One word that you won’t find in your handy dandy501 Spanish Verb book or Madgrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish, but that is extremely important for you to know in Nicaragua (and Honduras) is chele.
Chele the term used in this region to refer to light skinned Caucasians, more commonly than the broadly used gringo. It is also used to refer to lighter skinned Nicaraguans. Chele much like gringo can be offensive, but most often it is not. It is actually used with affection or mockingly by Nicaraguans to refer to other light skinned Nicaraguans. In other instances there is no particular emotion behind it, it is just the term for a light skinned foreigner or person.
It was explained to me that the word chele comes from the Spanish word for milk, leche. You guys remember using pig Latin as kids, thinking that your parents didn’t understand what you were saying? It is kind of like that. Chele takes the two syllables in le-che and reverses them, making che-le.
Obviously the connection is that milk is white, and foreigners from the north often have milky white skin. I like the word for its etymology and cleverness.
Signing off as the Nicaragua Chele!
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