Politics...

Like many other Latin American countries, Nicaragua also had its share of internal and external conflict in the (late) 20th century (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua#History). Politics therefore is a sensitive subject in Nicaragua and I found out that a lot of people here have strong feelings for a certain party and/or against the other (rival) party. If you go into the field here around Matagalpa you’ll see flags, colors, and others signs of the different political parties everywhere. People make it easy to see what party they vote for, and graffiti on walls either advertises for one party or  tries to put the other party in bad daylight. To a certain extend that is ok, I think, and it should be fine to stand for what you vote for in an open democracy, but not if it goes too far. Not if you do not accept the people who vote for the other party, and especially not if being members of different parties stands in the way of working together for the greater good. It gets even worse when poor people, who have nothing to do with a dispute between two parties, are victims of this lack of cooperation. I was very surprised to see an example of this happening here in Nicaragua:

One of the projects the WFP has in Nicaragua is helping pregnant women, lactating women, and kids in the age between 6 and 36 months by supplying them with extra food. The WFP calls this project “Grupos Vulnerables” (Vulnerable Groups, GV), because these women and children are most vulnerable in case of food insecurity. Part of our work is monitoring the distribution of this food, and make sure that the food reaches the right people. While a colleague and I were monitoring for GV in a village in quite a remote area, we noticed that there were six boxes of oil missing. That is 6*12=72 bottles of oil that the Vulnerable Groups, as mentioned above, would not receive. After some research we found out that the oil never reached the village and that the oil must have been “lost” (probably stolen) during transport. That is where the problem started.

It seemed that the MINSA (Ministry of Health) and the municipality had a shared responsibility for the transport. The problem was that the doctor of the MINSA told us that it was the responsibility of the municipality, and that the Mayer of the municipality told us it was the responsibility of the MINSA. Both parties did not want to take responsibility for the missing oil. One of them, or both, had to take responsibility and repay the oil, so we asked them to get together and discuss the matter. To my surprise, they did not want to. Apparently the doctor did not want to talk or to be seen with the Mayer and Mayer did not want to talk or to be seen with the doctor. And why? We found out that it was because they are members of the two rival parties, that’s why.

I was flabbergasted when I heard that. 72 bottles of oil (a lot and very important for people who have nothing) would not reach poor people in need, because two well educated adults don’t want to get together to discuss the simplest of matters and come to a solution, just because they are members of two different political parties. Why is it so difficult for grown up men to set aside political feelings when peoples wellbeings are at stake? I didn’t expect such a thing in Nicaragua, but apparently, at least in some regions, people have very, very strong feelings against people of the other party..

Luckily in the end the doctor send a colleague, the Mayer his second man and together with the ones responsible for the transport we reached a needed solution. They were going to buy and send 72 new bottles of oil to the village. End good all good, but I am asking myself: Is this story an example for what is going on all over the country? And does this also happen on a larger scale in the country? For the sake of the future of Nicaragua and the huge amount of people that so desperately need progress, welfare and especially no conflict, I really hope that that is not the case..