Liz in Bukoba: A Typical Day

Well, as anyone who has ever lived in Africa can tell you, the days here are very varied and interesting. Matthew and I were discussing how when he lived in New York for 2 years he became bored very quickly and couldn't wait to get back to Africa for some more action! It is a different kind of excitement here: there is plenty of waiting around because little things take much longer to do, however the excitement happens all around you every day. I can see what he means by being bored in New York. There is plenty of action there but it is predictable. Here in Africa the days are never predictable and there is always something exciting happening. In response to an extremely popular question I will try and explain my environment here in Bukoba as well as daily life here to the best of my ability.

Each morning I jog from my apartment down the main street of Bukoba town down to the shore of Lake Victoria and around the lake. The climate here is ideal: each afternoon it reaches about 85 degrees (F) and has yet to dip below 75.

The locals eat Mtoke which is also know as a cooking banana. I know what you are all thinking, "plantains!" Well that is what I thought too, but could not have been more wrong. The skins of these bananas are bright green when they are ripe but they are not very sweet at all. Instead they have the consistency and flavor that is probably best compared to that of a potato. The Tanzanians cook them in water with spices and serve them with a few beans. Typically a huge bushel of them costs around 5 dollars and feeds a large family for a week. They eat their food off of one communal plate and with their hands. There is also an abundance of fruit and veggies for me to eat, but typically the locals stick to Mtoke because it is cheap, readily available, high in energy and quite filling!

Raza's wife Mama is an amazing cook and they have me over for lunch or dinner almost every day to ensure that I have at least one hot meal. They are both of Indian origin but both are Tazanian natives so the food is an amazingly delicious mix of Indian and local African. There are several types of bananas eaten here, a typically sweet one that is cooked like a sweet plantain similar to the Mexican and Cuban style as well as a medium size banana like in North America but a bit darker in color and finally the mini bananas that I love so much as well. There are also several types of oranges, mini and large all very sweet and yesterday when I went to Kagondu with some of the disabled children they were harvesting pineapples and they were sweeter than anything I have ever tasted: full of flavor with none of the sharp pineapple bitterness that I am used to. They were about 50 cents for 3 of them! I eat at least one passion fruit every morning, they are small and sweet and delicious and also come in several varieties, as well as the delicious tomatoes and gigantic avocados that I also eat daily. There are fish in the lake--tilapia to be exact--and chickens abound making eggs readily available. It is amazing to me the variety and quality of the food that they can prepare here considering that most people are cooking over charcoal and wood burning piles using one or two pots! As I mentioned every day here for me has been different and while I am not trying to achieve a regular schedule the rhythm of life is so much different here that it has taken some getting used to!

The mornings are usually spent taking care of personal matters, for example laundry (by hand and dried on a line), email (twice a week but over a connection as slow as molasses running uphill when it is working), going to the market to buy fruit or veggies (every two days because I have neither fridge nor Tupperware to preserve things in and my outdoor kitchen ensures that the bugs help themselves). During the daytime so far I have been doing different things based on Raza's suggestions and I will later write about the goings-ons at IZAAS during a typical week. Basically I spend that time observing what goes on around the IZAAS medical project which has a rhythm to it, although it is chaotic, and takes up most of my day. At around 5 on week days I will head over to the orphan center and play some games with them, typically the boys chase the tennis ball that Matthew was kind enough to leave with me, while the girls hold my hand and touch my hair and work up the courage to smile at me and laugh with me. They are very shy girls and the boys are for the most part, crazy. They are so cute and I have become very attached to them all, especially the one whose houses I have visited.

Their circumstances are all very unique but for the most party they live with relatives in tiny and not child-proofed homes without electricity or running water. In all cases there were other children at home during the times of my visit who were of school age but not attending school due to lack of money and the necessity of working to provide income to feed the family. The orphans are supported financially by Raza and the IZASS project for school purposes but not all of the children attend his program. The smart and dedicated ones do. Tin roofs and mud walls are the norm and there are absolutely no frills or personal space. Most sleep two to a bed but some have more, and there is not one situation that I have seen where the road that they travel on to get to these homes is not covered in garbage. Some good news is that they seem to all have mosquito nets over their beds due to a very successful educational campaign that occurred here a number of years ago. The other good news is that these children have Raza's program to go to every weekday afternoon in order to have a positive influence and a clean safe and positive environment to learn in and to play in. They have been so receptive to me and every day that I do not come by the drop in center I hear about it from them and their teacher. Amazing how far the game of Pictionary can go! Because my Swahili is not very good and their English is about as proficient, Pictionary has become our favorite game by default.

Every few days I go up to Mugeza, where the disabled children's' school is and I also head over to the "deaf and dumb" school. With the exception of a handful, the disabled children were with their families until yesterday when they returned to the school, there was some kind of holiday, but that worked out quite well because I was able to establish a rapport with some of the girls making me seem like an old friend returning to hang out with them as opposed to a stranger coming to tell them what to do. For the remainder of my stay in Bukoba I will be heading up there daily in order to do physical activity with them based on their individual needs. Mostly it will be basic exercises for those who can and just playing and having fun rolling around in the grass. Although I have not helped the disabled children with their physical needs as much as I hoped that I could by working with them for a month, I have seen what goes on behind the scenes of IZAAS and have been working with Raza on a plan that hopefully will improve their lives for the future.

My evenings are very quiet, on the nights when I am not eating with Raza and Mama (they tend to eat quite late so I opt out of dinner more often than not) I am in my apartment by 8 or so in order to beat the malaria mosquitoes to the punch (I hear they love you more when you eat bananas so I think I would be in trouble if I didn't!), then I write in my travel journal and plan out my blog articles and I spend some time reading under my mosquito net before I nod off. My apartment is part of the building that Raza grew up in and was left to him by his father. Also a great philanthropist, Mr. Fazal was a family man and built 4 large apartments in addition to the one that his family lived in growing up, all on top of the storefronts that he owned. At one point there were 22 people living in the apt. that Raza and Mama now occupy alone.

My personal pad is above the drop in center (medical and orphan, they are adjacent) and is quite huge. There are 4 large rooms all bigger than my current room on Eldridge Street and as wall a toilet room, outdoor kitchen, and a balcony. I am giving the impression of luxury and although it is spacious I promise I am not living like a typical Tanzanian but it is really more like the shell of an apartment. My first two weeks here I had serious difficulty sleeping, although I would read to try and get my mind off of the activities of the day, there was never enough distance from the activities of the day and the journaling for me to get my mind off things before sleep. I try to journal and plan my articles early in the evening now so that I can read and get into my books. It makes it easier to sleep: I find the need here so overwhelming that if I try to sleep thinking about the activities of the day and what is to come tomorrow, and try to work on my grand plan for my return, I cannot sleep there is too much going on in my head. I have read 3 books in my two weeks on the road, it is the only way. For those of you who are concerned, for the past few nights I have finally gotten some sleep, so I think my body has adjusted to the time zone and I have finally figured out a way to control my mind. It was hard to take in everything at first, but now that I have started to work on a plan for the future with Raza and narrowed my focus to what I can personally achieve to something tangible which is easier.

So that, in long, is what I have been doing on a daily basis here in Bukoba. There is alot of 'hurry up and wait' that goes on and makes the days frustrating because I am so goal oriented and I am only able to achieve half of my daily objectives in each 24-hour period, but I have been very active with no leisure time thus far. Although I don't mind working 7 days a week for a short while it will be a hard pace to maintain so I intend on making up for it at the end of my trip. With Raza's blessing and guidance I have begun planning for a safari (the Swahili word for "journey") where I plan on seeing much more of beautiful Tanzania! I hope I have painted a vivid picture of my daily life here in Bukoba, surely a hard task as everyday seems completely different from the last.

Liz in Bukoba: A week at IZAAS

What goes on at IZAAS in a typical week? This program, founded by a businessman named Raza Fazal, is very multidimensional, but essentially there are two major divisions: the orphans program and the disabled project. Every week so many things happen here that it has taken a while to step back understand the flow of the whole place. I will do my best to describe what happens and how the aid is distributed on a weekly basis citing examples from my own personal observations over the past two weeks.

Raza owns the building that he lives in (I live there as well in an apartment in the back) and it is above several store fronts. He owns a hardware shop, a travel agency, and a cellular phone distributors on this premises. He also has other very successful businesses in other locations around town. The mornings, he says, are dedicated to these ventures: take care of your businesses first and in the afternoons see the needy people who drop by for various types of assistance.

In the back of the building next to the orphan drop-in center there is the IZAAS Medical Project Center. Having heard of Raza's program, many villagers from the surrounding Kagera region come to see the doctor here every morning. Because the IZAAS program has helped so many disabled people it has gained a sort of notoriety with the locals. Consequently, people who could easily be treated elsewhere end up here simply because they don't know what to do or cannot afford to go to the government hospital.

Last week, for example, I saw a mother and child at the medical drop in center from about 10am to around 2 in the afternoon. The child had a very large and severe burn on her leg from a cooking incident (very common here because stoves and fires are on the ground) and should have been taken to the government hospital for immediate care but they sat and waited at the drop in center until someone saw them and directed them to the right place. I can't imagine sitting around patiently waiting for help while one's daughter had a huge open wound on her leg covered by a dirty wrap, slowly becoming infected. This is one of the reasons that there are so many disabled people in this part of the world, often a simple injury becomes much more severe, in many cases permanently crippling due to delayed, absent or insufficient care. Even when the villagers do know where to go to receive a certain medical treatment, lack of transportation, and thus time, into town often prevents them from doing so.

In the afternoons people drop by the hardware shop and request financial aid from Raza and his helpers. His right hand man, Ruta, listens to the requests of the various applicants and then makes his recommendation to Raza who reviews each situation and most of the time follows Ruta's suggestions as far as how much to give each applicant. Their methods are precise and well thought out.

On Monday of last week, for example, as I was standing in the shop a woman came in requesting about 95 USD in aid. She has five children aged 13 to 22 her husband has died of HIV/AIDS and she wants money to send the children to school. After reviewing her case Ruta decides that they can give her about 25 USD and Raza makes this the offer. Everything is recorded. In several of these cases that I observed that the applicant was turned away to go back home and get proof that the aid that was given previously (some are first time visitors but it seems that most have a history with them) went to the proper place in the form of a receipt or report card.

The next woman to drop by the shop was disabled. She walks with crutches and has a prosthetic limb. This limb was paid for by the IZAAS program in 2002 and is now broken. Raza will pay for her transportation (by bus known as the "dalah-dalah") as well as for the new limb: a total cost of around 200 USD. She receives full payment for her claims because she is helpless and lives alone. Several more people dropped by the shop with similar claims as the first woman, the most common scenario being that they need help paying school fees for their children. Although they cannot all be compensated for the total ammount that they have requested, if some type of proof is provided regarding their needs and their responsibility in using previous funds properly, they are never turned away empty handed.

I was very impressed with the formality of the process and clearly there is a reason why Raza is such a successful business man. He runs his charitable organization with the same honesty and diligence that he runs the other ventures. Some of it is by instinct, but most of the flow of money is based on factual information. Ruta keeps every record in a giant book so that it is a known fact and recorded how much of the of the businesses' and how much of Raza's personal money is going to help these needy people. It turns out that a very significant amount, somewhere around 100, 000 USD every year!

Along with the typical day to day drop ins to the shop and the medical center, there are also 'special events' that occur regularly. Every Tuesday for example, you will find about 30 to 40 people hanging around outside of the shop starting at 11am ranging in ages from a few months old (babes in arms) to around 80 years old. They are all HIV positive and they come for in-kind food donations that is distributed by Ruta at around 3pm. They prefer to give them food as opposed to money because they know that at least one good meal a week can make a huge difference in their health, regardless of their age.

Fridays are a very special day at the orphanage: Mama, Raza's wife and some other women, both paid and volunteer, work all morning and into the afternoon to prepare a meal for all of the children It is uncertain what, and if, they have been eating during the rest of the week, but at least once a week they are very well fed. Cooking for 65 children seems like no great task, especially when these 65 eat like they are 150. They are literally starving for nutritious food and it is obvious by the way they dig in! The way here is off of communal plates and I have never seen 5 children sit around a giant heap of steaming pilau (rice, meat and veggies stewed all together with spices: delicious!) and eat and eat and eat until they send the youngest back with a bare plate for more. Most of the children have about two platefuls polished off with the rare treat of a glass full of soda. I ate less than 1/5 of what they were each consuming and was very full.

Saturday the drop in center is open early and Sunday the children are mostly on their own, occasionally another orphanage invites them to join in a communal meal. Up at the disabled center the weeks are much less varied, the children have class and they are fed but they get no exercise or serious stimulation except for the rare times when there is the occasional visitor or when I come up to play with them as I have been everyday now. They sing songs and hang out and are happy but there is not too much going on in their lives. It is fun for me to see them as I always get an extremely warm reception as do all visitors. This week I will be bringing up some friends that I have met here: my neighbour and an

Irish girl just to get the children excited and make them feel like they have more playmates than just me!

A marketplace of shops, an orphanage, walk-in clinic, center for the disabled and home -- these are the many different things all going on in Raza's humble building with its dedicated helpers. As you can no doubt see, there is so much work over the course of a single week that goes into assisting the many people who are helped by IZAAS.

Liz in Bukoba: Initial Impressions

So here I am in amazing Bukoba, Tanzania! It is beautiful- the earth is bright red and everything around it is green and lush. Huge banana trees, flowers, and plants dot the landscape. The fruit is amazing, passion fruit is the big thing here, you can just bite into the skin (or cut the top off if you are me!) and then drink out the seed/juice mixture. The pineapple, mango and oranges are also delicious.

The people are extremely genuine and friendly; they love to greet one another as they pass. When I jog in the morning on the shore of Lake Victoria I have to say the Swahili greetings about 100 times! It is so funny. They love watching me run- I think they are mostly looking at my sneakers. Here the typical footwear is flip-flops or any type of sandal.

I have had the opportunity to meet Raza, the man who started IZAAS. He is a true visionary. He started the project 10 years ago working with the disabled. Originally he was mainly focused on getting artificial limbs for amputees. He expanded to helping people with many types of disabilities but has since narrowed his scope to children on the advice of a Dutch physical therapist who came to Bukoba for a 2 year stage as a volunteer to help IZAAS (she left in 2003). The work he does is amazing- he is truly committed to the children he helps

That is all for now but there will be plenty more to come. . . . .

Liz in Bukoba: Nameema

I am walking with a well dressed woman, Jonio, from where the dalah-dalah (taxi-bus type thing) has dropped us off, in a very close suburb of Bukoba. I follow her and her daughter, also well put together, clean looking and well fed down an unpaved rocky path towards their home. Earlier today they had come into Raza's shop requesting financial aid from IZAAS and I asked if I could do a home visit. From my experience here it seems to me that they are what I would call middle class Bukobans, by appearance only, and I want to see how they live. We walk for about 15 minutes downhill. Jonio is pointing out the various highlights of this neighborhood, the school, her friends' houses etc and we arrive at a small house. Her son Dedas is sitting on a rock listening to a disc-man, so I conclude that I was right, middle class. Nameema greets me warmly and comes over to shake my hand. I ask to see the house and she graciously invites me in. Through a cloth curtain outside door we enter a room about 6x6, with a straw lined floor and they spread out a cloth for me to sit on. We all sit and start chatting in broken English and very broken Swahili about life in general. After a time, I ask to see the rest of the house, there is another cloth door behind them and I am curious. I stick my head in (there is not enough room to walk in) and it is another room, about 6x4 with one large bed and one smaller bed, some plastic containers and some wooden shelves. Nameema explains to me that her sister and her sleep on the small bed, her mother and other sister on the big bed and her brother on the straw of the adjacent room. I ask about the father and they laughingly mime and explain that he is a drinker and he is abusive and they are happy when he is not around, like now. Where does he sleep?

I follow Nameema into an adjacent structure, also with low brick walls and a tin roof, this part of the house consists of two rooms, one has a bed, with standing room all around, and the other is what she laughingly calls the sitting room, there is a wooden futon frame, but no mattress. Now she is laughing hysterically and so is her sister, Beth. She decides to continue the tour in a very MTV 'Cribs' fashion. She takes me to the bathroom, the shower, a woven straw corner with what looks like and old gas can full of water (this suburb is quite far from water supply and I see several people trekking around with these gas cans) and then I get to see her garden which has newly planted pineapple and cassava sprouts along with some other beautiful plants. This is not a temporary home, the garden tells me that she plans to live here until they give fruit. (pictures to follow)

My tour is finished and I have to ask what they are laughing about because I don't see anything funny about this situation, but they do so I stop asking and laugh with them, so that they don't think I am mean, but I feel more like crying. This is a very typical situation and they are not poorly off. All 4 children have finished primary school and at least started secondary school, so they are making it work. Nameema is the most articulate, happy and beautiful youth that I have met she is also disabled. Nine years ago she was hit by a car and she had to stay in the hospital in Kampala, Uganda for 6 months. In the past 9 years she has had 5 surgeries and she still uses those silver crutches with the handles (not sure what they are called). She broke her femur in 4 places and did something very severe to her lower leg that I could not figure out but there are two huge parallel metal rods sticking out from her leg that each contain a series of pins, so I assume that they are holding her leg together.

Jonio, her mother, came to IZAAS because Nameema has to go back to Kampala for (at least) 2 more surgeries and she needs money for the trip, doctors and a visa. What happens when you are living at the poverty line, making just enough money to house, school and feed your children and suddenly one of your children needs expensive operations and trips to another country? How can they manage the expense? There is no way, this is where IZAAS came into play. For the past 9 years Raza and IZAAS have been paying for every trip, doctor's visit, visa and surgery for Nameema, otherwise, without the proper care, her leg would have had to have been amputated.

Smiling and requesting that I come back for another visit tomorrow, Nameema walks with me as far up the path back to the road as she can. The going is tough, it is uphill, rocky and winding, so she turns back after a few minutes. I wave farewell and turn to watch her make her way, slowly and carefully down the steep path. I am so glad that she will get her funds for her trip to Kampala but I wonder after 9 years, what is the best expected outcome for her? Is it possible for her to ever walk again unassisted? Without the proper aftercare I really have no idea, so I can only hope that with the money that she will get from IZAAS this next operation will be the one that cures her...I am doubtful, but hopeful at the same time.

Liz in Bukoba: The Disabled

The disabled children live about 7 km from Bukoba in an area called Mugeza. There they have very basic facilities, no frills. There is also a 'Deaf and Dumb' school very close by, operated by IZAAS. Unfortunately, the children do not have access to organized exercise or physical therapy. There are a few doctors who volunteer for Raza and his IZAAS program: Tanzanians, Americans and Europeans alike. They do everything from screening and registration with the medical system to actual operations.

Amazingly, there have been several cases where the child has been disabled for years, deaf for example, and due to lack of medical attention and money the families have no idea, or the ability to find out, that a simple operation can cure them! The doctors have screened over 200 of the deaf children alone and there are several dozen who are on the waiting list for an operation which is expected to cure them! It is very difficult to find the funding and Raza puts up his own personal money, along with whatever he receives from the occasional donation that comes in to help these children. Raza's system is very well organized and he has budgeted that he can pay for 3-4 of these children's operations per month. This is in addition to the immense amounts of money that he allots to various other needy cases each DAY! He is truly an inspiration and lives a simple life according to my standards but EXTREMELY well for the standard of living for locals here. He has been a successful business man and has continued his late father's way of living to help the needy.

It is difficult to imagine being disabled for your entire life and finding out that there was a simple operation that could cure you, or at least improve your life dramatically, and not being able to afford it. A few hundred dollars couldn't even get you IN to most of the doctors' offices in NYC and here it would cover the transportation cost to Dar es Salaam or Nairobi where there are major hospitals, along with the entire operation and prescribed medications! Sadly though, even after the operations have been a success, there is little to no after care available. However, they manage to get along better than before (walking with a limp is much better than being wheelchair bound due to a severe case of club foot- VERY VERY common here for some reason).

There are about 75 children living at the disabled center at present. They are SO sweet and friendly and love talking to visitors. Their spirit is amazing and inspirational! I love going up there and playing with them, it is really heart warming.

Liz in Bukoba: The Orphans

Between the recent history of the Rwandan genocide and the war in Uganda there were many displaced children that Raza, the founder of Izaas, encountered coming to his program for the disabled. Some of them were orphans and all of them were very needy, but not always in the same capacity that he was used to helping. However, if a child came and the need was great, he began to assist in whatever way possible.

Tanzania is famous in East Africa for its peaceful history. Other regional countries look to it as an example; this is one of the reasons that there are many refugees here. There were many displaced and vulnerable children in Bukoba due to the wars in neighboring countries and the city’s proximity to the Ugandan and Rwandan boarder. Raza was like a father figure for these children and he helped them either locate their families or funded transportation to a city where they had relatives. Sometimes he even housed them himself.

Raza now has a very basic house with bunk beds and a room for cooking where only children in extreme need are housed. Even children who are not orphans come to him for help. They may need assistance with school fees, may have been abused (not very common here in TZ), or may have parents infected with HIV/AIDS (VERY common here in TZ).

The orphan program is now what can best be described as a drop in center for vulnerable children. There is a large classroom-type setting with desks and a chalkboard and there is a teacher who comes every afternoon (Raza pays the salary) that helps them catch up on their lessons, gives them some moral coaching, and gives them a safe and reliable environment to meet at every day. Some of them have parents who have died from HIV and AIDS, some of them have one parent alive, some of their parents have left or been killed by accidents or infections or any number of reasons.

It is therefore difficult for the families to send all of the children to school. Most of these children are years behind because they had to drop out due to lack of funding. It costs about 200-300 dollars to send one of these children to school for the entire year, depending on if it is primary or secondary education. This includes school fees and the cost of the uniform, as well as books. (I remember spending that on a pair of high heeled shoes that I have only worn twice!) Often if there is a child who seems very promising and is dedicated to their studies Raza will try to find a way to fund their schooling so that they can continue after primary school. Sadly the opposite is true for those who do not show the same promise. Can you imagine how many people you know who would have had their education taken away from them if they had not shown much promise by grade one?

I was privy to a discussion about 3 of the boys who are extreme cases and housed in the orphanage, Hussein, Abdullah and Hamza. I spent the entire day with them and Matthew, another Izaas volunteer and employee of the World Food Program posted in Uganda. Like Matthew I fell in love with the boys. Over dinner, Matthew was talking to Raza and Mama (Raza’s wife) about these boys and they seemed to have decided that Hussein is not very smart and they will not be able to continue to send him to school. He looks to be about 10 years old and the others are around 8. Matthew, who has taken special interest in these boys, insisted and then offered to personally pay for their schooling if it would be possible to organize the enrollment. He has about 8 children enrolled in school currently! He agreed to transport them to wherever they could be enrolled. Martin, his driver for our trip from Kampala to Bukoba, a silent observer to all of our activities up until that point, said that he would help the boys by finding somewhere for them to live in Kampala so that they could attend a good school there. That gesture touched me so deeply that I almost cried, right there at the dinner table. This is how people are here. They will put themselves out to help someone in need. If they can do anything at all they will do it. It is beautiful.

There were about 60 orphans at the drop in center today. I can only imagine what is in store for them, hundreds have been helped and hundreds have not. I asked them to sing a song for me and taped it. They LOVE being in pictures and on camera and are so used to digital photography that they ask to see the photo right away!

THE MDG AND POVERTY IN BURKINA FASO

We have approached the mid-point for the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and progress to date varies according to the 2007 MDG report. Although some nations in Sub-Saharan Africa have witnessed positive improvements in specific areas, "the lack of any significant increase in official development assistance since 2004 makes it impossible, even for well-governed countries, to meet the Millennium Development Goals," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said last Monday. The report further states that “donors should reduce the present unpredictability of aid by providing multi-year schedules of aid flows to each recipient country.” This report also urges the developed countries particularly the Group of the Eight most industrialized nations to meet their pledge to double aid to Africa by 2010.

One African nation desperately in need of this additional aid is Burkina Faso, one of the poorest countries in the world where the majority of the 13 million people live on less than $1 a day.

In an article entitled “A Century Behind” appearing in the January 16, 2006 issue of The National Catholic Weekly, Peter Donaldson, President of the Population Council, states, “Mortality rates in Burkina Faso are higher than they were in the United States in 1900. A baby born in Burkina can expect to live about 30 years less than a child born in the United States- 45 versus 77 years.” Donaldson goes on to discuss the pervasive poverty in Burkina Faso. There are many factors contributing to and stemming from the rampant poverty. These include an uneducated workforce, American and European cotton subsidies, food insecurity, deficient investment, poor infrastructure, scarce resources, illiteracy, and widespread disease.

Palms for Life Fund has selected Burkina Faso as one of our target countries. We are working to secure funding for the many wonderful projects and programs that cannot operate or expand without the necessary financial support.

Please help us make a difference. Donate to Palms for Life Fund. For every donation of $100.00 or more, we will gladly send you a FREE Palms for Life T-shirt.

Liz has arrived in Tanzania

Well here I am in Kampala, Uganda and it is amazing! The weather is perfect and beautiful, not too hot (not like Dubai, YIKES!) and a nice tropical breeze. I had a wonderful flight down on Emirates Airlines into Entebbe airport and was picked up at the airport by Matthew Mcilvenna's driver and then headed into the heart of the city of Kampala. It is a tropical paradise here. The city is built on 7 hills, just like Roma, but that is pretty much where the comparaison can start and end. The earth is red, just like in Niger, but it GROWS! Palm trees, large bushes and tropical trees, grasses, mango, pinapple, lettuce, yams, maize, you name it, they grow it! Matthew works for the UN's WFP (World Food Program) and has been living in East Africa, on and off, for more than a decade. Although he works full time, his side project is IZAAS, the community service program in Bukoba, Tanzania. I will be spending the next month over there working with the children and the orphans trying to help them in several different capacites. Apparently there is email there (whew!) so the next update will be live from Bukoba and I will be able to give a better picture of my daily life and the needs of the children. For now all is well with me, I am happy, healthy and well adjusted.

xox Love to all

Liz Ross

HELPING ECUADORIAN CHILDREN JOIN THE WORLD WIDE WEB

Palms for Life Fund is pleased to announce a new partnership to provide computer access and environmental upgrades to 37 elementary schools in marginal regions of Ecuador. Palms for Life and Mercy Corps will ship 200 computers and roughly 800 gallons of paint to education centers run by Fe y Alegría, an organization that operates throughout Central and South America in educating children in impoverished areas.

By the end of the year the computers, donated by Mercy Corps and featuring Pentium 3 processors and 500 MHz, will have high-speed broadband access. Fe y Alegría will be implementing IT educational programs for the school's teachers, and give the school children an electronic portal to the wider world. While the technology will be used to emphasize networking opportunities between the schools themselves, it will also serve the purpose "to adapt them to become the technical foundation of the struggle against the negative impacts of globalization and for social justice." The program's end goals are very much in keeping with Palm for Life's emphasis on the idea that "we are all connected to the poor:" This technology will allow the school children to enter the global digital family and share their experiences and culture with those around the world.

This new partnership will also provide the school children with the materials with which to enhance their classrooms and engage in creative teamwork. The paint will be used to commission murals emphasizing peace, non-violence and children's rights. These murals will encourage children through the creative process to work together, overcome their differences, and create a peaceful environment in their schools.

This is an exciting opportunity to combat poverty by empowering individuals to engage and overcome the challenges of their immediate environments as well as those of the wider world. In order for Palms for Life to continue to fund and explore opportunities like this one, please consider a contribution to the Fund via www.palmsforlifefund.org. For every gift of $50.00 or more, a FREE T-shirt will be donated.

Convert Another Salad Bowl into a Life-Saving Opportunity

On the 31st of December 2006, our friends Elaine and Steve D. organized a wonderful end-of-the-year party at their home. They told their guests that they did not wish to receive any gifts. Instead, they were welcome to make a charitable donation to the Palms for Life Fund. As a result, a number of their guests visited the website and made very large contributions towards Palms’ efforts at ending poverty. Elaine and Steve offered their friends and family a unique opportunity to feel and do good and by doing so aided our efforts at helping those in need. Palms for Life Fund would not be possible without selfless and generous people like Elaine and Steve and all of their guests.

We hope that you may offer your guests a similar option!

Helping Orphans in Tanzania

We have a very exciting special project that needs your urgent attention!

Palms for Life volunteer Liz Ross will be traveling to Tanzania in East Africa this summer to work with disabled orphans in the city of Bukoba. Her work will only be possible with your contribution to cover the expenses of her trip.

These children desperately need help in learning how to live with missing limbs and other disabling conditions. Liz will bring her extensive experience in fitness and physical rehabilitation to help the children strengthen and condition their bodies. In her prior work in Niger, West Africa, Liz created strength and conditioning programs for many athletes in several different sports and also helped found a national women’s basketball team which is still in existence today.

Liz will leave at the end of June and spend six weeks in Tanzania. Her trip will have a lasting impact beyond her six-week stay in Tanzania, as she will also spend time training local staff and establishing a regular sports activity schedule to utilize existing local athletic resources. “My focus will be on enhancing the strength and mobility of these disabled orphans with the aim of increasing their independence and quality of life,” Liz said.

For the children, Liz’ expertise will be life-changing. In many cases, Liz will be the only professional who will work with these children during their entire lives.

You can help her make that difference.

In order for Liz to fulfill this important mission, Palms for Life needs your contribution to help towards her minimal expenses of $3,000. Please click HERE and on Donate Now next to Volunteers for Life to give to this important cause and enable Liz' efforts to go forward.

All contributions of $50.00 or more will receive a FREE Palms for Life T-shirt.

If you would like to help Liz and further our efforts to alleviate poverty, please send a link to this blog to others.

We have many new partnerships with great NGOs and exciting projects that need the help of wonderful and generous people like you. These programs include feeding and educating impoverished children in Africa and Latin America, donating computers to indigenous children in Ecuador, providing micro-credit to poor women-headed households in Angola, improving maternal and child health in Burkina Faso, and many others. You will find more information about these projects on our website.

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we · are · all · connected · to · the · poor

A Hunger-Free World

Palms for Life is above all interested in innovative and effective means of helping the poor. This morning I read a story that is inspiring for all of us who work in this field, whether we are working for a non profit or contributing to the cause. Andrew Youn, a young graduate from Yale and Northwestern University who founded a nonprofit "One Acre Fund" in Africa has one main goal: prevent generations of children from starving during the "hunger season" and instead having surplus food and money enough to go to school.

Youn started in Kenya, where hunger kills more children than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined, by applying an innovative micro-loan project (see ClarionLedger.com)

The business model is relatively simple, namely: provide poor farmers with micro-loans so that they can procure good seeds and fertilizers; educate them in managing their assets and production and help them develop their markets.

I have no doubts that the model can work. Throughout my career in the field, I have seen the magic effect of small loans. Without such loans, farmers would sell their grain even before the harvest just to get the cash to buy the seeds and the fertilizers. This simple cash input makes all the difference and can truly advance poor farmers and help them increase their food production. It is also worth mentioning that poor people have a very high repayment rate.

However, my experience also tells me that out of the four elements of that business model market development is the most difficult one. I think of the underdeveloped local and regional markets, the fragile and unstable national market and then well beyond, the voracious global market. The implications are enormous and can not be ignored.

I have witnessed in Ecuador for instance how farmers see their potatoes or onions or corn getting rotten in their farms because a bridge has fallen, a landslide blocked the road and the truck did not make it to their remote village; I have seen how farmers were obliged to sell their milk at pathetically low costs and had no infrastructure to handle perishable products. There are much more complex issues related to cooperatives, price policy, food imports…

Fair trade is what will ultimately make a long-lasting difference in the fight against hunger and poverty.

This is why Palms for Life is so worthwhile, because we see our projects as an integral part of the entire journey of fighting hunger and poverty. We look at the root causes of poverty and work with executing partners who embrace this approach and tackle poverty from all its angles. We ensure that education, training and capacity building are integral parts of every project.

This is how we are actively engaged in helping the world realize that we are all elements of one single system; a system, like the replica of our own body, where all parts are interconnected and must be beautifully aligned in workable harmony. The same way where it takes each of us to work hard to care for our health and integrity, to nurture the wonderful gift of life, this is the way each of us is responsible for making this world a better place for all.

UN Protecting Human Beings

It has often happened in my life that I have come up with an idea about which I had strong feelings, that I found original and even daring to being exposed, and for which I was ready to take a strong stand, and that almost by coincidence, around the same time, someone else was expressing a similar idea. It usually provokes in me a mix of reactions: a first one, more spontaneous is: how interesting, this reinforces so perfectly well what I just said. A second one, more thought through is rather: there is consensus, this is not just a matter of coincidence; the time is ripe for this idea to make its way to the top, to gain the force of a hurricane and to reach the minds of the decision makers. Perhaps more than one other voice will make itself hear in addition to mine and more and more voices and finally, things will change. A renewed hope, every single day.

Throughout my career, it has often been difficult, at some crucial times, to remain silent. There were moments when events around me were so intense that I found it unbearable to just be there and watch, and remain silent. I thus took the risk and spoke out.

The other day, as I read a short note by the UN Spokesperson, on behalf of Mr. Ban Ki-moon, exhorting the parties in Lebanon to moderation and dialogue, the thought hit me like a lightning: what about the people of Lebanon? I could see the terror on people’s faces and had this clear image of human beings being caught in the midst of an unwanted, unnecessary fight. A new civil war.

And where is the UN? My dear UN which I had served for 30 years, in which I believe and which flag gives me the chills and the hopes, every single time. The UN with its ultimate goal to protect human beings? Yes, TO PROTECT. And the word just came in my mind as a revelation.

Again, what about the people?

I immediately went to my computer and sent a note to the UN Spokesperson. The Un Secretary General is the maximum authority in the world, the only one who has the right, the mandate, the obligation to look after the well being of all people, independently of their race, religion, age, gender, nationality. The SG has such a tremendous power, and can be such a wonderful world leader; he is the voice of ALL human beings and has the mandate to provide them an unconditional protection.

What does it entail?

It is true that the UN is but the reflection of all its constituency – the countries, i.e. their leaders – and is bound to seeking consensus. However, the SG is empowered by all the UN member states and as such, he should stand firm in front of the world politicians, and remind them over and over again about their responsibility. The SG is the spokesperson of the world’s human beings. This is what has been delegated to him. Human beings should be the center of the UN language and actions. The SG has to talk to the people of the world, remind them of their basic human rights while at the same time empowering them to demand accountability from their leaders. In public statements, the SG should for instance say:” I exhort you leaders to show moderation… The people of your country deserve to live in peace and harmony, we therefore urge you to….in order to ensure the well-being of the people for which you are fully responsible.”

Such language, followed by clear actions, will transform the UN and bring it closer to being able to fulfill its mandate, its ultimate goal, to protect human beings.

And last, but not least, a few days ago Lee Feinstein of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote in the Washington Post on the UN Reform: “The most important "reform" Ban Ki-moon can undertake is to convert these three inspiring words, "responsibility to protect," into a programme of action… The long-term goal is to avoid the stark options of "Doing Nothing" and "Sending in the Marines." That requires establishing a pattern of early and effective international response at the first signs of concern. The place to start is with concrete steps to build capacity -- diplomatic, economic, legal, and military -- in support of the principle of humanitarian protection. Universal adoption of the responsibility to protect has begun to remove the classical excuses for doing nothing in the face of mass atrocities. What is needed now is the capacity and political will to back it up”.

Now please, go back to my introduction….

Bono and Poverty

This speech I listened to and found to be most inspiring, simple, beautiful, and true. Taken from Penn's Almanac website, http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/between/2004/commence-b.html

Commencement Address by Bono, co-founder of DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), and lead singer of U2, May 17, 2004.

Because We Can, We Must

My name is Bono and I am a rock star. Don't get me too excited because I use four letter words when I get excited. I'd just like to say to the parents, your children are safe, your country is safe, the FCC has taught me a lesson and the only four letter word I'm going to use today is P-E-N-N. Come to think of it 'Bono' is a four-letter word. The whole business of obscenity--I don't think there's anything certainly more unseemly than the sight of a rock star in academic robes. It's a bit like when people put their King Charles spaniels in little tartan sweats and hats. It's not natural, and it doesn't make the dog any smarter.

It's true we were here before with U2 and I would like to thank them for giving me a great life, as well as you. I've got a great rock and roll band that normally stand in the back when I'm talking to thousands of people in a football stadium and they were here with me, I think it was seven years ago. Actually then I was with some other sartorial problems. I was wearing a mirror-ball suit at the time and I emerged from a forty-foot high revolving lemon. It was sort of a cross between a space ship, a disco and a plastic fruit.

I guess it was at that point when your Trustees decided to give me their highest honor. Doctor of Laws, wow! I know it's an honor, and it really is an honor, but are you sure? Doctor of Law, all I can think about is the laws I've broken. Laws of nature, laws of physics, laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and on a memorable night in the late seventies, I think it was Newton's law of motion...sickness. No, it's true, my resume reads like a rap sheet. I have to come clean; I've broken a lot of laws, and the ones I haven't I've certainly thought about. I have sinned in thought, word, and deed. God forgive me. Actually God forgave me, but why would you? I'm here getting a doctorate, getting respectable, getting in the good graces of the powers that be, I hope it sends you students a powerful message: Crime does pay.

So I humbly accept the honor, keeping in mind the words of a British playwright, John Mortimer it was, "No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense and relatively clean fingernails." Well at best I've got one of the two of those.

But no, I never went to college, I've slept in some strange places, but the library wasn't one of them. I studied rock and roll and I grew up in Dublin in the '70s, music was an alarm bell for me, it woke me up to the world. I was 17 when I first saw The Clash, and it just sounded like revolution. The Clash were like, "This is a public service announcement--with guitars." I was the kid in the crowd who took it at face value. Later I learned that a lot of the rebels were in it for the T-shirt. They'd wear the boots but they wouldn't march. They'd smash bottles on their heads but they wouldn't go to something more painful like a town hall meeting. By the way I felt like that myself until recently.

I didn't expect change to come so slow, so agonizingly slow. I didn't realize that the biggest obstacle to political and social progress wasn't the Free Masons, or the Establishment, or the boot heal of whatever you consider 'the Man' to be, it was something much more subtle. As the Provost just referred to, a combination of our own indifference and the Kafkaesque labyrinth of 'no's you encounter as people vanish down the corridors of bureaucracy.

So for better or worse that was my education. I came away with a clear sense of the difference music could make in my own life, in other peoples' lives if I did my job right. Which if you're a singer in a rock band means avoiding the obvious pitfalls like, say, a mullet hairdo. If anyone here doesn't know what a mullet is by the way your education's certainly not complete, I'd ask for your money back. For a lead singer like me, a mullet is, I would suggest, arguably more dangerous than a drug problem. Yes, I had a mullet in the '80s.

Now this is the point where the members of the faculty start smiling uncomfortably and thinking maybe they should have offered me the honorary bachelors degree instead of the full blown doctorate, (he should have been the bachelor's one, he's talking about mullets and stuff). If they're asking what on earth I'm doing here, I think it's a fair question. What am I doing here? More to the point: what are you doing here? Because if you don't mind me saying so this is a strange ending to an Ivy League education. Four years in these historic halls thinking great thoughts and now you're sitting in a stadium better suited for football listening to an Irish rock star give a speech that is so far mostly about himself. What are you doing here?

Actually I saw something in the paper last week about Kermit the Frog giving a commencement address somewhere. One of the students was complaining, "I worked my ass off for four years to be addressed by a sock?" You have worked your ass off for this. For four years you've been buying, trading, and selling, everything you've got in this marketplace of ideas. The intellectual hustle. Your pockets are full, even if your parents' are empty, and now you've got to figure out what to spend it on.

Well, the going rate for change is not cheap. Big ideas are expensive. The University has had its share of big ideas. Benjamin Franklin had a few, so did Justice Brennen and in my opinion so does Judith Rodin. What a gorgeous girl. They all knew that if you're gonna be good at your word if you're gonna live up to your ideals and your education, its' gonna cost you.

So my question I suppose is: What's the big idea? What's your big idea? What are you willing to spend your moral capital, your intellectual capital, your cash, your sweat equity in pursuing outside of the walls of the University of Pennsylvania?

There's a truly great Irish poet his name is Brendan Kennelly, and he has this epic poem called the Book of Judas, and there's a line in that poem that never leaves my mind, it says: "If you want to serve the age, betray it." What does that mean to betray the age?

Well to me betraying the age means exposing its conceits, it's foibles; it's phony moral certitudes. It means telling the secrets of the age and facing harsher truths.

Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will. Slavery was one of them and the people who best served that age were the ones who called it as it was--which was ungodly and inhuman. Ben Franklin called it what it was when he became president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society.

Segregation. There was another one. America sees this now but it took a civil rights movement to betray their age. And 50 years ago the U.S. Supreme Court betrayed the age May 17, 1954, Brown vs. Board of Education came down and put the lie to the idea that separate can ever really be equal. Amen to that.

Fast forward 50 years. May 17, 2004. What are the ideas right now worth betraying? What are the lies we tell ourselves now? What are the blind spots of our age? What's worth spending your post-Penn lives trying to do or undo? It might be something simple.

It might be something as simple as our deep down refusal to believe that every human life has equal worth. Could that be it? Could that be it? Each of you will probably have your own answer, but for me that is it. And for me the proving ground has been Africa.

Africa makes a mockery of what we say, at least what I say, about equality and questions our pieties and our commitments because there's no way to look at what's happening over there and it's effect on all of us and conclude that we actually consider Africans as our equals before God. There is no chance.

An amazing event happened here in Philadelphia in 1985--Live Aid--that whole We Are The World phenomenon the concert that happened here. Well after that concert I went to Ethiopia with my wife, Ali. We were there for a month and an extraordinary thing happened to me. We used to wake up in the morning and the mist would be lifting we'd see thousands and thousands of people who'd been walking all night to our food station were we were working. One man--I was standing outside talking to the translator--had this beautiful boy and he was saying to me in Amharic, I think it was, I said I can't understand what he's saying, and this nurse who spoke English and Amharic said to me, he's saying will you take his son. He's saying please take his son, he would be a great son for you. I was looking puzzled and he said, "You must take my son because if you don't take my son, my son will surely die. If you take him he will go back to Ireland and get an education." Probably like the ones we're talking about today. I had to say no, that was the rules there and I walked away from that man, I've never really walked away from it. But I think about that boy and that man and that's when I started this journey that's brought me here into this stadium.

Because at that moment I became the worst scourge on God's green earth, a rock star with a cause. Christ! Except it isn't the cause. Seven thousand Africans dying every day of preventable, treatable disease like AIDS? That's not a cause, that's an emergency. And when the disease gets out of control because most of the population live on less than one dollar a day? That's not a cause, that's an emergency. And when resentment builds because of unfair trade rules and the burden of unfair debt, that are debts by the way that keep Africans poor? That's not a cause, that's an emergency. So--We Are The World, Live Aid, start me off it was an extraordinary thing and really that event was about charity. But 20 years on I'm not that interested in charity. I'm interested in justice. There's a difference. Africa needs justice as much as it needs charity.

Equality for Africa is a big idea. It's a big expensive idea. I see the Wharton graduates now getting out the math on the back of their programs, numbers are intimidating aren't they, but not to you! But the scale of the suffering and the scope of the commitment they often numb us into a kind of indifference. Wishing for the end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa is like wishing that gravity didn't make things so damn heavy. We can wish it, but what the hell can we do about it?

Well, more than we think. We can't fix every problem--corruption, natural calamities are part of the picture here--but the ones we can we must. The debt burden, as I say, unfair trade, as I say, sharing our knowledge, the intellectual copyright for lifesaving drugs in a crisis, we can do that. And because we can, we must. Because we can, we must. Amen.

This is the straight truth, the righteous truth. It's not a theory, it's a fact. The fact is that this generation--yours, my generation--that can look at the poverty, we're the first generation that can look at poverty and disease, look across the ocean to Africa and say with a straight face, we can be the first to end this sort of stupid extreme poverty, where in the world of plenty, a child can die for lack of food in it's belly. We can be the first generation. It might take a while, but we can be that generation that says no to stupid poverty. It's a fact, the economists confirm it. It's an expensive fact but, cheaper than say the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from communism and fascism. And cheaper I would argue than fighting wave after wave of terrorism's new recruits. That's the economics department over there, very good.

It's a fact. So why aren't we pumping our fists in the air and cheering about it? Well probably because when we admit we can do something about it, we've got to do something about it. For the first time in history we have the know how, we have the cash, we have the lifesaving drugs, but do we have the will?

Yesterday, here in Philadelphia, at the Liberty Bell, I met a lot of Americans who do have the will. From arch-religious conservatives to young secular radicals, I just felt an incredible overpowering sense that this was possible. We're calling it the ONE campaign, to put an end to AIDS and extreme poverty in Africa. They believe we can do it, so do I.

I really, really do believe it. I just want you to know, I think this is obvious, but I'm not really going in for the warm fuzzy feeling thing, I'm not a hippy, I do not have flowers in my hair, I come from punk rock, The Clash wore army boots not Birkenstocks. I believe America can do this! I believe that this generation can do this. In fact I want to hear an argument about why we shouldn't.

I know idealism is not playing on the radio right now, you don't see it on TV, irony is on heavy rotation, the knowingness, the smirk, the tired joke. I've tried them all out but I'll tell you this, outside this campus--and even inside it--idealism is under siege beset by materialism, narcissism and all the other isms of indifference. Baggism, Shaggism. Raggism. Notism, graduationism, chismism, I don't know. Where's John Lennon when you need him.

But I don't want to make you cop to idealism, not in front of your parents, or your younger siblings. But what about Americanism? Will you cop to that at least? It's not everywhere in fashion these days, Americanism. Not very big in Europe, truth be told. No less on Ivy League college campuses. But it all depends on your definition of Americanism.

Me, I'm in love with this country called America. I'm a huge fan of America, I'm one of those annoying fans, you know the ones that read the CD notes and follow you into bathrooms and ask you all kinds of annoying questions about why you didn't live up to thatŠ.

I'm that kind of fan. I read the Declaration of Independence and I've read the Constitution of the United States, and they are some liner notes, dude. As I said yesterday I made my pilgrimage to Independence Hall, and I love America because America is not just a country, it's an idea. You see my country, Ireland, is a great country, but it's not an idea. America is an idea, but it's an idea that brings with it some baggage, like power brings responsibility. It's an idea that brings with it equality, but equality even though it's the highest calling, is the hardest to reach. The idea that anything is possible, that's one of the reasons why I'm a fan of America. It's like hey, look there's the moon up there, lets take a walk on it, bring back a piece of it. That's the kind of America that I'm a fan of.

In 1771 your founder Mr. Franklin spent three months in Ireland and Scotland to look at the relationship they had with England to see if this could be a model for America, whether America should follow their example and remain a part of the British Empire.

Franklin was deeply, deeply distressed by what he saw. In Ireland he saw how England had put a stranglehold on Irish trade, how absentee English landlords exploited Irish tenant farmers and how those farmers in Franklin's words "lived in retched hovels of mud and straw, were clothed in rags and subsisted chiefly on potatoes." Not exactly the American dream...

So instead of Ireland becoming a model for America, America became a model for Ireland in our own struggle for independence.

When the potatoes ran out, millions of Irish men, women and children packed their bags got on a boat and showed up right here. And we're still doing it. We're not even starving anymore, loads of potatoes. In fact if there's any Irish out there, I've breaking news from Dublin, the potato famine is over you can come home now. But why are we still showing up? Because we love the idea of America.

We love the crackle and the hustle, we love the spirit that gives the finger to fate, the spirit that says there's no hurdle we can't clear and no problem we can't fix. (sound of helicopter) Oh, here comes the Brits, only joking. No problem we can't fix. So what's the problem that we want to apply all this energy and intellect to?

Every era has its defining struggle and the fate of Africa is one of ours. It's not the only one, but in the history books it's easily going to make the top five, what we did or what we did not do. It's a proving ground, as I said earlier, for the idea of equality. But whether it's this or something else, I hope you'll pick a fight and get in it. Get your boots dirty, get rough, steel your courage with a final drink there at Smoky Joe's, one last primal scream and go.

Sing the melody line you hear in your own head, remember, you don't owe anybody any explanations, you don't owe your parents any explanations, you don't owe your professors any explanations. You know I used to think the future was solid or fixed, something you inherited like an old building that you move into when the previous generation moves out or gets chased out.

But it's not. The future is not fixed, it's fluid. You can build your own building, or hut or condo, whatever; this is the metaphor part of the speech by the way.

But my point is that the world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape. Now if I were a folksinger I'd immediately launch into "If I Had a Hammer" right now get you all singing and swaying. But as I say I come from punk rock, so I'd rather have the bloody hammer right here in my fist.

That's what this degree of yours is, a blunt instrument. So go forth and build something with it. Remember what John Adams said about Ben Franklin, "He does not hesitate at our boldest Measures but rather seems to think us too irresolute."

Well this is the time for bold measures. This is the country, and you are the generation. Thank you.

Posted 5/19/04

Nicaraguan Rundown from Corn Island

What is rundown? Originally from the Caribbean, this process takes coconut and produces coconut custard and oil by boiling the milk down. A full recipe is found:

http://eatjamaican.com/recipes/traditional-Jamaican-coconut-rundown-recipe.html

on the EatJamaican.com website (accessed 11 Oct 2006).

Interestingly enough, this recipe is also used in many Nicaraguan dishes from the Atlantic Coast and can be mixed with breadfruit, meat, fish, and vegetables. Immigrants from African origin came to the country from the Caribbean when they were working on plantations and brought many tropical foods along with them.

Something I was not aware of is that many people from the Atlantic Coast may speak English and Creole and not a word of Spanish!...or very poor Spanish. Such is the cultural separation between the coast and the city. This separation is followed in politics and economics of the country.

Should the building of the interoceanic canal take place, I can imagine the coast receiving a much needed economic boost.

Palms Food: Nicaragua

Cajeta De Coco

2 cups condensed milk

1 cup fresh shredded coconut

1 cup butter or margarine

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Keep mixing with a wooden spoon until you see the bottom of the pan while you mix. Form them into small balls and store them in a refrigerator--if you don't eat them all.

Nicaragua: A Second Panama Canal?

The President of Nicaragua, Bolanos, proposed on Monday the international support to construct a second canal, wider than Panama, in response to "the world's booming shipping business." (1)

This project would cost no less than US$18 billion and would take approximately 12 yrs to build. If you've ever visited Panama and Nicaragua, the stark contrast between the two countries cannot escape one's eyes. Panama is a small Europe with adorable crepe restaurants and the possibility of frolicking about in the city. This prosperity is largely if not entirely due to the building of the canal, originally plannd to be constructed in Nicaragua.

People in Nicaragua are living in the third poorest country in Latin America and it shows. The economic benefits for such a country from the building of the canal would be tremendous. Nicaragua, however, a country of beautiful people, is torn by a political corruption that has surpassed the acceptable levels we all tolerate, regardless of the country we live in or the form in which the corruption is perceived. How will this corruption encourage the level of investment required to build the canal? This will have to be addressed and, frankly, I am uncertain as to what a solution would be.

Panamians are pitching to expand their canal to reduce the traffic it currently experiences and in order to be able to compete internationally in the case a Nicaraguan canal is built. The public believes this move will pass quite easily.

It makes me sad to see Nicaragua struggling to move forward and the country is, to be blunt, so much in the shits that only a tremendous and prosperous undertaking like the building of a canal could push its economy forward in a reasonable amount of time.


1. "Nicaraguan Presidnet proposes second canal to complement Panama's." International Herald Tribune 2 Oct. 2006: IHT.com 3 Oct 2006 http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/03/america/LA_GEN_Nicaragua_Canal.php

Coconut: A Perplexing Nut

It seems in India, according to The Hindu in its article on coconut oil (1) , the coconut oil industry has "lost glory." Coconut oil producers are not sufficiently protected by the market.
There has been generally a drop in products that contain fatty acids, thus affecting this product's rate of import. Import tariff's on palm oil and polyolefin has decreased, which means that the import of these competing oils take business away from coconut oil producers. Prices of the oil fluctuate on a daily basis. In response, coconut oil has been mixed with lower quality ingredients when coconut oil prices are high and falsely sold to consumers.


In Vietnam, the coconut industry also does not sufficiently protect the producers (2). The article about Vietnam, however, does not focus on the problems associated with the production of coconut oil but of those associated with any processing of the coconut. Producers experience competition from two sides because of tremendous demand. The growers sell the fruit at high prices because of the high demand to ship it to China, Thailand, and Cambodia.

What can we say about all this? Firstly, I adore coconut milk. My Brazilian friend the other day took coconut milk, condensed milk, and...I added some water to this sinful drink...and it was one of the best things I'd ever had. The point: Coconut is so damn good I see why it causes so many problems.

A tad more seriously, from the reading it seems that the coconut market in India has affected it internally (as Indians struggle with the rising price of coconut oil) and with the exportation of coconut oil (as the demand for coconut oil has fallen). The Vietnan coconut industry, on the other hand, is flourishing on an international front as the demand to import its coconuts is on the rise but is suffering internally as producers find themselves competing with international buyers for raw coconut product.

Does this mean that perhaps India should stop processing coconuts in order to extract coconut oil because it seems the demand is higher for copra, the raw coconut meat, in the international market? Does this mean that Vietnam should allow the national coconut prices to be solely regulated by the international market's demand? Neither solution takes into consideration the producers, who are suffering, for different reasons but in similar ways, by the demands for coconut and its products in the international market.

I wonder if the demands by the international market, increasingly a more healthy market, will continue to favor the raw, unprocessed coconut rather than its less healthy byproducts such as coconut oil--unfavorable for India.

Ideas, suggestions,...would be highly appreciated. The problem with the coconut in India and Vietnam can be compared to many crops whose prices become high in the local market.



References:
1. "Better deal for coconut oil sector demanded." The Hindu 22 Sept 2006: Hindu.com 3 Oct 2006 http://www.hindu.com/2006/09/22/stories/2006092209012100.htm

2. "Coconut price soar, growers get rich, producers starve." VietNamNet 28 Sept 2006: Vietnamnet.vn 3 Oct 2006 http://english.vietnamnet.vn/biz/2006/09/616734/