I've been a little more busy lately than usual. Last night we had an emergency meeting with the Chocolate/Artisan group and by emergency meeting I mean it was just a meeting that wasn't scheduled. We had to meet because during the last meeting I brought up the fact that we need to work on our logo for the chocolate packages and we needed for people to come up with ideas. So we told people to go home and think of some things and then return on Sunday night. There was also some cacao packaging that needed to be done so it was good that we were meeting anyways. December is full of holidays here and barely anything gets done so no more meeting were scheduled until January.
I brought my computer in and about half the group showed up and we talked about the ideas that they had. About 3 people had actual ideas. The others were confused as to what we were doing and most everyone picked apart the picture that I drew of a cacao tree. “There aren't that type of color cacao on a tree that big” one would say. Or “ We need to put that it is pure and organic and everything else” another would say. I tried to explain that we could change all of these things and they looked into space again. It's hard to explain marketing or aesthetics to someone whom has no clue what those words mean. I realized that we needed to take it step back and found a couple examples of pictures of products on my iPhone to show them. They looked into space once again and then looked at me and then back into space. For the people that didn't have ideas I pretty much planted ideas in their head. And by plant, I mean I handed them a sheet of paper with a name or design I liked and asked them if they liked it. They would nod and stare at it for awhile which was good I guess. At least I could get them thinking. 
Finally the president of the group came up with a great design and name and I was ecstatic. I asked everyone else if they thought the idea was great too and they either nodded or looked at the ceiling. The design was a much simpler tree than the logo we had been working with before and the name was Oreba which is the name for the native strain of cacao in the Gnobe language. There about 50 different names for cacao in Gnobe and this is because there are that many types of cacao. There are actually more than that but I think they ran out of names. The family that I'm living with has a farm of cacao which everyone does and it is really not that great in size. They have about 50 different strains of cacao in just that farm and some of the trees are even spliced which I just found out. All this helps the biodiversity and also if one strain gets a disease the others should be fine. It also makes it hard to sell to a specific market that wants to know what strain of cacao it is. I guess you could just put “Every type you can think of” on the package. I found out that about sixty years ago government groups along with international farmers and other aid groups came here and planted every possible type of cacao they could to see which would grow best. They all grew best and are still here.
So after some time I convinced the group that the President had a great idea and by convincing, I spoke a lot about how this was a great idea because it was personal to them and simple and was a weird name no one would know so forth. They looked into space, the president patted himself on the back, I put my computer away, and we all drank chocolate with condensed milk and sugar in it.
The next day, today, I woke up and walked up the river to hang out in the sun. It was finally nice out and hot enough to go into the water. I needed a full bath for sure. The bucket baths are ok but they are so cold that I usually just rub soap on myself as fast as possible and then splash a little water on to get it off. I also usually yelp. The temperature here in my site is great. It is always between 70 and 85 degrees with a pretty good amount of humidity. During training on the other side of Panama it was about 10 degrees hotter and more humid every day. It was a big difference. I can wear a long sleeve shirt to bed here and I've actually said that I was cold on a few occasions. So it was nice today and I walked up the river and sat on my customary rock. There is a rock in the middle of the river in one spot gets a lot of sun and has a couple small waterfalls next to it.
After getting bit by bugs for awhile and taking a river bath with my stolen hotel soap I headed back to the house. I've been wanting to take a dug out canoe on the river since I got here an decided I would walk down the road to my friend Abdul's house to see if someone would take me. They have about 6 dug outs there and even have a huge one with a 25 horse engine on it. I found Abdul at his house and we grabbed some paddles or what were supposed to be paddles and took off. The river runs through the back of his house.
We paddled for about ten minutes when I spotted a sloth hanging over the water from a tree and so we took pictures or I took pictures and Abdul yelled at me for almost tipping the boat over every ten seconds. We paddled and I got to meet a guy that looked like Mr. Miagi who was paddling a dugout canoe full of dirt. He is the only person I've seen here that can not only grow substantial facial hair but a long beard at that. Abdul called him Mr. Peck and Mr. Peck spoke Spanish with a Spanish accent and could speak English with only a Caribbean accent. I guessing he learned his English on one of the islands somewhere. I also later found out that they people here call him Fidel because he has a long gray beard and that his full name is Peter Paul Peck and also goes by 3P. Weird. Anywho, we passed Mr. Peck and made it to the ocean in no time. We sat there looking at the islands and at the shit hole that is Almirante and I tried to get out of the boat and Abdul yelled at me because there were dangerous spine animals that would hurt me that I couldn't see so I didn't do it. It was fun.
I was getting hungry and tired and Abdul was just tired so we stopped at Mr. Pecks house which was pretty close to the entrance to the ocean. He arrived when we did and we sat in his hammock while he started shoveling dirt out of his boat. I realized why he was bringing dirt to his house. His land was once just mangrove forest which is a type of plant that grows in shallow water. So there a little dirt where he built his house about a million years ago and has been shoveling dirt around it to increase his land size. It was a good idea and I told him I liked his place. He got excited and asked if I wanted coffee and I said yes. We went inside his house which had tons of color and an actual couch in it and Mr. Peck handed me a semi warm glass of coffee that I had to decline for the fact that it was made with old rain water. Abdul and I boiled it and heated up some old beans and rice that had been on the stove and Mr. Peck shoveled the rest of his dirt. Mr. Peck also had a guitar that he wanted me to tune. I tried and found it impossible mostly because it was broken and it had the wrong kind of strings on it. I promised to return with a tuner next week and he got excited again and said something in English that sounded like it came out of a Jamaican.
We made it back without falling in the water which was a miracle because that boat was unstable to say the least. I thought for sure we were going in the drink. I walked home and worked on projects for the chocolate/artisan group into the night. Tomorrow I go to the island to find a used bike so we can make a bike grinder for the chocolate and to send people some chocolate in the mail. Its raining again right now so it might be terrible dragging all that shit out there but oh well. Next week I start work on my bamboo shower for my new place. I move in in 7 weeks and want it ready to go when I do. Til next time.....
No comments:
Post a Comment