nPostednon July 19, 2015
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nInam not wanting to delve too heavily into the basis of this holiday.nSuffice to say that the Sandinistas were a leftist (communist) groupnthat organized in Nicaragua during the 1960s and 1970s to liberatenthe nation from the Somoza family dictatorship.
ThenSandinistas were able to overthrow Somoza – but he destroyed a lotnof his nation as he fled, AND he stole all of the nation’s money innthe treasury, as well!
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ThenSandinistas were idealistic, and they did make some importantnimprovements in Nicaragua (including cutting back the percentage ofnpeople who couldn’t read). However, most people still faced cripplingnpoverty, and as the Sandinistas continued to rule the country, theyndid a few things such as closing down a newspaper that had beenncritical of one aspect of the government – things that made somenobservers worry that they were becoming more like the government thatnthey had replaced.
ThenSandinistas were idealistic, and they did make some importantnimprovements in Nicaragua (including cutting back the percentage ofnpeople who couldn’t read). However, most people still faced cripplingnpoverty, and as the Sandinistas continued to rule the country, theyndid a few things such as closing down a newspaper that had beenncritical of one aspect of the government – things that made somenobservers worry that they were becoming more like the government thatnthey had replaced.n
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nI’mnashamed to say that my own nation, the U.S., meddled in some horriblenways with Nicaragua, funding the Contras who in the 1980s began tonform a counter-revolution movement. The war between the Contras andnthe Sandinistas killed tens of thousands of people.
There werensome bumps and struggles between then and now, but modern-daynNicaragua is a more stable representative democratic republic. Andnsince 2007. Sandinista candidate Daniel Ortega has served asnpresident.
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nNownthat it’s stable….
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nNicaraguanwasn’t nearly as commonly visited as nearby Costa Rica, because fornyears people worried about revolutionaries andncounter-revolutionaries shooting it out in the jungles. But now thatnthe country has become more stable, many adventurous tourists arentraveling to the country to:
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nHikenvolcanoes
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nGonvolcano boarding
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nTournthe brightly-painted colonial architecture of Grenada
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nHangnout on the beaches, and visit the islands
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nExplorena cloud forest
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nChecknout the sculptures of “Stone Man” AlbertonGuiterrez
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nHangnout at Apoyo Lagoon (which isn’t a lagoon, but rather a lake formednin the crater from an old volcano)
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nAlsonon this date:
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nAnniversarynof the signing of the Treaty of Nanfan (?)
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nAnniversarynof the Metro (subway) in Paris
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nArtsnand Artists Day
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nAnniversarynof the first parking meters
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Plannahead:
Plannahead:
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nChecknout my Pinterest boards for:
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nJulyn holidays
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nJulyn birthdays
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nHistoricaln anniversaries in July
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nAndnhere are my Pinterest boards for:
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nAugustn holidays
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nAugustn birthdays
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nHistoricaln anniversaries in August
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