“I want to understand Managua* safety and security,” Donna told me in this morning’s email. “You write about armed security, guard dogs, gates, barbed wire fences, walls everywhere. Explain!”
I couldn’t.
Then at the Nehemiah Center reception desk, I spied a person who could: Jairo Solano.
Jairo was my chauffer for a trip to Leon last year. He was the perfect person to answer Donna’s question—a Nicaraguan who grew up in a middle-class Christian family, married a gringo, has lived in both the United States and Nicaragua, and—especially important for me—is fluent in English.
His first statement surprised me: Nicaragua has very little drug trafficking, smuggling, kidnapping, or crimes like that. According to United States research, when it comes to organized crime, Nicaragua is the safest country in Central America.
Then he continued. Street crime is a different matter. Burglary and home break-ins are very frequent. So most houses in middle-to-upper-class neighborhoods, need a security guard, coiled barb wire, dogs, and electric fences. Alarm systems are a must.
Break-ins happen most of the time during the day because at night thieves can’t see as well, the owners are home, and the dogs are loose. During the day owners are at work, and dogs are tied. Thieves jump in, and they steal whatever they can find, computers, televisions, cooking utensils, clothes, shoes. . . .
Jairo lives in a two-house area with a gate and guard. Recently thieves entered the adjacent house which was unoccupied. They stole the electric breaker box, outlets, and light bulbs, but left Jairo’s house untouched because his wife and children were at home.
The stolen goods are often sold in what is known as the black market section of the 36-acre Oriental market in Managua.
“What about the police?” I asked.
We cannot rely on the police, he said. They do not provide enough coverage. When our house was broken into, we called the police. They said they’d come in 20 minutes. They never came.
Sometimes they say they will be able to come if you can supply them with money for gas for the return trip. They do show up for serious crimes—if someone was killed, but for the theft of a propane tank, they will not come.
I asked about the houses of the poor, which have no walls. I speculated, “They are probably not at risk because they have so little.”
Oh, no, said Jairo. They are at risk. They don’t have walls because they cannot afford them. Someone might still come into their house, to steal even a pair of shoes and sell it at the market.
Then I remembered seeing giant, skinny dogs in even the poor neighborhoods.
He added. If we can’t rely on the police, we all have to provide our own protection.
I had one more question. (I’m beginning to get a reputation around here as the woman who asks a LOT of questions.) “Why is there so little organized crime in Nicaragua?”
Jairo laughed and answered.
Statistics show a gang gets busted two months later and gets caught. The reason is funny: We Nicaraguans are much too disorganized to organize crime!
…
*Note: this blog is about Managua, a huge metropolitan city. Jairo says the Nicaraguan villages do not required the same measures of protection.
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