Tim Rogers is the Editor of Nicaragua Dispatch, an excellent online daily that provides news in English. I met Tim during my April 2011 trip to Nicaragua. Recently he featured an article on child sexual abuse in Nicaragua.
http://www.nicaraguadispatch.com/features/sex-predators-find-easy-prey-in-nicaragua/1498
The article featured a photo of an arrested sexual predator and I realized immediately that I had seen this man during a trip to Granada.
Granada, the fourth largest city in Nicaragua, was founded in 1524 by the Spanish, and the history, architecture, and location on the shores of Lake Nicaragua make the city an important tourist destination. The central square is bounded by a beautiful cathedral and several prominent hotels. The plaza is busy with lots of vendors who sell leather goods, jewelry, pottery, nuts, t-shirts, and other tourist stuff.
In October 2010, I spent a tourist afternoon in Granada. I noticed a middle-aged white man and suspected immediately that he was a predator. He was sitting with a ten or so year-old Nicaraguan boy on a park bench. The boy looked self-conscious and held his head down without making eye contact with the man. Everything about this scene was wrong. I wandered in and out of the central plaza over the course of an hour or two and I saw the man again with another child.
The plaza was filled with adults and there were lots of children who were selling merchandise on behalf of these adults. No one seemed interested at all in either the man or the child, which seemed so strange. Don't the Nica adults see what is going on?
On the one hand I felt as if the rest of the adults in the plaza must be blind. There were numerous security people outside the hotels that ringed the plaza, and the Granada Police were routinely present in the square, and they all cast blind eyes on the situation.
Then I wondered, Oh my gosh, is this just the way it is in Nicaragua?
In the article, Tim Rogers reports, sadly, that this is how it is in Nicaragua.
http://www.nicaraguadispatch.com/features/sex-predators-find-easy-prey-in-nicaragua/1498
The article featured a photo of an arrested sexual predator and I realized immediately that I had seen this man during a trip to Granada.
Granada, the fourth largest city in Nicaragua, was founded in 1524 by the Spanish, and the history, architecture, and location on the shores of Lake Nicaragua make the city an important tourist destination. The central square is bounded by a beautiful cathedral and several prominent hotels. The plaza is busy with lots of vendors who sell leather goods, jewelry, pottery, nuts, t-shirts, and other tourist stuff.
In October 2010, I spent a tourist afternoon in Granada. I noticed a middle-aged white man and suspected immediately that he was a predator. He was sitting with a ten or so year-old Nicaraguan boy on a park bench. The boy looked self-conscious and held his head down without making eye contact with the man. Everything about this scene was wrong. I wandered in and out of the central plaza over the course of an hour or two and I saw the man again with another child.
The plaza was filled with adults and there were lots of children who were selling merchandise on behalf of these adults. No one seemed interested at all in either the man or the child, which seemed so strange. Don't the Nica adults see what is going on?
On the one hand I felt as if the rest of the adults in the plaza must be blind. There were numerous security people outside the hotels that ringed the plaza, and the Granada Police were routinely present in the square, and they all cast blind eyes on the situation.
Then I wondered, Oh my gosh, is this just the way it is in Nicaragua?
In the article, Tim Rogers reports, sadly, that this is how it is in Nicaragua.
This Variegated Squirrel chattered at me
during my morning walk. 
No comments:
Post a Comment