Everything About Latin Culture: Family

Family in Latin Culture : An Open Discussion Forum

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Submitted by UglyAmerican on February 19, 2011 - 3:59am
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Mark, you write that you have seen a poor guy give his next-to-last noodle to someone else, and that this is uncommon in our birth country, but you love it there. Do you have any real friends there? Can you trust anyone there? Maybe some people gave their next-to-last noodle because they saw you watching, or gave it to you. But that doesn't mean they didn't have self-interest in mind when they did it. How much of the time can you take what people say at face value? Yes maybe there are many people in the continental also who will slip and fall and sue you for a dollar, and maybe there are crooks in Wall Street, Jews Gentiles and Muslims. Communists who can't do math trying to shut down the coal factory and herd up a lot of people to pillage the "big bad medical companies and insurers" who actually if you look carefully don't even have all that much money to pillage anyway. But there are some people here who I can say are my friends, who I can trust.

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La Dominación

Submitted by peterchristopher on June 25, 2010 - 2:36am
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One of the themes that seemed to embue Nicaraguan culture was power.  "Voy a dominar el español," was one of the first sentences I was taught by Miguel, the young man I hired as a Spanish teacher when I first arrived in Nicaragua more than five years ago.  "Tienes que dominar a tu pareja," I heard from so many people - men and women - in confidence.  People gathered power by lies and truth, the power of their own beliefs (often enhanced by witches), their political and family connections, their age.  It is not healthy to live there, because in order to survive one had to become more like that.  To what extent is that Nicaraguan versus Latin?

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Who Made the Latin American Poor People Poor?

Submitted by peterchristopher on June 16, 2009 - 10:38pm
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Sometimes you read about the oppression of the Latin American countries at the hands of Spain, or the United States. Sometimes you read about the oppression of the Latin poor by their own aristochratic, monopolistic ruling classes.

Of course there's no one single answer to Who Is Responsible for The Poverty of the Latin Poor? But The question is an important one for understanding one's relation to those poor, whether one is from the U.S., Spain, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Norway, Iran, etc.

Are the precolonial Indian tribes responsible for the current poverty of the Latin poor?  Why weren't they wiser to keep their gold, to dedicate themselves to learning about the arriving adventurers and forming mutually beneficial relationships with them?  Or did those tribes actually form mutually beneficial relationships with those newcomers?

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Literacy Rates in Third-World Countries

Submitted by peterchristopher on May 24, 2009 - 7:20pm
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There are so many jokes about statistics that it's amazing they still seem so interesting.  I just came across this article claiming progress in reducing illiteracy rates in Nicaragua.  

http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=85907...

Now, I haven't been in Nicaragua for a few years, but I doubt there has been much change in the overall literacy rate, if it's defined (and the tests administered) in a reasonable and non-partisan way.

But perhaps if there is anyone who has had direct experiences with any person at all in Nicaragua whose literacy has improved over the past two years, I'd be willing to revise my suspicion.  

Anyone?

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