Traveling in the 3rd World March 2007

Yesterday while traveling by railroad through a 3rd world country, I learned to my horror that a fellow passenger had been forced to detour thousands of miles and 24 hours out of his way, because a major east-west rail artery severed in a hurricane two years before had yet to be repaired. As is always the case in such banana republics, a thoroughly corrupt central government, rather than make repairs to the rail line through New Orleans, had chosen to spend billions on sweetheart contracts abroad (thus allowing that government’s close friends to avoid all taxes on their excess profits which surely they would have had to pay had the work been done at home).