Nicaragua: ‘Too much tears and blood’

The ‘Real and Renowned Basilica Cathedral of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,’ a.k.a. Our Lady of Grace, in Léon, Nicaragua’s second largest city (after Managua). The city is proud of its university, the oldest in Central America, known for its medicine and law programs. Our guide Fito said, ‘Here in Léon, we produce brains.’ And coffee. And peanuts. And call centers, where a worker can earn $600 per month… a doctor, $500.

Nicaragua is the largest and the second poorest country in the Central American-Caribbean region. Only Haiti is poorer. The 38-mile bus ride through the streets of the port of Corinto, up the excellent two-lane Japanese-funded highway, and through the narrow streets of Léon was proof. This is a very nice home along the route…

… but this is more typical.

A roadside ‘pop stand’…

… and a doctor’s office.

Fito told us up front that he wouldn’t spew facts, he would tell us stories. He was born in Léon and lives now in the mountains outside the city. He grew up and was educated in Berlin and England (his father is a physicist), but came back to work here in social services; tour guiding is his second job. The government considers $1 a day adequate wage — if you earn that, you are not poor. Our bus driver earns $1.50 a day, so he is not poor. Good pay would be $300 a month — but it costs $40 a month to send one child to school, then add the cost of the 3 required uniforms, notebooks and pencils, textbooks, transportation to school. Many cannot afford this so they buy on credit. But with their low salaries, no bank will give them a loan. I asked Fito if he knows the word ‘loan shark.’ He assured me he does… the Spanish word is usurero. Many Nicaraguans go next door to Costa Rica to work. Asked why he does not emigrate, he said his wife is from there and doesn’t want to leave. A passenger asked Fito about his two daughters. The younger one, who is five-and-a-half, is autistic. Fito believes this is due to the polluted water, caused by industrial waste, which he says is also the cause of the odd swellings on his arm. He and his family had lived in the city, but the care his daughter received at the city school was inadequate (to say the least) so they moved into the mountains where he knows that she is at least safe. In his social services job, Fito visits far-outlying indigenous villages. He brings a portable generator and a film projector and shows them documentaries and other films to give them some education about the outside world. On average, he says, one in every five people cannot read or write. Other countries we’ve visited so far claim literacy in the high 90%. Various church groups come to Nicaragua on humanitarian missions. These include drilling wells — the deeper water is safe and does not lead to (in our guide’s words) epilepsy, cancers, lupus and autism. Many local people who were born and raised Catholic are converting to the religions of the groups that come to help them. The missionary mission has not changed in 500 years.

As for the political history of Nicaragua… as Fito said, ‘Too much tears and blood.’ In a peanut shell (thanks to wikipedia): The Spanish era lasted from 1522 until 1821. But the English were there, too: ‘Great Britain, which had claimed the Mosquito Coast [on the Atlantic] as a protectorate since 1655, delegated the area to Honduras in 1859 before transferring it to Nicaragua in 1860.’ Wiki continues: ‘Since its independence [1838], Nicaragua has undergone periods of political unrest, dictatorship, and fiscal crisis—the most notable causes that led to the Nicaraguan Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s and the Contra War of the 1980s...’ Think Sandinistas. Think Ortega.

Scrawny dogs and cats work the Plaza. Many ponies and horses pull light, easy-rolling people carts. This starving animal is only one in a line hauling bricks to a work site. On a more cheerful note, Nicaragua has the second-largest rainforest in the Americas and has set a goal to have 90% renewable energy by 2020. It has three types of volcanoes: lava, sand and water. Those last two spew sand or acidic water when they blow, which, come to think of it, can’t be too cheerful. I just googled all this and it’s complicated so, either take my word for it or look it up for yourselves. Léon Enterprise… The whistle seller… the pedicurist… the restaurants… the tiny bodega… the roadside fruit stand.