Update-20 days of Daniel Ortega

(Old Cathedral of Managua, one of the few buildings left standing after the 1972 earthquake, and a storefront in Leon, where I went to visit a couple of weeks ago)

After completing his first 20 days in office, Daniel Ortega met with the vice president of the World Bank for Latin America and the Caribean and a representative from the World Bank's Central American office. It seemed to be a sign of his willingness to work with the World Bank in combatting poverty in country. However, with the World Bank's record of pressuring countries into privatizing public services like water and electricity and prioritizing fiscal measures that take money away from education and health, this could be a step in the wrong direction in eliminating hunger, public health crises and illiteracy. (just today the staff in the centro wrote a letter to their representative in the mayor's office about cleaning up the drainage ditch that separates Walter Ferretti from 18 de Mayo, the neighboring barrio, for the rampant health problems it causes from mosquitos and garbage) Apparently Daniel took a stand on this, saying that he was skeptical of how much the WB could help here, seeing as it's been involved in the Nicaragan economy for 16 years and it remains at "the bottom of the barrel (of the poorest countries in the hemisphere) next to Haiti." It seems that although Daniel acknowledges that he's going to need the support of US investors (who dominate the WB) to address the infrastructural problems in the country, he's not going to bow down to their every request. We'll have to see how successful he is in negotiating with them...