Exiled Nicaraguan youth battle to build a future after Ortega win

Tania Cadena, 24, who left Nicaragua after the government repression in 2018, sells homemade pineapple jam and a chile-vegetable condiment at a Nicaraguan cultural fair in San Jose, Costa Rica November 7, 2021. Picture taken November 7, 2021. REUTERS/Daina Solomon

SAN JOSE (Reuters) - When asked about the three days she spent in a Nicaraguan prison in 2018 for protesting against President Daniel Ortega, Tania Cadena pointed to white scars on her arm and forehead, then pulled aside her lips to reveal a missing molar.

"It felt like three thousand years," said the 24-year-old former medical student, who is now living in exile in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose.