myers@uwmacc.UUCP (Latitudinarian Lobster) (10/24/85)
I am posting a series of eight articles based upon my trip to Nicaragua in the early part of September. These articles will be appearing in the University of Wisconsin student newspaper, *The Daily Cardinal*. I'll be posting them one per day to net.politics. Only this first article will be cross-posted to net.travel. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Observations on the Nicaraguan People This is the first of a series of eight articles written by Jeff Myers, a Madison resident and employee of the Madison Academic Comput- ing Center. The author was in Nicaragua for two weeks as a volunteer for tecNICA, a North American technical aid project. The articles will attempt to focus on present day conditions in Nicaragua, the author's personal observations, and the small details which make life interesting rather than on the continuing political debate in the United States. Is it possible to get to know the people of a country in a short visit of two weeks? After all, Nicaragua is only a tiny nation of about 3 million inhabitants, 600,000 of which live in the capital, Managua (where I stayed most of the time). Well, I did my best - I went out of my way to talk with as many people as I could, but as my work was focused on computer technology, I was only able to have extended conversations with members of the middle classes. But talk isn't everything - the remarkable thing about Nicaragua for me was the aura. In spite of the whole set of adverse conditions hanging over the country, in spite of the long history of US occupa- tion of the country, in spite of walking through crowds and dark streets, I never felt so safe and non-threatened in my life. This feeling was not a result of seeing soldiers with rifles outside government office buildings or guarding construction projects, nor of the common sight of traffic cops - it simply came from the people themselves. Since I've returned to the US, I've been searching for the single English word that best describes what Nicaraguans are like. Oddly enough, the word that I have decided upon is `businesslike,' taken in the best senses of the word. I'm going to have to explain what I mean simply by giving various examples. In the markets and stores people don't yell `ice cold coke' or anything else - you're not bothered when you're just looking. Hag- gling is virtually unknown, people were consistently honest about prices (which are incredibly cheap if you have dollars). Walking down the street, people don't stare at strangers, but they're adept at checking you out in a non-obstrusive fashion. It is not that people are unfriendly - it's extremely easy to strike up a conversation if you demonstrate to people that you are interested in them. The best way to do this for a foreigner is simply to speak Spanish and to make an effort to learn the local accent, words, and idioms - I found that I received a lot of respect just for being interested in little details. But a real key to learning about Nicaraguans is to watch them when they're dealing with each other. Two of the most interesting evenings we spent in attending a church service and a CDS meeting (Committee for the Defense of Sandin- ismo). While I'll talk about these more in a future article, both occasions had something important in common - people went out of their way not just to pay attention to the proceedings, but also to talk or simply acknowledge their friends. This was especially evident at the CDS meeting, where everyone was standing and milling around, with a lot of friendly jostling (as opposed to everyone establishing their space and to energetic pushing). People were paying attention to the program (especially to the music) but also had other more mundane things going on. Depending on the type of church and political meet- ings you attend in the US, this may or may not be similar to your own experiences here. So what does all this have to do with the word `businesslike'? I mean mostly that Nicaraguans are practical - in work and play they are unwilling to waste time on what to them is trivia - hence no haggling, doing more than one thing at the same time when possible, and seem- ingly ignoring people they don't know. Another good example of the kind of the peculiar beauty and effi- ciency that I'm talking about was demonstrated to me everytime I was on or near a road. Vehicles honk with great frequency - when passing, when a cycler or pedestrian is looking the wrong way, or when another vehicle is poking its nose into an intersection. At first this all seemed exceptionally obnoxious given the way we handle the road in the US. But I came to realize that people were going out of their way to make the somewhat torn-up roads as safe as possible for everyone. The efficiency of traffic cops also impressed me in the same fashion. More observations on the people will come out in my later arti- cles, but here I wanted to give Madisonians a feel for the people as a whole in Managua, which is very much our sister city in various ways. These kinds of generalities are really only understood if you go to the place being described - one of my reasons for writing these arti- cles is to encourage folks to go and find out how wonderful Nicaragua is for themselves, regardless of your level of support for the current regime. An aura is something that you really have to feel for your- self. Next: Wages and Prices in Nicaragua