Lunch out on the World Bank

I got to go out to eat today. The tab was picked up by the World Bank. ;) Here is yet another excellent example of how they are ending poverty. I went to this very nice place in the heart of DC. I hear that the Sea Food is amazing there, but I am still in the Midwest mode where we don’t exactly trust sea food (saying how I was raised in landlocked Kansas where we’re miles away from the nearest ocean.). I ended up getting a nice steak and let me tell you, it hit the spot. The two guys from Mauritania are leaving tomorrow, which will be sad because I am really starting to enjoy their company. As I’ve said before, they aren’t very proficient in English, so communication is difficult, but we actually have a couple of simple running jokes that they seem to get much joy from. I was asking them what some of their favorite foods were at home, in Mauritania, and the small guy said CAMEL! I wasn’t sure if I had heard him correctly, so I pretended to spit on the floor with a big spitting sound. They both laughed very hard and said that a Camel is a very fine meal! I told them that the next time I am in Mauritania I’ll try Camel, but saying how I don’t think I will go to a HIPC (bank lingo for a Heavily Indebted Poor Country) anytime soon, I don’t think it will be a problem. What is actually pretty neat is that the World Bank and IMF relieved Mauritania of 1.1 Billion dollars of debt today. That’s a lot of money for the bank to just let slide. This will reduce the percentage of their national budget that is towards debt reduction down to 11% from 35%. I hope that they do something right with the new cash that they can now spend.