What information is most important to you on NL?

Submitted by fyl on 26 February, 2008 - 08:27.
Culture
10% (9 votes)
Living in Nicaragua
62% (53 votes)
Making connections
17% (15 votes)
Politics
3% (3 votes)
Residency/Immigration
7% (6 votes)
Total votes: 86

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Some surprises here

Submitted by fyl on 10 April, 2008 - 07:15.

While I am not surprised at which answers were most popular, I am somewhat suprised at:

  • Residency/Immigration being only 7%
  • Politics being 3%

Residency/immigration being low can be explained as everyone already having that under control. But, unless you have a different source for your Nicaraguan politics, you might be missing something.

Things in Nicaragua are political. The way you get things done is politics. Knowing the politics of your community as well as national politics can make a big difference.

To contrast this with the U.S., there politics does something for fat cats. More often than not that means businesses paying people to "guide" politicians. I have seen that on the inside and the outside.

Here, it is very different. A bottle of Flor de Caña or even a pastry appropriately placed makes a big difference in what government services you get and when you get them. Some call this corruption. I just like to think of it as equal access to government.

Tens of years ago there was an attempt at something similar. "Support Your Local Police" bumperstickers became very common. I think it failed to work because the police quickly figured out it was politics. Better to buy a cop a donut.

In retrospect, maybe those who don't live here call that "culture" rather than "politics". In any case, it is good stuff to know.

my interpretation

Submitted by geobear on 10 April, 2008 - 10:43.

If we had the ability to vote for more than one item, or maybe to rank them by priority, you probably would've seen a slightly different picture.

I definitely think that Residency/Immigration issues are important (I've asked a lot of questions, myself), but they're just one issue. Then there's "Culture" vs. "Living in Nicaragua". What exactly is the difference? You really can't live in Nicaragua without experiencing the culture, although I guess you can get a small picture of the culture just by visiting Nicaragua as opposed to living there. I just felt like "Living in Nicaragua" seemed to encompass more than "Culture" or "Residency/Immigration".

As for politics, I guess we're interpreting that differently. Your police story in "Today's finca adventure" strikes me as fitting into the "Living in Nicaragua" or "Culture" category. One of the occurrances people may encounter as part of daily life. When you say "Politics", I guess I think of posts such as "Ortega Wants to Strengthen Bilateral Cooperation with Angola", or "Bolivia's Morales Remains Popular". I suppose some of these posts are connected to daily life in Nicaragua, but only indirectly. And quite frequently, they don't have anything to do with Nicaragua at all, but are about Venezuela, Cuba, the USA, etc.