A home Goyena, Nicaragua. (Miller/TYG)

At first glance, Goyena—part of the larger northwestern region of Chichigalpa— seems to be a typical rural village in Central America. And in many ways it is. Assisted neither by modern conveniences nor by its government, this community wallows in poverty while the country’s president promises reform after reform. With scant access to education or medicine, this community’s struggle for education and survival represents the shortcomings under the current Sandinista regime.

“We’ve been trying for years to get money for a school,” Sánchez said. “But Daniel’s stubborn.”

Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s president and the original leader of the Sandinista movement that first seized power in 1979, has not fulfilled his campaign promises for nationwide education. Under his reforms, families in certain rural areas are guaranteed a “parcel” of land to live on and to farm; however, the fledgling government lacks the resources to provide startup capital for the reform’s beneficiaries. Unable to meet their basic needs, many families are forced to sell land to wealthier families, continuing to work the land that no longer belongs to them in a modern form of indentured servitude.

Case in point: the Pellas family. Head of the wealthiest family in Nicaragua, Carlos Pellas has come to own nearly all of the country’s major companies, including sugar mills (which produce Nicaragua’s largest export), breweries, the rum industry, Ford dealerships, and electric companies. Chichigalpa has felt the family’s influence with full force. The Ingenio San Antonio, one of Nicaragua’s two largest sugar mills, is owned by Nicaragua Sugar Estates Ltd.—part of the Pellas empire. Located right next to Goyena, the Ingenio sugar mill provides much of the village with work.

It is also seems to be causing the deaths of thousands in the local community.

Pablo Serrano, a resident of Goyena and a former employee of the Ingenio San Antonio, founded Comite Sí a la Vida, or “Yes to Life Committee,” to try to take legal action against the sugar company after he was fired from his job in the cane fields last year.

He is one of 1,500 employees at Chichigalpa’s two sugar mills to lose his job. Employees are immediately dismissed when blood tests—mandatory for all employees at the sugar mill—show excessive levels of creatinine, which may indicate the kidney disease Chronic Renal Insufficiency (CRI). CRI is fatal without dialysis or a renal transplant. According to the company, the diagnosis is evidence that these people are not strong enough to work.

“God forbid we die on the job,” said Víctor Canales, a former Ingenio employee. “Then they would have to certify our families for state compensation. Or admit that what they are doing is poisoning us.”

According to data collected by nephrologist Edwin Reyes of the Ministry of Health, 2,000 current and former employees of the two sugar mills in the region of Chichigalpa—including the Ingenio—currently suffer from CRI. The government has finally set up a special CRI unit at the Julio Durán Zamora health clinic in the region. However, despite promises by both, neither the government-run clinic nor the sugar mills have conducted any studies on the causes of the disease. The few independent health studies that have been conducted indicate that excessive inhalation and ingestion of cadmium may cause it.

“It can unfortunately be a common ingredient in pesticides,” said CRI specialist Dr. Alejandro Marán.