The country is about ninety-percent Catholic; a few years ago Protestantism was almost non-existent.  But they are growing; there are now over 130 denominations, all specialized to fill in some sort of conversion niche.
 
Ramón says, “I was a, how do you say – a crack-head.  I smoked crack and cocaine.  I did all kinds of drugs and I slept like an animal on the streets.  But the Pentecostal people found me and recovered me.”

He is the only one in his family who works; he is also the only non-Catholic.  Unemployment in Nicaragua is sometimes quoted at 70%.  Our conversation turns to CAFTA – the trade agreement between the United States and some Central American and Caribbean countries. 

“I think it is very bad for our country.”

“People in the states are very suspicious of it too,” I tell him.

“How can a little country like us compete against an Empire like that?” he says.

I tell him that I actually favor CAFTA, but I struggle with a way to explain why.  “Forget Nicaragua for a second.  Imagine the fifty states in the United States.  All these states have no tariffs or import duties.  Trade flows through each of these states with almost no regulations whatsoever.  Now imagine our poorest state, what, maybe Arkansas?  Imagine Arkansas no longer has free trade with the rest of the states.  Its economy will collapse in months!"

I tell him we're all on the same continent after all.

The discussion gets most interesting, when I try to explain the altruism, or rather the lack of a direct attempt at economic domination, in the U.S. interests in CAFTA.  I try to explain that CAFTA was a bipartisan priority in the states.  I tell him that Nicaragua got the best package of any other country, one of the best trade agreements any country has ever negotiated.  The policy, which protects Nicaraguan farmers from American farm-goods, actually stipulates that the United States has to import more Nicaraguan goods.

But then I remember, even our meddling in the two most recent elections in Nicaragua was bipartisan too.

Thankfully, our conversation is interrupted when the old toothless man appears from a side road.  How did he out-distance us?  He waves us over to the side road.  He tells Ramón that he’ll take us after all, and to follow him.

We follow him on a dirt path.  We are high enough up on the volcano now that coffee plantations become more common.  The toothless man apologizes to Ramón.  That girl back there, she is 23 years old, he explains.  He tells Ramón that she loves him and they make love behind everybody’s back. 

Ramón says, “He says that his wife would kill him if she found out.”

I imagine a big toothless lady with a frying pan.

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