Much of the wealthy/elite class left Nicaragua, starting as early as 1979.. by the time Ortega actually took power the first time in 1985, a huge amount of the wealth in the country was already gone.. there was no "rich" to pay for all of his promises..
From what I can tell today, most of the real wealth in Nicaragua isnt Nicaraguan.. foreign investors have come in and built empires in the tobacco industry (largely US citizens), most of the other agriculture is owned by the big US firms (Cargill, Dole, etc).. almost all of the gold mines are owned and operated by foreign companies, etc..etc..
So, other than senior government officials, there are very few "rich" Nicaraguans able to pay for all of that free shit Ortega promised... which is why most of it has never been delivered..
All of that said, I absolutely LOVE Nicaragua.. its a beautiful country.. I especially like the area around Estelli (tobacco country)... the people are incredibly warm and welcoming.. the pace of life is slow and easy going.. the food is wonderful.. etc..
Its a shame how impoverished it is though.. Especially once you get outside of Managua.. there are horrible townships in South Africa that are 100 fold better off than some of the little ramshackle collections of huts (I'd hardly call them villages or towns.. just groups of a few hundred to maybe 1000 people living in home made shacks constructed from scraps.. most with dirt floors, no plumbing, no electric, etc..) Ive walked through in Nicaragua..
Having seen true, no shit poverty in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and a couple of other places in Central America (not the American version of poverty.. which to most of the rest of the world is pretty close to middle class living).. it actually made it pretty hard for me to get angry at the migrant hoards that started heading north during the Biden administration.. while there were certainly plenty of truly terrible people included in those masses.. I imagine the vast majority came from those dirt floored cesspool collection of huts you find scattered all over the region.. just people looking for anything that even remotely resembles hope for even fractionally better life..
Dont get me wrong... Im all for the mass deportations.. Im all for securing the border.. etc..etc.. I am completely and totally on board with us correcting the HUGE problem the last administration dealt us..
Im just saying I understand why so many people made the decision to try to come here...
What most Americans think is "poverty" really isnt poverty at all... most of those people were born into a situation of true despair.. if any of us were born into the same situation, we'd be trying to figure out a way to escape it too..
I just also understand that its not our responsibility to fix their problem for them... We didnt elect Ortega.. they did.. in order to reverse course and get themselves out of the situation that 40+ years of socialism has brought them, its probably going to require massive bloodshed...
But.. they bought into massive bloodshed to get there (armed internal conflict from 1978 until 1990).. Unfortunately I think the only solution is to commit to something similar all over again..
