Central American University (Managua) heard in a world that seems tuned out from the problems of the South. Encounter is the oldest scholarly academic journal in Nicaragua, originating in 1968. The intellectuals who created this quarterly envisaged reflections on the confrontation of cultures in Nicaragua, between North and South America and also between the Mexican (Nahua and Aztec) and Andean (Inca and Chibcha) cultures. It searched for human solidarity, beginning with teachers and students. Publication was interrupted for a year after the earthquake that destroyed Managua in 1972 and from financial constraints at UCA from 1990 to 1993. After 1972 "Encounter" was an annual,
Managua 1927. A new sewer system and the redirecting of waste water to a new waste water treatment plant at Las Mercedes funded by the German government to decontaminate the lake is expected to be the largest in Central America and was inaugurated in 2009. Managua's city area extends about , essentially south from the south shore of Lake Managua. The lakeshore is at an altitude of above sea level, and the city climbs as it gets towards the Sierras de Managua further south where it is over above sea level. Geologically, the city lies on fault lines, thus seismologists predict