Nicaragua

by Anielka Lopez, Francisco Lopez and María de los Angeles García with introduction and translation by Lillian Hall

In 2005 Anielka and Francisco were two 15 year old students from the Martín Luther King School in a poor neighborhood of Managua. They and Maria de los Angeles García, the MLK kindergarten teacher, participated in the January 2005 Eckerd College delegation. As the economic conditions for most Nicaraguans make it difficult to visit areas within their own country, it was their first time to visit rural areas such as Miraflor and Achuapa and even the city of Estelí. In an effort to promote cross-cultural understanding and empower young Nicaraguans with potential for leadership, ProNica invited the Martin Luther King School to select three people to accompany us on a whirlwind three-week tour of their own country. María, Anielka and Francisco enriched our experiences as together we explored Nicaragua.

Nicaragua is a very beautiful country usually referred to as “the land of lakes and volcanoes”. However, within this beauty we can find her real face, not physical or geographic, Nicaraguan well but socioeconomic. One which is such a problem that it slowly kills our young population and harvests poverty, hunger, illiteracy and political disturbances.

Such is the situation in Managua, Nicaragua’s capital, where the greatest concentration of people is found, where many youth have the possibility of studying, laughing, and playing at the same time there are young people who sniff glue at the stoplights and markets or who live in the La Chureca municipal garbage dump where drug addiction, prostitution, poverty, and hunger are rampant.

In Nicaragua, foreign companies which come to invest in our country do not offer adequate work conditions which is the case of the majority of the “free trade zones”. These textile companies, mainly owned by Taiwanese, Philippino, and Korean owners, which offer jobs to the Nicaraguans, pay no taxes yet the government encourages them to come to Nicaragua anyway. Nothing is said of the mistreatment suffered by the workers who are the vast majority young women – physical, psychological and moral mistreatment suffered by these people – nor of the terrible health conditions and the low salaries which are part of the exploitation by the part of these foreign owners. Most likely the foreign countries which consume these goods have no idea of this situation.

Nor do they probably know of the city known as “three times heroic”, which is the city of Estelí, where thousands of young Nicaraguans, of both sexes, from 13 years and up, gave their lives in the war of 1979 to liberate our people from the Somoza dictatorship, where to this dayNothing is said of the mistreatment suffered by the workers all these anonymous heroes are remembered with fervor and admiration, where their families, and in particular their mothers, remember the loss of their sons and daughters as if it were yesterday.

And also that there are people who have overcome this difficult situation and have the strength to go forward, who have organized their communities as in the case of El Limón and Miraflor. In the latter, the community has organized itself with the goal of conserving its flora and fauna and living in harmony with nature.

Achuapa, a small municipality in the León province: this little town, which in spite of being so small has people with enormous hearts and with an unforgettable organizational ability, trying to be self-sufficient and live from what they produce. Much like the community of El Lagartillo which during the period of the revolution the contras took the lives of six young people who sacrificed their lives to defend their community and keep the contras at bay while the rest of the community fled on foot to Achuapa to escape. In spite of this sad history, they have struggled to go forward little by little and make positive change in their community today.

Los Hornos is another small community of Achuapa where there is also grassroots organization. Here the annual drought hits hard, yet by doing extensive digging they have found water which will need to be well distributed to benefit the whole community. They are currently building a well and a clothes washing area which should be ready before the worst part of the dry season.

Let’s not forget Nicaragua is a country full of natural resources. Our lakes, volcanoes, ponds, rivers and waterfalls beautify and also provide progress and resources from which we can live.

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Nicaragua

Stateside office

Nicaragua office