Just arrived from Lisbon and the Nicaraguan Consulate in Cascais.
It was a cloudy, yet quite warm day, the morning was spent finishing the last bits of the tails left and around 1100 I departed to Lisbon.
The Consulate was quite hard to find, but finally we manage to get hold of it around 1500. There was no one at the event apart from me and a friend, Nídia.
We set up the symbolical Graveyard and “knock knock”… a man on his 30′s came at the door. We asked to talk to Ian Imrie the supposed consul, and he told us that Ian Imrie was his father and he couldn’t come at the door because he was sleeping. I guess that is what happens when you spent more than 3 decades living in Latin Countries, siesta starts to be part of your life!
I asked if I could speak to him about Nicaragua and its position on whaling. Well it happens that the Consulate of Nicaragua was no longer there!! That is only the residence of his family and because they lived in Nicaragua for a long time and had connections with the government, his father was asked to be the consul in Portugal. They are not Nicaraguans even, they are British. We delivered the letter we had prepared to his father and he said that since his father still has connections with the government, he will ask him to convey our message to Managua.
Well, Nicholas the son of the supposed Consul told me that he personally is against whaling and he thought the idea of making the action in 14 different countries would help to change Nicaragua’s position (and apparently it did http://www.elnuevodiario.com.ni/2007/04/10/nacionales/45840 – it says that Nicaragua will no longer vote for whaling!) after a chat, and some exchange of ideias, he invited us for a tea, but we were running late, so we politely said no.
We got his contact and of his father to send him some news of the actions around the world and its repercussions, what I’ll do after finishing this text, that is right about now…
Congratulations to Milko Schvartzman from Greenpeace and everyone involved. I’m looking forward to know that Nicaragua voted NO when Japan voted YES :-) also many thanks to Catarina a friend of mine that helped me to manufacture the whale tails.
Click here to read about the government change of position regarding whaling.