Thursday January 15, 2009
I must admit that I am beginning to get anxious to be home. As much as I have been enjoying the trip, I think that I am just about on overload at this point and I am starting to think a lot more about home than I am what we are doing here. Last night I hardly slept at all, it was so hot and my room felt a little bit like a tomb, I think that I am a bit claustrophobic in here, so that doesn’t bode well for getting much sleep tonight either. I also think that maybe since I am in this room by myself, I must be missing my friends Soon Won and Dong. LOL But, I think I can make it 4 more days.
Today we had an interesting tour of the agricultural area. We first went to the coconut grove where they have over 1000 trees with each tree producing around 150 coconuts per year. We then walked to the sugar cane field. It was very cool (actually it was very hot) to learn how sugar ends up on our tables and it was also fun to eat sugar cane right out of the field. It certainly was sweet, and I will also say, that the sugar here is much better than our sugar at home. I’m not sure if it has to do with different processing, or it being fresher, but as someone who is definitely a connoisseur of sugar, I can tell the difference.
One of the neatest things that we learned about, was the cashew. Cashews actually come from a tree. The cashew fruit is kind of pear shaped and is about the size of your fist. Then imagine for a moment a small node at the bottom of the pear, This is the cashew nut. The fruit itself is thrown away. I’m not sure that there is any use for it at all, it doesn’t even seem to be used to feed the livestock. Only the small nut is harvested. It must take a whole bunch of trees to produce one can of nuts. No wonder they cost so much!
After lunch, we had a presentation of some of the health issues being faced by the cooperative and we were treated to frozen, chocolate covered bananas. Oh my goodness, I may have discovered a new favorite food. The funny thing was that we only paid 10 cents apiece for them, I guess that’s the advantage of walking into your back yard and picking the bananas. When I got home, I saw that bananas were 59 cents per pound, I don’t think that we could buy many bananas for 10 cents.
The highlight of the day was a group of young kids who came and entertained us this evening with music and dancing. They played a few of the same songs that the group played back in Perquin, and once again, I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful handmade dresses that the girls were wearing. These kids seem to have quite a local following. All during the concert, you could see the faces of the young kids outside who were watching and cheering. I think that our band must be some kind of local heroes. The two regrets that I had about the evening were that we didn’t invite the community to come in and listen and watch with us, and also that we didn’t get a chance to talk to these kids about their lives. We offered that as a suggestion for future groups. We leave in 3 days, and I will be home in 4. I’m ready!
I must admit that I am beginning to get anxious to be home. As much as I have been enjoying the trip, I think that I am just about on overload at this point and I am starting to think a lot more about home than I am what we are doing here. Last night I hardly slept at all, it was so hot and my room felt a little bit like a tomb, I think that I am a bit claustrophobic in here, so that doesn’t bode well for getting much sleep tonight either. I also think that maybe since I am in this room by myself, I must be missing my friends Soon Won and Dong. LOL But, I think I can make it 4 more days.
Today we had an interesting tour of the agricultural area. We first went to the coconut grove where they have over 1000 trees with each tree producing around 150 coconuts per year. We then walked to the sugar cane field. It was very cool (actually it was very hot) to learn how sugar ends up on our tables and it was also fun to eat sugar cane right out of the field. It certainly was sweet, and I will also say, that the sugar here is much better than our sugar at home. I’m not sure if it has to do with different processing, or it being fresher, but as someone who is definitely a connoisseur of sugar, I can tell the difference.
One of the neatest things that we learned about, was the cashew. Cashews actually come from a tree. The cashew fruit is kind of pear shaped and is about the size of your fist. Then imagine for a moment a small node at the bottom of the pear, This is the cashew nut. The fruit itself is thrown away. I’m not sure that there is any use for it at all, it doesn’t even seem to be used to feed the livestock. Only the small nut is harvested. It must take a whole bunch of trees to produce one can of nuts. No wonder they cost so much!
After lunch, we had a presentation of some of the health issues being faced by the cooperative and we were treated to frozen, chocolate covered bananas. Oh my goodness, I may have discovered a new favorite food. The funny thing was that we only paid 10 cents apiece for them, I guess that’s the advantage of walking into your back yard and picking the bananas. When I got home, I saw that bananas were 59 cents per pound, I don’t think that we could buy many bananas for 10 cents.
The highlight of the day was a group of young kids who came and entertained us this evening with music and dancing. They played a few of the same songs that the group played back in Perquin, and once again, I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful handmade dresses that the girls were wearing. These kids seem to have quite a local following. All during the concert, you could see the faces of the young kids outside who were watching and cheering. I think that our band must be some kind of local heroes. The two regrets that I had about the evening were that we didn’t invite the community to come in and listen and watch with us, and also that we didn’t get a chance to talk to these kids about their lives. We offered that as a suggestion for future groups. We leave in 3 days, and I will be home in 4. I’m ready!
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