Genesis at 5 Years

Five years ago yesterday, a group of 45 women and men showed up to work for no pay. They took a chance on making a better future for themselves and their families, they took a chance to own their own business. This was Genesis, the cooperative formed to spin cotton into yarn, made up of mostly women – all strong of spirit if not physically strong – who built a 15,000 square foot building by hand. Over the past five years many who started have left – most in the first few months of working for no pay as their sweat equity buy-in to the co-op. Some left amicably to pursue other opportunities; some left acrimoniously – twelve left at once in 2009; today the quiet and determined Doña Ramona resigned from the cooperative for health reasons.

The 13 active members who remain are remarkable people: brave, determined, and strong willed. They are also tired, disillusioned and emotionally devastated. For the past two and a half years their building has sat finished awaiting machinery, and Genesis members struggle to keep alive the hope that one day their factory will be filled with the sound of yarn spinning machines.

As they were finishing construction on their building in 2009 – construction materials were financed through the JHC-CDCA’s revolving loan fund, the Vida Fund – Genesis and the JHC-CDCA negotiated the purchase of spinning machinery. We had looked at used machinery in three different countries, and sent a third party textile expert to two different plants to inspect machinery and make recommendations. Together, the JHC-CDCA and Genesis opted to purchase machinery from a plant in Venezuela through a textile machinery broker in South Carolina, Coker International. Coker had been recommended to us by many in the industry and we had previously bought machinery from them for the cotton gin and had good results. Because the Vida Fund didn’t have funds to purchase machinery and because Genesis couldn’t get financing without credit history, the JHC-CDCA spent three years looking for financing for machinery at low interest rates, but most social investment funds shied away from risky start ups after the economic crisis. Finally, at the end of 2009, we were approved for a loan of $230,000 from the Local Development Fund in Nicaragua…at 14% interest.

Between October and December 2009 we made down payments totaling of $150,000 to Coker International for the purchase of spinning machinery. We have yet to receive this machinery.

After initial optimism that the machinery would be delivered to Nicaragua before the end of 2009, we spent most of 2010 being strung along with tales of setbacks at the plant in Venezuela. In March we sent someone to Venezuela to confirm that the machinery we had purchased was there, and was being loaded onto containers. By August we realized we’d been taken for a ride, and began talking to our lawyers in the U.S.

In November 2010 we were surprised to discover four containers of equipment had been introduced into Nicaragua in our name without our knowledge and were incurring fines at customs. We were obliged to spend thousands of dollars to import these containers and move the equipment out to the factory. Although it was only one-quarter of the equipment we had purchased, we had hoped that at least some of the equipment would be usable. As soon as we unloaded it, however, we discovered that it was not the equipment that we had ordered – it was not even manufactured in the same era as the equipment we had purchased, and is in such terrible shape that it would cost more to make operational than it’s worth. So now part of the factory houses what amounts to very expensive scrap metal.

In January 2011 we filed a lawsuit against Coker International and its President, Jack Coker, in North Carolina. All of 2011 was spent dealing with stall tactics and more than a year later the case still hasn’t reached the discovery phase. Periodically we’ve received “settlement offers” from Coker via his lawyer – the latest of these came a few weeks ago and was rescinded before we could even respond. What each “offer” has amounted to so far has been that Coker will deliver the equipment once we pay him the balance due on the machines…the last offer was even more insulting: pay the balance and then we can go to Venezuela ourselves to get the equipment, if it’s still there.

While we fervently hope to have some satisfactory resolution to our case this year – it is once again on our list of goals for 2012 – it’s difficult for us to move forward with the spinning plant until then. We have looked for used equipment and found nothing that comes close to the quality and price we had found in Venezuela. While we await some resolution, we are paying on the loan we took out for the equipment purchase – 14 % annual interest – with no income from Genesis to help pay the loan; and we’re not taking money away from other projects to do so, we’ve dipped into our own retirement savings. Without the return of the money that we gave Coker International in good faith, we cannot afford to purchase equipment. Our hands are tied, and it is absolutely frustrating.

If it is frustrating for us, it is maddening for the Genesis members. Because the JHC-CDCA purchased the equipment in our name, we are the only ones who can take action – the folks at Genesis have no direct recourse, and they hate feeling helpless. Meanwhile, many are no longer being supported by their families either economically or emotionally. A year ago we began to look at alternatives with the Genesis membership: ways to get them earning money while we sort out the equipment debacle. It was excruciating for them to work on alternatives – they are still so set on the goal of eventually running a spinning plant. Finally we and they agreed on the most practical course of action: a constellation of alternative work including inspecting cotton prior to the ginning process, pressing cottonseed and making biodiesel and cattle feed.

At the beginning of January they started working full time in cotton inspection, earning the established minimum wage and receiving health care and social security benefits. Once cotton season is over, they will move on to press cottonseed for oil, making biodiesel from the oil and cattle feed from the leftover cake. At their request, the members of Genesis are working as individuals for the agricultural co-op, COPROEXNIC, which on the one hand means they don’t need to worry about the day-to-day operations, but on the other hand they are subject to their COPROEXNIC manager. This has been a hard adjustment to make, and while it’s good to finally be earning a salary, it’s a far cry from the exhilaration of starting production in your own business, and the long-term fate of the co-op is still in the hands of the U.S. court system. Happy 5^th Anniversary, Genesis, may this year see justice done. – Becca

What can I do to help? 1) You can pray and send all your positive thoughts this way! 2) If you have contacts in local or national media, help us publicize the equipment tragedy. 3) Help us raise money for the Vida Fund so we can continue putting people to work. Email us at: jhc@jhc-cdca.org

Where will you send your kids to school?

The Nicaraguan school year will crank up again in a few weeks, and my husband Paul and I will once again send our two daughters, Eibhlín (6) and Orla (4), back to classes with 1.5 million other Nicaraguan school children. Many foreigners visiting the country ask us where we send our kids to school and are inevitably surprised when we say they go to public school. Why are they surprised?

Because everyone – gringos and Nicaraguans alike – assume that because we have the means to do so, we will educate our kids in a private school. They assume that the educational system in Nicaragua is not good.

We’ve been very lucky in that, so far Gracias a Dios, neither of our girls has needs that can’t be met by Nicaraguan public schools. Both girls started free public preschool at the age of three and are very blessed to live in a rural area with a small, safe public school right down the road where the student-teacher ratio remains low. Orla is about to start her second year of preschool. She goes to class from 8 to 11 AM Monday through Friday with 20-25 other children ages 3-6. She has a wonderful teacher and learns things all preschoolers do: colors, shapes, letters, numbers, games, songs, concepts like bigger and smaller and inside and outside. Orla and all the children at the primary school are also fed one hot meal a day – beans and rice – for free. The Ministry of Education provides food for nearly 1 million school children and mothers take turns cooking.

Eibhlín has just graduated preschool and will start the 1^st grade in February. She’ll go from 7 AM to 12 PM Monday through Friday with 15 other kids. Just like first graders all over the world, she’ll be learning to read, starting to do sums, and her class will go outside to play kickball for P.E. Is the curriculum in Nicaraguan public schools ideal? Certainly not. But neither are the curricula at private schools. Nor, for that matter is the public school curriculum in the U.S.

Many people ask us if we send our children to school in Nicaragua because they assume that educating them elsewhere would be preferable.

I grew up in Idaho, what would I say if someone turned to me and said, “Are you going to send your kids to school in Idaho?”

When I was in high school in Northern Idaho, our state spent less money per student on education than any other state in the nation. Despite the fact that I was lucky enough to be taught by a handful of wonderful dedicated teachers, the U.S. public school education I received was most certainly inferior to my husband’s education in Ireland and most notably inferior to the education received by other public school students who were from wealthier areas. (Each student at my school had to bring a ream of paper for copies while students at New Trier High School had their own radio station.)

Like Idaho, Nicaragua has very little budget for its schools, so when Orla’s teacher wants to do coloring, she herself draws carbon copies of the picture for each student. There is no money for a janitor, so the mothers take turns cleaning the classroom. There is a watchman at the school day and night, but no budget for his vacation, so during one month of the year, the watchman goes on vacation and the children’s fathers take turns watching the school.

Come to think of it, this sounds a lot like Idaho, which still ranks 50^th in the nation for public school spending. But I’d send my kids to public school in Idaho without thinking twice about it, and for the same reasons I send my kids to public school in Nicaragua:

• Their teachers care for them and put in incredible extra effort to improve the kids’ education and make their school experience a good one;
• Their classmates are their neighbors and their neighbors are their friends;
• They are having a common experience with most Nicaraguan school children;
• I just plain believe in public education, it ought to be free and it ought to be good, and it’s hard to believe that and not put my own kids in public school, even if the system falls short in some areas.

The truth of the matter is that education is incredibly important, not just on an individual level, but for the development of an entire country. And if we really want our country to move forward in leaps and bounds, we have got to improve access and quality of public education – and I’m not just talking about Nicaragua. So, where are you going to send your kids to school? – Becca

My Week as a Migrant Coffee Picker

[This post comes from our wonderful Volunteer Coordinator Liz Haight as she finishes out her year with us]

The morning cup of coffee is a mindless act – you can brew a pot in your sleep. We don't tend to give much thought to what it took to get that rich brown brew that brings us to life every morning. I recently spent a few days with our friends up at the El Porvenir Coffee Cooperative to gain a better appreciation for my favorite caffeinated concoctionby joining in the process of hand-picking the beans. I also used it as an excuse to spend some more time up there, as I usually only make short visits while herding volunteers.

For 150 years coffee has been essential to Nicaragua’s economy. In the 1980s the coffee crop accounted for 40% of Nicaragua's foreign exchange earnings but thousands of farm workers fled or refused to work in the fields for fear of Contra attacks. The Sandinista government worried that the country would lose part of this valuable crop due to the shortage of coffee pickers and so they ordered a mobilization of high school and college students to join the remaining peasants in the field to pick the coffee. Workers were often accompanied by armed soldiers to guard them as they worked. Working alongside peasants to bring in the coffee crop created a revolutionary consciousness in these young people as they learned about life as a peasant and gained respect for farm labor. In December, I set out to follow in their steps to appreciate the way of life in the countryside and my morning cup of joe.

Up at El Porvenir, everyone joins in the harvest in December and January, which even brings in migrant pickers from outside the community. The coffee beans ripen at different times so one plant will have to be picked more than once. The coffee beans start out as a juicy fruit, often called cherries in English and uvas (grapes) in Spanish. They have a thick grape-like exterior that tastes like a bell pepper. This protects the two green bean halves which are covered by another slippery membrane. All the pickers are assigned to rows of plants and are instructed that all the red berries "van de viaje" (are out of here!) and to leave the green ones on the branch to ripen until the next picking. Wearing a large basket around my waist, I learned to pluck the ripe berries off the branch and drop them into my basket.

I picked until my basket was full (or more likely until I was nervous that I would spill it on the ground for the 3rd time) and then emptied the contents of the basket into my sack. Later they measure the picked coffee in “medios” which is equivalent to 5 gallons.Those berries are then processed to separate the bean inside from the fruit, which means a medio of coffee berries yields only a fraction of that amount in green coffee beans.

I picked 1 medio and 1 quartillo (1.5 medios) each morning that I worked; an unimpressive amount, but I was a beginner! The picking itself is not particularly difficult but some plants are tall and unruly and it takes some finesse to get to the highest berries without hurting the plant. Luckily the plants are fairly flexible so I could grab a tall branch and pull it down to me.

I was shown the ropes by one of the members of the cooperative, nicknamed El Palomo (the pigeon,) who was responsible for assigning the rows to the pickers and keeping an eye on them. Several times El Palomo reviewed the plants I’d picked, pinching off the berries I missed and tossing them into my basket. I later joined a group of teenage boys and we became a picking team. We called ourselves “mara la pana” – the basket gang. They would frequently “gift” me a plant that bore a good amount of ripe fruit to help me fill my basket and break the previous day's haul.

I did not prove myself to be a very helpful farm hand but really enjoyed myself in the fields and in the community. I almost forgot I was doing manual labor and was often distracted by the tropical beauty of my surroundings, Caturra and Bourbon coffee plants growing under a canopy of banana and Guanacaste trees atop a volcano range. The best part was picking side by side members of the community, joking and singing as we worked. Everyone was so kind and encouraging to me, their gringa migrant worker. I gained not only more appreciation for those tiny beans I percolate into my favorite beverage but for the kindness of Nicaraguans I’ve met this past year like the community of El Porvenir.

For those of you still needing a 2012 calendar, our former Volunteer Coordinator Eric Gruen is selling a 2012 calendar of his photography from El Porvenir – which can also be bought with a pound of hand-picked, organically grown, fairly traded El Porvenir Coffee – all proceeds to the CDCA! http://www.peacephotography.org/ -- Liz Haight

Winter Solstice: Dreams in This Dark Night

I am writing this at 4:00AM and I can’t sleep…. roosters crowing, mortars going off probably noting a death, and pondering daily chores to do and life in general.

In the dark we ponder…fears raise their heads, dreams of what could be are imagined, and we reflect on the state of our days, years, lives, and world. In the dark anything is possible.

In the Northern Hemisphere our days shorten this time of year, in fact, today is the shortest day of the year. It is a good time to reflect.

We, as a culture, worship the light…artificial lights dim our night skies. “Progressive” nations show up on the space satellites at night as bright beacons while nations like Nicaragua show a dim point of light - if any at all. In our home and at the Center we have outside lights on for the night watchmen and this time of year we don our home with Christmas light. After supper last night we lit the first Chanukah candle.

Good is light. Evil is dark. And yet…it is the light that distracts us. We move through our days and nights almost blindly. It is in the dark we open up ourselves to unspeakable dreams and hopes – and yes, fears…fears we need to acknowledge and address.

So in this dark hour on this shortest day of the year I am going to share with you my fears and then my dreams. I fear:

· that we will never reverse the damage to our world that is making it uninhabitable for us and other species;

· that we will never stop exploiting and consuming resources that keeps almost one seventh of the world’s population living in hunger (http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm);

· that we will never rise up as a global movement and scream “no more war…no more bombings…no more terror…no more big nations invading, occupying, and dictating to smaller nations…ENOUGH!”;

· that we will never look at the corporations, the top 1%, the top 10%, the wealthy and say “You are the problem not my brown brothers and sisters”…and mean it;

· that we will never understand that until we are all free we all have chains,

· that until injustice is righted we are all in danger,

· and that freedom, justice and peace come with sacrifices and I’m not talking about sending our sons and daughters to fight ridiculous wars…I’m talking about the sacrifices of giving up the greed for wealth, power, and fear.

My hopes and dreams in this dark night? That we will. That maybe in the darkness prayers will be said, conversions will happen and

· we will one-by-one firmly cry “ENOUGH”

· we will one-by-one change

· we will one-by-one heal this gorgeous world, love its beautiful life, and reach out to each other.

The sun is up. The day has started. The struggle continues.

Happy Winter Solstice from all of us.

-Kathleen