Why Not All Rural Nicaraguans Are Poor: San Nicolas's Social Hierarchy

Before we arrived in San Nicolas, Nicaragua, I naively assumed that everyone here would be of a single social class – that is to say, that everyone in the campo of Nicaragua would be poor. This assumption derived from the fact that Nicaragua is the second poorest country in Central and South America (only after Haiti), and that much of this poverty is concentrated in rural areas.

But now that we've been here for eight months, I've realized that it is completely simplistic to label everyone in San Nicolas as “poor.” It's true that if you compared San Nicolas salaries to salaries in a similarly rural American town, San Nicolaseños would come out earning many times less than your average John-Deere driving Hoosier. If you're comparing Nicaraguan campo-dwellers to American country-dwellers, it's certainly fair to call Nicaraguans “poor” (without going into the loaded negative connotations of that word).

The nuance lies in two categories: 1) The fact that the general cost of living here is much cheaper than it is in the US, and 2) The fact that within the admittedly poorer San Nicolas economy, there are fairly significant differences in salary and lifestyle between different classes of people.

Here are some examples, to give a general idea of how much things cost here:

• A pound of sugar = 9 cordobas, about 35 cents.
• About a pound of any organic vegetables = 10 cordobas, or 38 cents.
• A dozen cage-free local eggs = 36 cordobas, $1.38
• Water bill for a month = 70 cordobas, or $2.70
• Electricity bill for a month = 100 cordobas, $4.00
• Renting a small house for a month = $50

Although I haven't done the research to prove it, I think I can safely say that the ratio of salary : cost of living still turns out significantly lower here in the Nicaraguan campo than it would in small-town USA.

That said, I think our neighbors across the street, who own several businesses and huge tracts of land, would be insulted to be called “poor” just because they live in the Nicaraguan campo. Though overall, people here in San Nicolas earn less money than their counterparts in the US, there is still a thriving hierarchy of social classes, with distinct differences in incomes and levels of luxury.

The family who lives across the street from us, for example, have a nice house with a tiled floor and plenty of furniture. They recently renovated their house, installing glass windows and a porch. They own a lot of land and animals, a pulperia (convenience store), and a public pool, and have been able to put their daughter through medical school in Managua.

On the outskirts of town, on the other hand, lies the neighborhood “La Base” (because it used to be a military base during the war). In La Base lie several tiny cement shacks, with only one or two rooms and outdoor kitchens. Houses like this are often built by the government, who will build you a simple house for just $3,000 if you can't afford to build one yourself. The only catch is that all government houses display a number and a color scheme, so everyone knows if you live in a government house. People who live in these houses might own small tracts of land or help other landowners farm their properties.

We were curious about how much the workers make on the organic farm where we volunteer one day a week, so we asked our friend Ariel, who drives a truck for the farm and helps out at the market. Ariel told us that no matter what they do or how long they've been there, all of the farm employees earn the same: around $4.50 a day, or a little over than $100 a month. At first we were shocked. How could Ariel possibly support his wife and one-year-old daughter on a salary of $100 a month? Even given that food is cheap here, that seemed impossibly meager.

Ariel explained that it actually isn't too difficult. During the day, he works for La Garnacha's organic farm, but in the evening he goes home and harvests his own crops on his own small plot of land. And the beans and corn that come from these harvests – that is the food that his family lives on. When he subtracts the small monthly electricity bills and the cost of diapers for his daughter, most of the rest of that $100 is disposable income for his family.

Teachers at the public high school where we teach earn a little more, though their wages still seem a little stingy for the amount of schooling that they've had. All teachers, including the principal, earn between $250 and $300 a month. Many of these teachers are women, which means that they are probably bringing in a second income for the family.

At the top of San Nicolas's economic pinnacle (almost literally) are the people who have worked in the US, or who have family living and working in the US. Kids at school carry around iPhones that their parents who live in the US sent them. One such San Nicolaseño went to the US to work and came back to build a gigantic mansion (at least by San Nicolas standards) on the tallest hill in town. Now you can see this blatant statement of wealth for miles around.

In general, it's fair to say that the people who live in San Nicolas seem richer than the people who live in the tiny communities farther out in the campo. In San Nicolas, probably a majority of houses have nice tiled floors, which for some reason seems to me like the ultimate indicator of wealth. In the campo, houses mostly have dirt or sometimes cement floors. In San Nicolas, more people cook over a gas stove, have refrigerators, and get their water from the city. In the campo, people mostly cook over a fire, eat only food that doesn't need refrigeration, and get their water from a well.

Of course, a few things are universal. For one, everyone uses latrines – plumbing lines don't exist this far from the Esteli. And another thing, everyone – no matter their income – owns a TV.

I have yet to understand how these different social classes interact or what it means to be part of a particular wealth bracket here in the campo of Nicaragua. I haven't noticed any wealth-based segregation or exclusion among the kids at school, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

I know I still have a lot to learn about the inner workings of the San Nicolas class system. But it has certainly been humbling to realize that my assumption that there would be universal poverty in this Nicaraguan small town was seriously misguided. In the end, this assumption only benefited my own self-image as the benevolent American volunteer.