Leaving the Farm and the Poverty Cycle

This is the cacao market. The white bags are full of cacao just picked from chocolate forests in the wild. These people are Ngobe farmers. They are bringing cacao to market to sell it for almost nothing to make a few dollars to buy the things they need.

I want to talk about a few things here. First, the value of the cacao.

It is coming to the attention of many that chocolate, in its purest form, is actually good for you. That is so true, in fact more than true. I spent some time in Costa Rica with the Bribri. A woman there who was in her late 70's told me she never puts any chemicals into or on her body. She eats only things that are natural and she drinks 5 or 6 cups of raw cacao a day. Its unsweetened and boiled in water and tastes nothing like what your mother made.

The native people in Costa Rica are some of the longest lived people on earth.

In fact, the little old lady climbed a noni tree right in front of me to pick some noni leaves and show me how to make tea. But that's another story.

So we agree that cacao is a super-food, an amazing health secret, a powerful cancer preventer, an all natural mood lifter, and has the ability to help you think more clearly and thereby accomplish more in life.

Problem:
The younger generation of Ngobe do not drink their own cacao. They sell it.

Which brings me to the second thing I want to talk about. The Problem of Modern Society.

The Ngobe people live in a climate where most anything you can imagine grows wild. Mango, breadfruit, jackfruit, guanabana (powerful cancer fighter), coconut, cacao (that's chocolate, remember), water apple, orange, bitter orange, lime, naranjito (makes an great orange drink), guaba (also called ice cream bean), banana (about a zillion varieties), lychee (another super food), avocado (yes wild), ginger, monkey tail (like the ice cream beans, only bigger), and so much more. And that is only the foodstuff, if we were talking about medicinal plants the list would never end. In addition, the farmland will produce just about anything you want to plant

But, as one expat who has been living in Central America for many years put it, "The moment that first fruit truck appeared over the mountain, they left the farms."

Enter modern society.
Who would have thought that bringing fruit to market would create poverty? Well it did. But it wasn't just the fruit. It was the TV's and the cell phones and the fancy sneakers and the hiphop hats and the gold necklaces, but interestingly enough, not the refrigerators that you would like you could not live without.

The power of the bling-bling is sensational.Traditional people see that they don't have to work the ground or climb the trees anymore. They can sit inside and watch TV and text on their cell phones. They don't really need refrigerators (I have lived here nine months now without one) and they'd rather spend their money on buying minutes for their phones or video games or fancy watches or earrings or necklaces.

Now understand, it isn't that I think they should not have these things. But they are not prepared for a life of "stuff" They cannot find jobs that pay enough for them to BOTH buy fancy things and eat.

So they don't eat.

Well they do eat, but they have given up the healthy foods of the jungle and opted for cheap rice and bananas and occasionally a little bit of chicken. And their health is suffering. These people who were once rugged and fit, almost never needing a doctor, are now overweight, seriously lacking in nutrition, and often sick.

So what do we do?
How do we turn back time?
Obviously we can't and it isn't necessarily the best thing to do. It wouldn't be fair to these people to deny them the modern conveniences we enjoy. Its really easy for me to sit here in the air conditioning on my soft bed and complain about how they should just go back to the jungle.

But I think many people in the Western world are becoming aware of the problems of a money based culture. Many are working to create simpler, more connected lives, learning how to garden and use solar power and rain water. I see it everywhere.

We have played the money game and are seeing the pitfalls. But the Ngobe are just now walking in the way we have already been.

Is it possible for us to support their ancient way of life and even learn from them (which many of us want to do) while still supporting their transition into the modern world?

These are not easy questions.

But we are trying to answer them.

Still Working on the Problem,
Laura