Nicaragua!

What a wonderful weekend in Nicaragua! Going to another country in Latin America after being in Costa Rica so long made me want to know so much about the culture of Nicaragua, including the structure of families, slang words, daily activities and behaviors, etc.

            Besides the fact that Granada, Nicaragua was very colonial and historical, it was also cleaner than Costa Rica. I noticed a man picking up trash in the streets as his job. The roads were also much nicer, with fewer potholes and painted lines. There were more people asking for money and trying to sell things, but I believe they were just pushier because we were in a very touristy area. Just as there are sodas on the side of the road in Costa Rica, there were many restaurants in Granada and the tourist places we visited. Tourism is definitely something that I sense is growing in Nicaragua. One of the streets in Granada was filled with restaurants and venders with music playing at night in the street, and all of this was meant to appeal to tourists.

One of the differences that I noticed had to do with the lack of fruit stands that I saw in Nicaragua compared to the amount that we see when traveling around Costa Rica. While I found it so nice that our breakfasts at the hotel consisted of massive amounts of fruit, including white pineapple, I found it weird that there were not the same opportunities to buy fruit as there are in Costa Rica. You don’t see bananas hanging outside of a store or mangos being sold on the side of the road. There was only one spot I saw fruit being sold and it consisted of a small little table with other fried/breaded things. The lack of these fruit stands and the appearance of fruit make me wonder if there are less small farmers in Nicaragua which results in less small venders. I did notice the large amount of banana plants dispersed among the land on the way back to Costa Rica, as well as what Profe Nina told me to be Ginger, but they looked like mass productions of these crops and not necessarily small farmers. Again, I then consider if Nicaragua is mostly owned by larger corporations who have farmers producing the crops for them, and less small farmers are present because they can’t compete with the larger companies. This could be a partial reason for the increase in Nicaraguan migration to Costa Rica because of the lack of jobs.

Bringing up Nicaraguans with my family was not as hostile as I thought it was going to be. While they told me that Nicaraguans have been causing more trouble in Costa Rica in the last decade or so, they also made a point in saying that Nicaraguans are humans and have the same rights as Costa Ricans. My brother told me that many Nicaraguans are drawn to the “fraud business” in Costa Rica because they make a decent amount of money fast. My family didn’t really desire to give me much insight as to what they thought about Nicaragua or Nicaraguans. This made me think that it was somewhat of a “touchy subject,” so I let the conversation end. My impression was that they wanted to say what was politically correct but still show that they didn’t like the fact that there were so many immigrants. There seems to be a feeling of respect but also superiority over Nicaraguans when they are discussed within the home in Costa Rica. I think this can definitely relate to how Americans sometimes feel about different immigrants coming to the States. While the United States is very appealing to many foreigners and is known as the welcoming and free country, there can be a feeling of superiority over a group of immigrants who are a mix of illegal and legal. I wonder if this is a common feeling towards all immigrants to Costa Rica or just Nicaraguans coming to Costa Rica. This makes me want to think like Diamond and ask the question, “How did it become that there are so many Nicaraguans now moving to Costa Rica and not the other way around?” J