Nicaragua day 2

Bluefields is home to some extremely poor neighborhoods

Day 2: Today, I arrived in Bluefields. Bluefields is located on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. The atlantic coast was once a British protectorate. So, it is no wonder how the music there was influenced by the slaves brought in from other parts of the expansive British Empire. I ate some yucca (roots of a desert plant) and corn-on-the-cob for my late breakfast and decided to go see some indigenous culture. In the autonomous region of the coast, there has lately been political unrest. While a British protectorate, the (aptly named) mosquito coast’s indigenous population (miskitos) were given weapons in order to fight the Spanish in the region. Even now, the Miskitos seek independence. A group of Miskito elders recently declared the independence of a new nation called the “Community Nation of Moskitia.” The political unrest expands when one mentions how most of the Miskitos were eager to join the Contra rebels in order to bring down the Sandinista government in 1979. The newest conflict is the prices of local lobsters. The area I went to is one of the poorest areas in one of the poorest countries in South America. Pretty much every house was a lean-to under a tree of some sort. Plus, the unemployment rate is over 75%. I decided to stop in on a local group of unemployed fishermen gathered together for an afternoon break from idling. They were drinking tiste and coffee. They were arguing about what to do about being unemployed. One of them mentioned what another fisherman said about the lobsters: “Those lobsters should be ours anyway.” To investigate, I headed down to the docks. I was astonished by what I saw. Almost every fishing boat was in port. A major sign of an economic slump. On my way back, I saw a group of locals celebrating independence by singing the new Moskitia national anthem.