and corn tortillas.

For Christmas, they bought a cow for slaughter.

“This is a possibility to come to a new country and do some motivating work,” said Elina Vuola, the leader of the group. “I think we have to support them (the Nicaraguans) and oppose the foreign policy of the United States in this area.”

Nearby, three Finnish women wearing bathing suit tops toiled. One was covered with mosquito bites.

Vuola, 27, who works for the Finland-Nicaragua Friendship Assn. in Helsinki, said that most of the crew had suffered stomach illnesses but that their spirits were good.

“We just wish we could pick more,” she lamented. “But we are getting better each day.”

The Nicaraguans in the north measure picking quantity by five gallon cans. Walter Araica, secretary-general of the state-run Chale Haslam coffee cooperative, said new volunteers usually pick two cans a day. Experienced pickers can get up to eight, and professionals load up to 20 cans per day.

“We’ve only been doing about one can a day,” Vuola said, dropping another plump bean into her basket.

Ritva Puupponen, 50, left her job as a nurse in Helsinki to join the coffee brigades.

“It’s nice,” she said. “I’m free to do it, to see the world and do some helping work.”

Puupponen said there was some political indoctrination about the Sandinistas, who came to power in a 1979 revolution. And she heard fighting in the surrounding mountains.

But Contra attacks are rare in the area where the volunteers work, about 80 miles outside Managua. The government considers the region safe.

The coffee harvest has been hit hard by the war. Farmers complain that the precious beans fall to the ground for lack of labor in battle-plagued regions of the north. Some who would normally pick coffee are in the army, and others have abandoned areas of conflict.

Most of the coffee lands remain in private hands.

The coffee harvest in late 1982 netted 73,369 tons, according to government figures. Last year’s crop stood at 40,875 tons. It is Nicaragua’s largest moneymaking export. Earnings for last year were about $120.5 million.

Cesar Soza, the head of the El Canton coffee farm where the Finns work, praised the foreigners for helping.

“They aren’t as experienced, but their discipline is excellent. They work hard. It’s just their production that is less,” he said.