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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Temporary ice rink causes controversy in
warm Nicaragua
MANAGUA - Nicaragua's government
caused controversy with the construction of
a temporary ice rink that cost close to US$1.5
million dollars and was only set to be in
use during December.
The tropical Nicaragua - with average
temperatures of 31-34 degrees throughout the
year - is the second-poorest country in the
Americas, after Haiti.
Local media have strongly criticized the
project in Managua as 'an excentricity,' in
a country of 6 million where 70 per cent of
the people live on at most us$1 dollar per day
and where 60 per cent would like to go
abroad to work, according to independent
research.
First Lady Rosario Murillo - also the
spokeswoman for the government of Sandinista
President Daniel Ortega - said the 225-
square-metre ice rink built near the city's
waterfront Malecon on Lake Managua is set to
'give joy' to poor children.
Murillo - accompanied by several of her
children and grandchildren - walked around
the facility, known as the Park of Happy
Girls and Boys, which was set to stand for
just one month.
'We have the responsibility to bring here
many children from across the country,' she
said at the first ice rink ever built in
Nicaragua.
City government officials said they hope to
host 8,000 visitors per day at the park. Use
of the ice rink - which can hold 60 skaters
at any one time - is set to be free.
'We are going to have circuses, music shows,
clowns, jugglers, all free, because that is
what children deserve,' Murillo said.
Nicaraguan authorities did not reveal the
upkeep costs of the ice rink, or the origin
of the funds that were devoted to its
construction. |
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