Street vendors walk between the cars and horse-drawn carts on Managua's main streets, selling gum, candy and fruit juice. Most of the new development in Managua is on the southeast side, where it's possible to find a T.G.I. Friday's restaurant. In the central city, some life has returned with the recent openings of a Holiday Inn and a luxurious Hotel Inter-Continental. A few are wealthy Metrocentro, a new shopping mall, stands across the street from the Inter-Continental. The mall's stores target the small sliver of the population that has disposable income.
Prices are high even by U.S. standards.
Places like T.G.I. Friday's, the Holiday Inn and Metrocentro are few and far between. A restaurant meal is beyond the budget of the average Nicaraguan, as are the clothes in the mall. It's a lie to say we're able to live on these salaries. Others make more, mostly by working overtime. According to the International Monetary Fund, half of Nicaragua's population is poor, and one-fourth extremely poor.