Nicaragua Musings | Making Storytellers

We have been back in Costa Rica for a few weeks now and I’m still not exactly sure how to “summarize” our time in Nicaragua. Let’s face it. When someone asks you “how was xyz?” they aren’t looking for a long-winded, confused answer. They want “That ski resort was amazing.” // “That city is dirty.” // “That beach is so cool.” // etc.). The challenge in describing Nicaragua is that the only category it falls into cleanly is the one called “places that defy categorization."

Beautiful church lit up at night? That's Nicaragua!

...AND this (a package of sausages jammed in

and (sadly) abject poverty is still way to prevalent.

It is a country of contradictions where kindness and violence, 21st century modernity and crazy anachronisms, striking beauty and shocking scenes, and of course the underlying drivers of wealth and poverty — all of these live in such close proximity with one another that it is impossible to get your footing and fit many (if any) aspects of Nicaragua into simple categories. So...How'd The Country End Up Like This...? I read a lot about Nicaragua many moons ago but I am always shocked at how much more meaningful and impactful a lesson on ANY topic is when you can create firsthand context during the learning experience. Jack’s first home-schooling assignment in Nicaragua was to learn about the history of Nicaragua in the 20th century and give a bit of an oral report on what he learned. Jack being Jack he is now way more of an expert on the Samosa family, the Sandinista movement, Iran-Contra, etc. than I could ever hope to be. But I think his learning helped everyone gain a bit more context into why Nicaragua IS the land of contradictions that it is these days. For SO many decades the place was basically a country whose development went into suspended animation (robbed blind by the Samozas, paralyzed by fighting and its status as a cold war proxy-site, and then held back by the bumbling fits and starts of early quasi-democracy). It is only in recent years that they have begun to make up for all of that lost time (and it isn’t as if they are even today “enjoying” a super-fully functioning pluralistic democracy). In many ways you see the signs of progress — highways in decent shape, some tourism developing, massive wind farms, a sloooowly growing middle class, etc. But massive chunks of the population remains stuck in the past (horse carts still share city streets with cars, chunks of the country still remain effectively “off the grid”, etc.).

Delivery cart across the street from where we were staying...

And it isn’t as simple as just throwing some money at the problem. During our weeks in Nicaragua we had numerous conversations with foreigners (working with NGO’s) and Nicaraguans and they all talked about the ongoing struggle to overcome entrenched cultural attitudes toward things like education (“why the hell does my kid NEED to learn to read and write…I never did”), cleanliness (“i keep the inside of my house spotless even if the floors are dirt and the walls are rusted tin sheets but why should i care if we all dump our trash in the street?”) and attitudes toward women (suffice to say that “machismo” is alive and well and I’m not just talking about Audrey getting a lot of whistles while walking on the streets…I’m talking about things like the fact that one of the leading causes of death for women is still being killed by their ex-). Things ARE changing, though. Free medical care and education for the poor. Slowly improving infrastructure. Groups working neighborhood by neighborhood to change attitudes toward everything from clean streets to the importance of education to the importance of equal rights for women. The list goes on and on. You do “feel” change in the younger generation. There is just so much potential bottled up right now in the country. Yes, it does have the fastest growing economy in Central America right now but when you are starting from a position as the second-poorest country the HEMISPHERE (after Haiti) you need to pile up a lot of those “fastest growing…” titles to make a dent.

A sign of hope and progress in the Pantanel neighborhood (EducationPlus)

...get a break from the chaos, a good meal and some homework help (Audrey and kids serving lunch)

It is a country to watch in the years ahead. The building blocks are there with this younger generation. And people don’t give enough credit to Nicaragua for somehow (despite being the poorest country on the isthmus) avoiding the full extent of the drug-fueled chaos that engulfs its neighbors to the north. Sure, there are problems with drugs but the communal/self-policing style culture of the individual neighborhoods, towns, etc. seems to have created some level of grass-roots prophylactic against the "nearly-failed-state-syndrome" that plagues Honduras, El Salvador, etc. I’m rambling a bit but our time in Nicaragua was eye-opening. We are SO glad, now, that we were able to experience a longer stay and not just a brief tourist-stopover. The first week is spent awkwardly taking things in (and it IS awkward…even the kids pick up quickly on the fact that while we may be stopping for a lemonade in a café, that simple pleasure is BEYOND just "out of reach" for a huge slug of the population milling about in the park outside the door). But with the longer stay, they then had a couple of weeks during which they were able to try to get past the awkwardness and start to see people and places as…well…as people and places. Reinforcing lessons... A few months back, Grandpa Duncan sent us the link to some info on a documentary called “Living On One Dollar.” A group of 22 year olds had decided to try to understand poverty in a way that they couldn’t while “studying” it from the classroom. So they packed up and moved to a small village in Guatemala where the poverty level is at the much discussed “dollar a day” level. The goal was to see what it was like to try to get by with that level of income. I’ll spare you a blow-by-blow synopsis and simply urge you to watch it for yourselves. (www.livingonone.org)

Shameless plug for a short documentary that every family should watch together...

We weren’t sure how much of the film was going to register with the kids (I feared it was gong to dive to deep into theories of international development, etc.) but our fears were unfounded. The kids were almost immediately sucked in. Not only did they stay engaged while watching it, they continued to talk about it for days afterwards. It may have resonated so strongly with them in part because they have seen rural and urban poverty in various parts of Central America this year and this helped explain (in a waaay more engaging way) what we have been trying to discuss with them as parents. But I do think that the film is made in such a clear, simple way that it is worth it for any family to sit down and watch it (ever since we watched the film I have been meaning to find a way to put in a plug for it in this blog…phew…finally checked that box...). I felt that our time in Nicaragua gave the kids the opportunity to even further contextualize what they had seen glimpses of over the year and what they had learned about watching “Living On One Dollar.” Walking through and then volunteering a bit in the Pantanel neighborhood helped hammer home what life really IS like “on a dollar a day.” But it also helped hammer home the points that Audrey discussed in her latest blog entry about “the luck of the draw” and the fact that these neighborhoods are filled with people just like them — but they were people who didn’t happen to have the luck of being born into a millieu of opportunity. It meant a lot as parents to see the kids talking with and playing with kids from the Pantanel neighborhood without any pretensions that they were doing anything more than playing with some kids.

Playing at Casa de Los Sueños (EducationPlus)

As the wise diner-owner once said in “The Muppets Take Manhattan” — “Peoples is peoples. Is good peoples. Is bad peoples. But peoples is peoples.” Shifting gears...some fun stuff... We now have one Nicaragua entry about Liadan’s birthday and two in which Audrey and I force you to read our (amateur) philosophy ramblings. But we DID do a LOT of exploring around the area as well — from simple walks about town to some of our coolest hiking/exploring experiences of the year (I never thought I would see the day that snake-phobic Ella and Audrey would be found exploring a bat, stalagmite AND snake-filled cave in the pitch black of night!). A few pics from school, exploring the area, and just hanging around Granada... Casa Xalteva (Spanish School...)...

I had to include a pic from the school (the kids with their teachers). SUCH a great experience. We would highly recommend Casa Xalteva to anyone.

A look across the park at the Xalteva church (next to the kids' school)

Tour of Las Isletas (in Lake Nicaragua)...

A tour of Las Isletas (in ocean-sized Lake Nicaragua)

Taking a break on Las Isletas tour for a swim in Lake Nicaragua (luckily none of the bull-sharks showed up...yup...there are SHARKS in the lake!?!)

A tree filled with Charlie's favorite -- oropendola nests!

Family Drive out to Laguna de Apoyo...

Laguna de Apoyo (crazy blue lake in the crater of an old volcano)

Floating around looking for fish in Laguna de Apoyo

Family Trip to Volcan Mombacho...

Stopping at the coffee farm on the way up (not that we don't see enough coffee all over our street in Heredia!)

Cool little slot canyon near the top of Volcan Mombacho

Mombacho WAS kinda crazy. That moss covered slot canyon was about 20 minutes from THIS...

Night Tour of Volcan Masaya (aka "Coolest "Exploring" Trip During our Time in Nicaragua")

That's Andres (tour guide connected to Casa Xalteva) explaining the history of the volcano...with a little help from Liadan)

Smoke coming up from the crater (with recreation of the original "Cross of Masaya" in the background)

Thaaaaat's right. I managed to capture a bat in mid-flight coming out of a dark cave (ok...it was total luck...it was pitch black and I was taking a pic of the kids and the bat showed up). But still cool...!

For those who know Audrey well...did you EVER think you would see her venturing into a dark bat and snake-filled cave at night?!?

Some pics from around Granada...

Audrey and hairy-head walking back to our place after dinner...

One of the many Easter-week processions...

Night time Easter week procession near the Basilica

The Easter Bunny evidently chose to use these instead of baskets this year...

Gavin Easter Egg hunt continues (who cares what country we are in?!?)

Funeral procession (funeral processions include hearses pulled by horses draped in white clothes)...

Jack, our budding art-critic, LOVED the art museum in Granada.

Ella giving the staff of Hotel Xalteva a thank-you cake on our last day... : )

Back to Costa Rica...! It is only fitting that we book-end our discussion of Nicaragua with a quick recap of our trip back across the border. Those of you who read about our border crossing from CR into Nicaragua will recall the seemingly random and never-ending series of steps required to get from one side to the other. Sadly, it isn’t much better going back the other way. I have now decided that crossing the CR-Nicaragua border is very similar to an episode of “The Amazing Race.”

It is scary how well this analogy works...

In this case, you and your team have to race against hundreds of other teams all vying to get across the finish line first. You use a clue to figure out which line to go to first. After completing a task (filling out forms or getting your car sprayed or something like that) you are then (and only then) given a clue as to where you must go next. Luckily we never had to learn what happens if you are the last team to finish. At the very least, we were smart enough this time around to build in a one night stop just over the border (in case the crossing took 5 hours instead of 2-3). We went back to Cañas Castilla again (our little “find” on the way to Nicaragua — Swiss-owned farm with some cabins). On the bright side, we were once again able to experience crazy stuff like crocodiles 20 feet away in the river, monkeys teasing us and throwing stuff (loudly) down on the metal-sheet roofs of our cabins, etc.).

Checking out the crocodile in the river...

Monkeys kept throwing stuff at our cabin!

On the downside, the electricity went out for most of the night and the metal-roof cabins QUICKLY reached 100 degrees inside. It was BRUTAL (half asleep at 3:00 am Jack turned to me and said “I don’t think I can make it. I’m serious. I think I might actually die before morning…”). All was forgotten the next morning when the monkeys were back. Playful monkeys have a way of making all one’s problems fade. We should build that concept into our foreign policy. An unforgettable experience... I’m not sure when we’ll have another chance to go to Nicaragua but I hope we find a way to make it happen someday. It’s an amazing place in which we created countless family memories. I know that it is still far off the radar of most travelers but we would HIGHLY recommend it to ANYONE who has the chance to make it happen. You will not be disappointed. Unless you go to the supermarket in Granada and the sausages are still tucked in with the mouthwash. Then you might be disappointed. But other than that, it'll be great...! : )