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NICARAGUA

     Central America’s Nicaragua, home to 5.4 million residents, is slightly smaller than the state of New York.  It is one of this hemisphere’s poorest countries, suffers from a very low per capita income level, has massive unemployment, and sports one of the most unequal distribution of income measurements on the entire globe.

     The earliest evidence of human habitation in Nicaragua is found in the Acahualinca people (and some animal) footprints preserved under layers of volcanic ash from 10,000 years ago.  Indigenous people adopted the Aztec culture when the Aztecs moved south into this area in the 15^th Century to establish a trading colony.  Christopher Columbus investigated this area when he sailed down the Caribbean in 1502, and the Spanish colonized (by force) the area that would become Nicaragua a few years later.  The country gained its independence from Spain in 1821.

     The Nicaraguan people and economy have suffered through several devastating periods and events in the past Century, including the 20-year dictatorship of General Somoza and another 20 years under his sons, a terrible earthquake (1972), massive levels of homelessness and illiteracy, US-funded Contra rebels fighting against the elected Sandinista government, a five-year trading embargo set up by the USA, and colossal destruction by Hurricane Mitch (1998).

     Half of the population of Nicaragua lives below the poverty line, and, for these people, medical care is quite inadequate.