Would you tell a friend to move to Nicaragua now?

Politics is always a pain, and most likely the electorate of Nicaragua will vote out Ortega next time and a mediocre government of the center right will milk the country for its fair share of the spoils.

The thing that would cause me to hestiate too tell a friend to move down here is that its just a hard place to get anything done, especially if you have to do anything with the government or the public utilites.

If your friend wants to sit on the beach, or a bar stool, or watch cable tv in a rental shed house, its fine, as long as he doesn´t mind the water and power going off all the time.

I´d advise a friend to shop around, see Nicaragua, Panama, CR, and Ecuador and make up their own mind.

I´d also advise a friend not to buy anything or make any long term commitments until he had his cedula wrapped up. Life is short, he could be vacationing in Chile.

Costa Rica - Boooorrrring!

Nicaragua - It's not for sissies!

O quantum est in rebus inane! / A palabras necias, oídos sordos.

I know the answer! The answer lies within the heart of all mankind! The answer is twelve? I think I'm in the wrong building. - Peanuts (Charles M. Schulz)

My only change would be that some people I know aren't prepared to deal with how "more volatile" countries govern. If I felt they were not prepared, I would not recommend Nicaragua for them. I might recommend Costa Rica but probably not.

When I was just in Costa Rica I saw "Arias = Dictador" painted on walls there. In fact, it was almost as popular as "No TLC". When I lived in Costa Rica I witnessed serious protest, for example, blocking highways into San José with burning tires to protest mandatory yearly vehicle testing (RTV).

In the U.S., political disagreement tends to be either marginalized (oh, that's just a group of crazies/blacks/Communists/...) or just plain ignored by major media. TV is filled with thinks to distract you from reality (the war in Iraq, sports, ...) and any political change in direction is very slow. In general, both parties know they are better off with the status quo.

Not so in Latin America. With no "exciting foreign wars" to cover and people more likely to go to a sports event than chanel surf to find one, the exciting news is traffic accidents, abused wives, crime and political fighting. (I remember when I was first in Costa Rica thinking there was 100 times more traffic accidents than in the U.S. Well, there are more but when you don't have any other things to talk about, they make good video footage.)

Am I happy with the current version of El Pacto? Certainly not. But, if I was in the U.S., I would be complaining about how one political party likes to blame the other but, in effect, they facilitate each other. The difference is that here people see what is going on and talk about it. In the U.S., you hear "this is the greatest democracy in the world" so many times that you accept it and go back to watching sports. In other words, you don't realize to have a democracy, you have to participate.

On the ground here, I see many questionable land titles getting resolved, the public registry being updated, roads being built or repaired, electrical generation and distribution being improved and, in general, steps toward fixing real issues.

The biggest problem I see here is poverty. That problem is exacerbated by rising energy costs. Because people were already poor, there is just less buffer for them when costs increase than someone in the U.S. In order to prevent serious rises in crime, action needs to be taken to keep people on the lower economic rungs from falling off the ladder. Free health care and education was clearly a start but the cost of necessities has risen enough to more than offset these benefits.

So, what about someone moving here from say the U.S. or Canada? I don't think the political game playing will have an effect. There is enough public participation that sanity will remain. But, as I stated above, the perception may be pretty scary for someone unfamiliar with a high level of direct involvement. The only threat I see is if theft increases, those that have more are the most likely to be the victim. Those that move here from the first world are more likely to be those that have more.

I would advise against it.

Al