Nicaragua

The two words that summarize Nicaragua are “plastic,” and “poverty.” Discarded plastic bottles, bags, and packages are all over the streets and sidewalks. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Only Haiti is more impoverished. There is no compulsory education here and unemployment is 49%. And yet the people are friendly and kind. We docked at the port of Corinto, our gateway to the interior of Nicaragua. A 90 minute bus ride took us to the old colonial Spanish capital of Leon. Along the way, I was amazed by luxuriant fields of sugarcane, pineapple, bananas, cashew nuts, macadamia nuts and coffee. The terrain is almost breathtakingly beautiful. Virtually anything will grow in this hot, humid environment. The volcanic soil is some of the most fertile in the world. Of 23 volcanoes in Nicaragua 17 are still active. As we prepared to tour the old Spanish cathedral, our bus parked right beside a museum established to show the history of the attempted revolts of the 1970s and 1990s. The recent political turmoil in this nation began with the three-generation Samosa dictatorship in the 1950s. The Samosas were overthrown by Daniel Ortega. In the 1980s a Civil War between the Sandinistas in the Contras further injured the nation of Nicaragua. Now virtually all of the wealth of Nicaragua is controlled by fifteen extremely wealthy families. Still, the people are hopeful. For the last two years the nation has experienced an increase in it’s gross national product of about 1.5% per year. Tourism is on the increase. The Spanish Cathedral of the Assumption has been restored to its former glory, but in this hot, humid climate a team of workers must constantly clean the inside to remove the mold that grows over every square inch of the interior. The dominant impression that I have after visiting Costa Rica, Panama, and Nicaragua is that culturally and linguistically these nations are much more similar than I expected. While they are separate nations with separate governments, the people share many of the same problems, interests, customs, and traditions.Read more