The article was fascinating. It expounded - in terms both academic and playful - upon the mature work of a renaissance Venetian architect, and how his legacy lives on in the drive for spatial happiness today, such as with the good old Feng Shui. While reading, my eyes were occasionally drawn to the sidebars, with their ads for hip new books on religious criticism and dating services admitting only the ivy-educated. In all, this issue of "Harper's" was wonderful food for the mind; I think my father had sent it to me because it included a great article by Bill McKibben on the new dehumanization. But this story is more about the complete irrelevance of architectural conjecture - and even my much-beloved culture of cynicism - in my current reality.
I put the magazine down and took a good look around, letting my surroundings come washing back. Dominican Republic. Not Italy. Certainly not Middlebury.
Francisco and Ramon were exhibiting the timeless interplay of grumpy old men, duking it out in rapid Spanish over the differences in fertilizer requirements for bananas and plantains. In the heat of the day, they were shirtless, showing off wiry statures as they sat in their wicker chairs under the oven of the tin-roofed veranda. Ramon's son Eligio was plucking out a song on his maniacally-mistuned guitar. In the shade of the nearby cocoa trees, two malnourished, mangy dogs were chasing some inadvertently-free-range chickens. Ramon's wife, as usual, was cooking at her smoky woodstove. Feng Shui indeed.
Going from one world to another, I tried to keep some objectivity, some detachment. But the truth was hard to avoid when I got here: this village of three hundred, three miles of wading upriver from the nearest road, was unlike any world I was used to. Even now, no amount of reading - Harry Potter or Herodotus - can separate me from my surroundings.
But I mentioned cocoa. That's what I'm really discussing here: the product that fuels Ben, Jerry, Unilever and Willy Wonka's fabled factory. Yesterday, in the regional capitol, I went to a meeting of cocoa farmers. I managed to bum a ride from Stefan, a German development worker, who drove his Japanese-made truck at excessive speeds on the Dominican road that was built with Italian funds. A Canadian health volunteer was also with us, along with some of the aforementioned local farmers. We were sort of a microcosm of globalization, and when we arrived, the scene was made complete by the presence of a Belgian cocoa buyer and a Berlin-educated Bolivian representative of the World Bank.
The farmers seemed unfazed by the rainbow of worldwide . . . well . . . whiteness. They listened dutifully as the Belgian told them - in no uncertain terms and in decent Spanish, utilizing the most dazzling PowerPoint technology - that their product was of insufficient quality for the European organic market. As such, they were subjected to a wonderfully-informative quality control seminar.
It matters not one whit to me that the accusation of inferior quality is mostly true; the farmers certainly don't wash their hands as often as the average Belgian. What matters is that while the enforcement methods have changed over four hundred years of the chocolate industry, the message to the "colonies" is the same: You work for us, so you adhere to our laws.
I would love to be able to draw the stretchy connection between the slavery utilized by the Spanish cocoa traders in the sixteenth century and the pressures exerted by today's global free trade regulations, but it would be too easy. Too poetic. Too "Newsweek." Instead, the message that I draw is that the complexities are only just unfolding. I see them in my new surroundings and my new neighbors. I think about them as I nonetheless crave a pint of "Chunky Monkey," because - dammit - I'm hot and hungry after a day of planting new trees and trimming old ones.
The Peace Corps has thus far represented a landscape of new perspectives, and the experience is only going to get more interesting.
I put the magazine down and took a good look around, letting my surroundings come washing back. Dominican Republic. Not Italy. Certainly not Middlebury.
Francisco and Ramon were exhibiting the timeless interplay of grumpy old men, duking it out in rapid Spanish over the differences in fertilizer requirements for bananas and plantains. In the heat of the day, they were shirtless, showing off wiry statures as they sat in their wicker chairs under the oven of the tin-roofed veranda. Ramon's son Eligio was plucking out a song on his maniacally-mistuned guitar. In the shade of the nearby cocoa trees, two malnourished, mangy dogs were chasing some inadvertently-free-range chickens. Ramon's wife, as usual, was cooking at her smoky woodstove. Feng Shui indeed.
Going from one world to another, I tried to keep some objectivity, some detachment. But the truth was hard to avoid when I got here: this village of three hundred, three miles of wading upriver from the nearest road, was unlike any world I was used to. Even now, no amount of reading - Harry Potter or Herodotus - can separate me from my surroundings.
But I mentioned cocoa. That's what I'm really discussing here: the product that fuels Ben, Jerry, Unilever and Willy Wonka's fabled factory. Yesterday, in the regional capitol, I went to a meeting of cocoa farmers. I managed to bum a ride from Stefan, a German development worker, who drove his Japanese-made truck at excessive speeds on the Dominican road that was built with Italian funds. A Canadian health volunteer was also with us, along with some of the aforementioned local farmers. We were sort of a microcosm of globalization, and when we arrived, the scene was made complete by the presence of a Belgian cocoa buyer and a Berlin-educated Bolivian representative of the World Bank.
The farmers seemed unfazed by the rainbow of worldwide . . . well . . . whiteness. They listened dutifully as the Belgian told them - in no uncertain terms and in decent Spanish, utilizing the most dazzling PowerPoint technology - that their product was of insufficient quality for the European organic market. As such, they were subjected to a wonderfully-informative quality control seminar.
It matters not one whit to me that the accusation of inferior quality is mostly true; the farmers certainly don't wash their hands as often as the average Belgian. What matters is that while the enforcement methods have changed over four hundred years of the chocolate industry, the message to the "colonies" is the same: You work for us, so you adhere to our laws.
I would love to be able to draw the stretchy connection between the slavery utilized by the Spanish cocoa traders in the sixteenth century and the pressures exerted by today's global free trade regulations, but it would be too easy. Too poetic. Too "Newsweek." Instead, the message that I draw is that the complexities are only just unfolding. I see them in my new surroundings and my new neighbors. I think about them as I nonetheless crave a pint of "Chunky Monkey," because - dammit - I'm hot and hungry after a day of planting new trees and trimming old ones.
The Peace Corps has thus far represented a landscape of new perspectives, and the experience is only going to get more interesting.
