A Slow Sunday Evening in Managua

Hot summer days in DC don´t hold a candle to Managua. It´s about 11pm, close to 90 degrees, dripping with humidity, urban pollution and exhaust. I flew from DC to Houston with Derry, a colleague, where with met up with Mike, Marti and Abby - leaders of WFP Committees from around the country. We all lazed around on the sticky airport seats, waiting to board our plane to Managua...

We arrived here about an hour late, to be picked up by two UN trucks at the airport, to lead us through the streets with their proud, prominent antennae and ¨no weapons¨ stickers plastered along the sides. By the time we arrived, most had pooped out for the night, leaving a group of about six of us to forage through the local neighborhood for margaritas and enchiladas. Success.

Tomorrow we meet with the WFP country office, to receive a security briefing and some background information on the programs we´ll be visiting, as we wind our way through Matagalpa, up to Ocotal near the Honduran border.

There are about 15 of us total, many of whom have never traveled in the developing world. It will be an intense experience for these folks, observing extreme poverty, meeting with beneficiaries who are living on less than a dollar a day, whose children are permanently stunted both physically and intellectually by a chronic lack of food.

I´m drenched in sweat, covered in a light coating of dirt and dust... and it´s one of the days, in one of those places, where, quite frankly, taking a shower really won´t make a difference.