T o the top of this Page Witness for Peace Trip to Nicaragua , by Helene R. Hill. I recently spent two months in Nicaragua, and I learned more than I wanted to know about his small country. In eight short years it has come to exceed Haiti in its indices of poverty. Everywhere one looks, there are indications of this. The infrastructure has deteriorated badly.
People seek any means possible by which to make enough money to put food on the table.
The systems of education, health care, and social services are a shambles. Education has been privatized, which means that students pay for every expense, and they pay to attend the schools. When the new government came in 1990, the first things eliminated were the preschools and adult education. In the small village of seventy families where our Witness for Peace group spent five night, we held several meetings in the small school. It broke my heart to become acquainted with Lisette and her cousin, who are already beyond the third grade, as far as the school goes.