There was something special about Tasbapauni, and I couldn’t place my finger on it. A clue came from a woman named Carolina… and she owned a monkey.

Carolina had been living in Tasbapauni for many years now and she seemed happy to be there. She said that in Bluefields you can’t live if you don’t have any money, but in Tasbapauni, you can survive by fishing and catching lobsters. Self-sufficiency is something that eludes many people in Bluefields, and perhaps Tasbpauni has figured that out?

Did I sense pity in Carolina’s voice as she described Bluefields? Could it be that life is better in the backwaters of Nicaragua where you at least have a chance at a living without needing money?

Ironically, the Columbian drug trade has become a major source of income for a few locals in Tasbapauni. Drugs on boats heading from Columbia to the US would pass off the coast of Tasbapauni, and occasionally the drug enforcement would pursue them. The traffickers would dump their cargo overboard to help lighten their load in hopes of evading the authorities (and sometimes returning later hoping to retrieve their cargo floating in the water).

Often packages of drugs would wash up onto the shores of Tasbapauni where locals, including children, would find it. Some enterprising citizens of Tasbapauni have made their living from fishing “white lobster” and selling it back to the traffickers, or locally in nearby towns like Bluefields.

The drug trade is an increasing problem along the east coast of Nicaragua. Given the high poverty and unemployment rate on the east coast and the ever increasing cost of food, the drug trade has become a way in which some locals are surviving.

(Continued on page 2).

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