The most difficult aspect of daily life in Nicaragua for me is the discrepancy between rich and poor. It is evident everywhere - the palatial homes overlooking the bay to the kids begging for money for bread. It is exacerbated by television, which sends a message that everyone else in the world has a big house, five TVs, and 14 cars and no one ever works.
One manifestation of poverty is theft. Thieves are drawn to targets with lots of money and many goods, so it should be no surprise that the criminal element would be drawn to a tourist town like San Juan del Sur. Although crime can be a symptom of poverty, most of the crimes committed here are not about feeding one's family, but rather providing a man with a "For Hire", some coke, and a bottle Flor de Cana. Maybe an iPod and a television, too. There is too much of a "These people are so poor - is it any wonder they need to steal?" mentality on the part of the tourists and the police.
Unfortunately, most people have felt the need to protect their investments in Nicaragua and downplay anything that could keep the tourists away. This silence has abetted the dramatic increase in robberies and assaults over the past ten months, particularly near Playa Yanqui and Remanso. Even Playa Maderas is not immune. It is not just petty theft: people have been violently assaulted.
I was having dinner with a group of friends last week and we were comparing war stories. A surprisingly large percentage of guests and our closest friends have had guns pointed at their heads. Others have faced machetes. Almost everyone in the room had been robbed or had their homes broken into.
Last month, a friend was riding his mountain bike on the road between my house and Yanqui when two men with machetes robbed him. The robbers appear to hang out at the house at the entrance of Yanqui. They drive a pickup truck. Apparently, the names and residence of these men are known to the police, yet the police have done nothing. My husband rides in the same area. One day the same three men followed him for a while and then conveniently made a U-turn when he did. They were watching; their game was obvious. I worry when he rides in that direction. The criminals have gotten more brazen. They have no fear of repercussions.
Ask any local and they will tell you that Yanqui is dangerous. Off the top of my head, I know of at least 15 incidents that have occurred at Yanqui and Remanso. (Remanso is north of Yanqui.) It might be the theft of a pair of sandals, camera, wedding ring, or a bona fide mugging complete with a machete. A few weeks ago, four people leaving Remanso in a car were targeted by two men, one with a shotgun and the other with a machete. They gunned the gas peddle and got the hell out of Dodge.
Another couple was held up at Yanqui by two men armed with machetes. The victims were herded over to their car so they could unlock the trunk and get their wallets out when all of a sudden the robbers abandoned them after noticing another thief had absconded with a camera this couple had left with their towels. The would-be robbers chased after the thief. It was probably worth losing the camera just to have that travel story. This is so Nicaraguan.
The large crowds at Playa Maderas do not offer protection from knife-wielding muggers. I know of at least five muggings and two stabbings. One of the victims of the stabbing didn’t have anything to give, yet he was still stabbed in the stomach.
Another mugging victim went to the police station to file a denuncio against his assailant and was asked, "He used this big knife to attack you, right?"
"No," said the victim. He used a switch blade (if I recall correctly), which he tossed into the ocean. The police didn't want to hear it. They pressured him to admit that a different knife was used. The victim contacted his embassy, which correctly stated, "Don't lie." Things are still precarious from the Eric Volz situation. If a gringo lied about the evidence to send some poor Nicaraguan man to jail…well, the crowd that believes that cell phone records, IM transcripts and credible eyewitnesses are just part of an elaborate ploy to frame a poor Nicaraguan crackhead is in a tizzy over the release of Eric Volz. There is no sympathy for the plight of gringos, as one acquaintance found out when taking his clients to the police station after they had been robbed and was told, "You gringos are always complaining." I am one of those always complaining" gringos. My store was burgled six times. The police would not even fill out a report five of those times. The neighbors know who the kids are, but there is that whole honor among thieves thing to think about. They protect the little kids because they are Nicaraguan and I am wealthy because I have less melanin in my epidermal layer. I have better security now, but my back wall of my store is made of bamboo. I am probably one of the only bookstores in the world with a cane wall. It's kind of trippy, but I digress.
Another of these gringo whiners was the victim of an assault. She was drying off from the shower utilizing the rays of the sun when a man entered her backyard, pulled a t-shirt over her head and held a knife to her throat. For a brief moment she thought it was her husband playing a joke - but he was in the backyard, as well, plating his guitar. She went to the police station with blood dripping from the wound on her neck, but the police told her they could not help her because they were eating lunch. I kid you not. A woman is bleeding and they say, "Come back later, after we have taken our siesta." She frantically called the landlord, who rushed down to the police station to translate. After spewing some angry words and vulgarities, the police claimed they couldn't go to the scene of the crime because…you guessed it, there was no vehicle. That may or may not be true. It might have been that the vehicle was out of fuel, a constant state. I believe this is on purpose - this way they have an excuse not to leave the vicinity of the television in the police station. You would think that with all the telenovelas and Steven Segal flicks dubbed into Spanish that the police would have some sort of model to emulate. A woman has a wound on her neck, describing the same man who robbed the Maderas victim mentioned above and the police know the assailant's name and address, but instead of rushing to her defense that would end with the death or reformation of the assailant, they ate lunch. They don't get paid enough to chase after knife-wielding assailants, so who can blame them? Dog only knows how many can actually hit a target with a gun. I think the odds that the guns have bullets are about 50-50. It is best to stay put.
The police refuse to respond to crime. Well, that's not entirely true. The transit police are really good at making up infractions - or causing them by standing in the middle lane of a rotunda.
Someone broke into my hotel room and stole a friends wallet. We were pretty sure we knew who did it, but the owners of the hotel couldn't go into this man's room without the police. Five hours later, they still had not shown up. Meanwhile, that same day I watched a transit cop cause an accident when he pulled over a truck that had done nothing wrong, and a motorcycle and bus collided when trying to maneuver around the cop. That was easily two hours of paperwork and lots of late passengers.
If you are robbed here, best to have access to a car or cab. If it's not an empty tank at the police station, it could be that something broke on the vehicle because they ran out of money for maintenance. Or someone ran over something or into something. The majority of police officers here do not have a driver's license. They ride bikes or take a bus to work. I have given several rides to the police in my travels through the country, in part for the selfish hope that my goodwill is remembered when I am pulled over for the usual random reason that often ends with dinero in exchange for the return of my license.
Every day I hear of another mugging on the beaches. I am in the position to hear about such things, as I run a popular tourist hangout. The majority of these incidents are never recorded by the police, so the real crime numbers that make Nicaragua look like a safe haven in the middle of Central America are a bit misleading. I don't feel Nicaragua is more dangerous than Honduras (lots of murders), Guatemala (rampant robberies), Panama (getting more dangerous) or Costa Rica (whose police force is so weak that in Tamarindo, business owners got together and hired their own private police force), but it isn't as safe as the self-appointed spokesmen for Nicaraguan tourism like to claim. Yes, Nicaragua might be safer than Jamaica and, yes, these problems exists in most countries, but I am writing about Nicaragua, not the United States, not Honduras, and not Costa Rica. Crime happens here, too, and tourists need to know what is going on. I cannot count how many times I have heard, "I wouldn't have gone to Playa Yanqui if someone had told me how dangerous it is." Too many business owners are afraid to give tourists the scoop for fear that acknowledging the problems will drive tourists away. It should be obvious that by not addressing these issues and not demanding police accountability, the situation is only going to get worse. Even if the locals try to keep it quite, tourists will blog about their muggings and word will get out.
Not too long ago, an 18 year-old Canadian girl was walking back to her homestay family after a night at the disco when a man grabbed her purse and started to run. She wouldn't let go, so he dragged her down the street, kicking and screaming. She was covered in road burn, but at least she saved her purse. She is not the first female victim of road burn that I have seen and spoken with.
The violence struck close to home last weekend when my friend David was stabbed in a taxi in Managua. One of the robbers aimed a gun at him and when he instinctively pushed it away from his wife who was sitting next to him, another assailant stabbed him in the leg. He spent two days in the hospital.
My friends were in a nice section of Managua when they picked up this cab.
Last weekend, eight armed men robbed, assaulted, kidnapped and threatened to kill my friend April and her son, mother, accountant, sous chef and two cuidadors. The ordeal started at 9:45 p.m. and ended around 5 a.m. Their story deserves an entry of its own. One cuidador had his head bashed in. It is a miracle that he is still alive. Another cuidador and the accountant were kicked and punched. April was kicked hard on her hip and along her leg. One of the assailants pressed a Rambo-sized knife against her neck. It left a mark 5 inches long and 3/4" high. During the kidnapping in which the assailants commandeered April's truck and the accountant's motorcycle (because in true Nicaraguan fashion, the getaway vehicle never arrived), one of the men repeatedly clicked the trigger of a shotgun pointed at the head of one of the cuidadors. He was sure each breath was his last.
The kidnappers drove to Rivas where they abandoned the vehicle when they saw a transit cop on a back road by a sugar cane field. In Rivas, the police refused to chase the men, saying they had to fill out a report first and the investigator was on a coffee break.
At 11 a.m., more than 36 hours after the assault, the police had still not come to take fingerprints or a report.
Since then, I have heard that all of the men have been arrested. I have no idea if they are still in jail. One of the assailants left his backpack and cedula in April's truck. Without this crucial piece of evidence, I doubt anyone would have been arrested for the crime. I still have doubts as to whether or not they will go to jail.
For brevity, I have minimized April's ordeal. I want to believe that it is out of the ordinary, but it still worries me. I am angry at the perpetrators of these crimes, but I am equally angry with those who profess their religious faith yet refuse to rat out a crook.
It is not easy to live here. It requires a bit of paranoia and cynicism and detachment from anything of monetary value. I have watched many an idealist leave Nicaragua after a few months. Regardless of how minimalist of a lifestyle you can muster, it's still more than what the average Nicaraguan has in his possession. There will be little sympathy when you are robbed. I don't live a lavish lifestyle. I have a 20 year-old TV, 11 year-old DVD player, and a cheap little Teac stereo for my iPod. I drive a 10 year-old car. I don't have a lot of stuff worth stealing. I don't keep large amounts of cash in my home or store. Still, compared to most Nicaraguans, I am wealthy. I will be a target, either by force or through coercion. I have been carjacked. I have had the barrel of a gun pressed into my forehead. I try to comfort myself with the thought that I have already paid my dues, but reality is that each incident is random and I have little control over the situation.
This is not an easy entry to write. It could have negative repercussions for my friends, my friendships, and my financial interests, but left unaddressed, the problems will increase exponentially.
I don't know what the solution is. The police complain they are not paid enough, but at the same time, there is no incentive to increase their wages if they refuse to show up at the scene of a crime. Any sort of vigilantism practiced in other communities disappeared when the gringos moved in, and no sane gringo would go after a Nicaraguan in the current political climate.
I don't want to discourage people from visiting or investing here. These problems exists everywhere in the world and will increase the closer we come to financial armageddon. In many ways, Nicaragua is a good place to ride out the storm. It is my hope that the government will address the increased incidents of violence and send a signal to other would be thieves that the free ride is over, as well as sending a signal to investors that they are aware of the problem and actively resolving it. As it is, people still hear "Nicaragua" and think Contras and landmines. Eight armed men sounds like a paramilitary movement, doesn't it?
Kelly: thought you might like to see this new Eric Volz video from prison.
http://www.friendsofericvolz.com/smuggled_camera_blog_post
Posted by: Will | April 14, 2008 at 11:52 AM