A Cultural Primer

Most Nicaraguans refer to themselves as pinoleros, in reference to the popular corn drink pinol. This reveals the country's strong rural culture, one in which even the cities' shantytown dwellers are tied to the land. The vast majority of the population of 4.5 million are mestizo and 45% work in agriculture, much of it subsistence related. In recent years, there has been a strong shift to the cities and currently 55% of the population live in an urban area, though. Nicaragua is the poorest country in Central America and the second poorest in the Western Hemisphere, after Haiti. The national poverty rate is 50%, though that rate is often higher in rural areas.

The majority of Nicaraguans are Catholic, though there is a burgeoning minority of evangelicals here. Nicaragua is also one of the central places for liberation theology -- a third-world take on Catholicism that portrays Jesus as a revolutionary. In addition, traditional Indian beliefs and folklore figures are very much alive and can be seen on parade at any of the country's famous weekend festivals.

Despite bad blood with the U.S. because of the Contra war in the 1980s, very few ordinary Nicaraguans associate American tourists with that country's foreign policy. Indeed, many have relatives in the U.S. and harbor a wish to get there someday themselves. This friendly attitude toward the U.S. is further highlighted by Nicaragua's obsession with baseball. There is a stadium in every town and the public follows the leagues avidly. Even in the smallest village, you'll find a scruffy pitch with a gang of kids in rags, using wooden planks as bats.

The written word is all-important here -- Nicaraguans are famous throughout the Spanish-speaking world for being a country of great poets and writers. (Despite this, many poor people have only recently achieved literacy and most Nicaraguans cannot afford a book.) It is a source of great national pride that one of the finest poets in Spanish literature, Rubén Darío, hailed from León. Songs of Life and Hope is an excellent collection by Darío, or try the anthology Ruben's Orphans, translated into English by Marco Morelli.

The Country Under My Skin: A Memoir of Love and War is by one of Nicaragua's best-known writers and poets, Giaconda Belli, and covers her experience as a woman and Sandinista during the revolution. The Jaguar Smile by Salman Rushdie gives a poetic and humorous account of a trip he made to Nicaragua in 1986 to experience the revolution firsthand. Blood of Brothers, by New York Times journalist Stephen Kinser, is generally regarded as the best and most evenhanded chronicle of modern Nicaragua.

Poetic folk music is very popular in Nicaragua, and the Mejia brothers are perhaps the country's most famous troubadours. They use the guitar and accordion to sing of love and revolution. Over on the Caribbean coast (where Kenny Rogers is phenomenally popular), old-fashioned country-and-western music rules. Finally, you'll find it hard to avoid the cheerful rhythms of marimba (a wooden xylophone), which play on almost every city plaza.

Most films that are available in English about Nicaragua inevitably dwell on the recent wars. Under Fire stars Nick Nolte as a photojournalist covering the Sandinista revolution, uttering the immortal words, "I don't take sides, I take pictures." Carla's Song is a gritty and realistic movie about a Glaswegian bus driver taking a Nicaraguan refugee home to her country. Walker -- A True Story has Ed Harris playing the American filibuster. The World Is Watching is an acclaimed documentary about the media coverage of the Contra war, and The World Stopped Watching is a just-as-fascinating sequel.