Nicaragua Entries: Managua

This is a story about that one time in college where I picked up my shit & booked a trip to Nicaragua to learn about English as a foreign language education in Central America.

Flying into Managua Airport on March 21st…

Looking down on the barren ground, I could see clouds of smoke rising from the earth; dry arid earth. I assumed the Nicaraguan people were burning fire lines to prevent further deforestation because of the heat, the dry grass that covered the ground, and my experience in California with wildfires. I naïvely had the perspective of a third party already, but I would soon find the smoking gun that you find quite common here.

I was touching down in Managua, Nicaragua. A city, a country, heck, a new world that I was not accustomed to. My mission here was simple: research English education in the Spanish speaking world. With this in mind, I had an agenda, people to meet, and a culture I was eager to sink my teeth into.

We had passed such beautiful tropics and turquoise coastlines on the way in passing over Mexico, and the Eastern seaboard of Central America. Nicaragua is an isthmus between Costa Rica and Honduras with the Pacific Ocean and community centers to the West, and the Caribbean and heavy tourism to the East. You could see it all from above. As we began our descent to into Managua airport, you could see the tin roofs of ghettos, a few vacant baseball diamonds, and cars going through the motions. As we prepared for landing, I wondered if these people below me had any idea I was observing their way of life, and if they would ever get the opportunity to observe mine.

The plane’s tires hit the ground with force, giving us a strong jolt. Wearing a large coat because of the limited amount of space in my carry-on, and brisk weather in the airport in Texas, I could now feel the heat. It was probably ninety something degrees, and according to the locals it wasn’t normally that hot; I got lucky I guess.

After all of the procedure and chit-chat, we finally began to move from the plane, and take our first steps into Nicaragua. I felt like there were eyes on me, being a single guy walking through this new world with some random agenda. I had the idea that they were tagging me as a drug smuggler since I would only be in Managua for the weekend, and Nicaragua for only a week. I was disorientated; this white boy wasn’t used to the third world yet. I would soon learn that wasn’t what everyone thought, nor was anyone every really paying attention to me there.

We walked through the airport, and my first mistake was to exchange my currency at the first place I saw in the airport. I should have waited until I found a bank or even a local merchant because I would later find out these fools charged my forty US dollars to exchange an amount of one hundred and eighty. This mistake was not that much of a set back. When I began to exit customs and find my driver to the hotel, I was told to pay ten US dollars… I just converted it all. Was I, or was I not in Nicaragua? They denied their own currency; inflation at it’s finest. I then proceeded to find an ATM and took out more US currency (it gave me the option).

I went back to exit the airport, and immigration. The woman and older gentlemen who made me find US bills finally let me pass and laughed a bit at my hesitant and foreign Spanish. I really didn’t think about it, but after my trip I realized my linguistic differences, and subtle nervousness made our conversation rough around the edges.

I rushed through the small airport with my backpack strapped to my shoulders, my duffle back in my right hand, and my jacket in my left. I had my passport tucked away, and fifty Cordoba in my sock. It was time to face this new country. The sliding glass doors let me escape the airport, but heat entered quickly as if I opened an oven. I saw the man with my name on a mall piece of white paper so I approached him swiftly.

“Hola — que tal hombre?”

“Buenas…”

He wasn’t one for conversation. But I felt safe enough, so I went with him, and tossed my bags in his outdated Toyota pickup truck. Here, I only really witnessed Asian makes and models, which I would notice as we began to drive into the city. I asked many questions about the city, and its culture, but my friend here only gave me answers, and nothing more. He had no questions for me. We drove for about thirty minutes, and I tried to take in all this new information piece by piece.

Now, normally when you think about the city-center of a country, you intend to find the strongest example of their economy, political governance, and tourism or entertainment with the possibly of a very vibrant nightlife. The thing is, I didn’t see that. Maybe I didn’t dig deep enough — and that was my mistake as a journalist in a country different than my own, but what I witnessed was extreme poverty in the “epicenter” of Managua, and people selling anything and everything from sides of the road to their own homes. Life existed, and the streets were always busy with thousands of taxi’s that could get you from A to B in a matter of minutes without a wait, but there was nothing more to it. You would see taxi cabs pick up and drop off every second of the drive to my hotel.

Expecting businessmen to be walking the streets in their daily attire, or possibly tourists visiting out the capital for all of its deep political history, I still saw none of that. This was my ignorance. Believing that Central America would be something like South America. This was just like my last adventure in Spain, and how I presumed their food culture would be full of spice due to my naïve familiarity with Mexican food here in California. “OH — they speak Spanish, they must share a similar culture!” I would say my head. I was wrong then, and I was wrong again, here, in Managua. Hey, I’m learning.

In all honesty, besides the Peace Corps, and other “extranjeros” (foreigners) that were living here to help the people in Education or standards of living, I felt like the only American tourist in the city. The poverty was as palpable as the heat, but let’s not cut the Nicaraguan short, I was witnessing a hungry work ethic and need-based entrepreneurship. The people here want to succeed whether they know it or not. During my observation, I noticed the average Nicaraguan in a constant struggle to win over the day, while all of us back in the states think way too far in the future; setting up dreams, goals, and schedules to fulfill our cravings for success. In Nicaragua, it’s a little different.

People want to be successful — they want the “plata” (wealth) — but they see it more along the lines as working from AM to PM, rather than investing in a future. The people here were used to unfulfilled promises, and didn’t let the outside world affect them too much. They believed in working hard on their own to feed their families, and keep a roof over their head. It was a humbling lifestyle, but there is a huge investment opportunity right below their noses, yet they haven’t quite seen amazing feats English could do for their tomorrows besides take them away from making a few dollars, today. I was absorbing all of this during my drive from the airport to my hotel, but I had much more to learn. My adventure had just begun.

To be continued…