Nicaragua – a land of inactive volcanoes, hot tropics, and long coastlines flanking two oceans, but also a land of troubled history and people who live in acute poverty.

The land of the thousand volcanoes – that is what Nicaragua is also called, because of the numerous volcanoes marking out a line through the country along its Pacific coast. The nation stretches out with its tropical vegetation over approximately 130,000 sq. km, between the Pacific and the Atlantic.

The major cities, such as the capital, Managua, are in the west, while the Atlantic coastal region is rather sparsely populated. Around six million people live in Nicaragua, a country which ranks among the world’s very poor countries, with an annual per-capita income of 1,050 US dollars.

Sarah van Bentum, who worked for a year in a poor quarter in the city of Tipitapa talks about the situation people face in the Central American country:

„Anyone who has the possibility to leave, for work in Costa Rica or the USA, is happy to do so. But a lot of these people are not able to step into the other world – so they work in the ,informal sector’, which means that they sell their goods – usually tropical fruits (already washed and cut), newspaper, nuts, sweets, sunglasses, radios or whatever you are looking for – in marketplaces, at bus stations or even on the streets, in between the driving cars. I guess there’s no need to say that you’ll never make the big money with this kind of work. But most of them have no choice.”

Strong Spanish influences

Almost 70 percent of Nicaraguans are mestizos, whose ancestors are Indians as well as Spaniards. The people of Spanish origin comprise about 18 percent, the remaining population groups have African or Indian roots.

With the conquest of Nicaragua by the Spanish, the Catholic Church also came into the country, in which today around 80 percent profess the Roman Catholic faith. Nicaragua attained its independence from Spain in 1821.

Today, as a consequence of the colonial era, Spanish is the official language of Nicaragua; on the east coast, Creole – a Caribbean form of English – is also spoken.

Troubled history

Over the last few decades, the political news in Nicaragua can claim to have drawn the interest of the global public, time and time again, viewed in comparison to other countries.

In particular, the struggle of the Sandinista liberation movement against the Somoza dictatorship was followed very attentively worldwide. The civil war culminated in the triumph of the Sandinistas and Somoza’s escape to Florida in1979. Subsequently Sandinistas in turn faced military opposition from the Contras, supported by the USA.

In 1990 the Sandinistas were voted out of office – albeit the former Sandinista leader, Daniel Ortega, succeeded in returning to power in 2006 as a candidate of the Left.

You will find further information about Nicaragua at the following addresses:

• www.auswaertiges-amt.de
• www.ahk.de
• www.wikitravel.org