I'm sitting in the dark corner of a Chinese restaurant in Almirante. I came into town today to wash my clothes and use the internet. I immediately noticed a problem when I stepped out of the taxi and looked into the buildings around me. The power is out here and there is nothing I can do now. No internet. No air conditioning. No clothes washing. It wouldn't be too bad if I wasn't extremely tired and annoyed as I have been for the last three days or so. I can't really pin down my crankiness. I just know that it's there. It has been more and more frequent. I'm thinking it might have something to do with the holidays. But then again, it might have something to do with just being run down.
I feel like there will eventually be a point where I feel good in the morning and not dragging myself out of bed after falling back asleep 5 times at around 9am which is pretty late here. There was a time when I was getting out of bed at 6am. I had energy. Now days, and especially if it's raining, its hard to get out of bed. My main group of work is too busy to listen to me and it feels like tours are a second thought these days. Some of that is due to the protests over the large electrical transmission lines and the other is due to this gigantic meso-american farm project funded by the world bank that my community just became a part of. Because of it they have to work almost every day in their farms.
About the giant project: From what I've seen the project seems pretty legit but of course it has its unintended consequences and glitches just like every other aid program done in large scale. I don't want to take away from what they are doing though because I do feel like it is important and I can see that they have done the best with the resources they do have. The basic idea seems to be to find organized farm groups that have farms and pay them to make them better which in turn gives the farmers more money in the long run from increased product and helps in not cutting down more rainforest to put in more inefficient farms. Its a great idea. They are not really paying the people per se, but really just paying for all materials, tools, seeds, and classes they want to take to make their farms better. Its 27k and they have to spend it all is what I was told which I don't think will be a problem.
It is a fact that focusing on increased production on existing farms saves rain forest and other lands. If you can squeeze what you need out of the land you are already using why cut down down more trees. This is why I don't have a huge problem with large scale farm projects. I have a huge problem with the harmful chemicals used in large scale production and I have an even bigger problem with the evil corporations that get subsidies for no god damn reason other than they already have a lot of money and lobby, and whom push out small farmers. I could write 40 pages about that and you can probably tell I'm not happy about it so I'm going to spare you and I both the amounts of time it would take to write and read it. Continuing, so the point is put more into the farms that these people already have and to make sure they are doing right the project calls for receipts for everything, close oversight of the farms and their continuing progress, and the money to be given out at small increments to make sure someone doesn't run off with it. I like it.
Of course what they probably didn't see coming was the fact that the people in the group that have cacao farms that are really old need to do so much work in them ie cut the entire farm down and start again because the trees are too old, and the people that have sparsely farmed land are cutting down what is left of the virgin ground vegetation because it's easy. I will say that about 90% of all nutrients in a rainforest are carried in the canopy and from what I've seen so far the canopy is not being effected much. Another unintended consequence is something that I think is not only unavoidable, but also probably just not talked about as it will only stir up a lot of crap that might take down the whole thing. That is the fact that the people are so busy now, and have to work in their farms I they want to participate, that they are sending their kids to work in place of themselves. Now this is a usual occurrence here in panama, but if it came out that they were promoting kids to work in the farms instead of going to school then I could see some problems. One could also argue that with more money in the family that they would be able to send more of their kids to better schools. I believe that, and I also don't think that missing a little school here is that big of deal as of right now considering Panama ranks 128 out of 138 in terms of education in the world. They could learn more by watching T.V.
So the lady told me that there is no coffee because there is no power. That is because all coffee comes from the machine and is not made on the stove. Oh the good ol days when all you needed was a fire. Oh wait that's how it is about a 5 min walk down the road....
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