The Compulsive Explainer

Peace and Quiet No More

It is 11 o'clock on a Saturday night, and a terrific racket is going on outside. The local bar has always been a problem, but evidently it decided to become much more of a problem and turn quiet, peaceful La Alegria into the party town of the Orosi Valley.

I went to sleep wearing my hearing protectors, the things people use at shooting galleries to protect their ears. But I woke up to the most terrific racket: drum music being repeated over and over. I went outside; a drumming group dressed in outlandish costumes like nothing I had ever seen before was hard at work. Nothing makes more racket than a group of drums played in unison.

But this was just the start of the evening. The bar turned up its sound system full blast and people materialized from nowhere - mostly young people I had never seen before. Latinos love noise and they were happily dancing to the music. Many of them were probably coffee pickers from Nicaragua with some money to spend. These are simple, hard-wording people - but evidently they like to party hard too.

Finally, at 11:30 the party ended, and I can go back to sleep, once the adrenalin from my anger rush cools off. I signed a six-month lease about three months ago, but I am going to see a lawyer about breaking it.

For My Tender Butt

Look closely below the bicycle seat: it's shock absorber! The plastic box is new too, the old one was cracking up, so I bought a new one at a Wal-Mart store, known locally as Hyper-Mas. Wal-Mart is taking over down here too. 

Getting all this assembled was not easy. I had to wait until my bicycle mechanic found the shock absorber for me, and then decided he felt like working again.

Some of the roads down here are terrible. I lost four bicycle computers because they kept being jolted out of their slot on the holder on my bike. The present one is secured by Scotch Tape.

Rio Grande de Orosi

Day before yesterday I did a bicycle trip to Tapantí National Park. It's uphill all the way, so I put my bike in a taxi for the trip up. Tapantí is the wettest park in Costa Rica, but I was lucky: it was a dry day; today it is raining again, the usual thing.

I took this video from a one-lane suspension bridge close to Orosi. My old body had trouble keeping its balance, I slipped and scratched my glasses, and the local bus had to toot its horn at me to get off the bridge.

But the results were worth it. Videos are tricky, there are more things that you have to get just right. One of the shots showed some local women in their bathing suits, but that didn't turn out to be too interesting. Can you believe it?

Now I wish I had made it longer, but this gives you a brief glimpse into what a tropical river is like. River-running is popular here and, Turrialba close to here, does a lot of it. Tourist lodges there also send some serious birders to Tapantí - but I am more interested in the tree ferns.

Events in Honduras

Honduras was taken over by a military coup. The president had gone too far to the left to suit the more conservative elements in the country, and so they simply took over the country. Conservatives in the US applauded; these events in tiny insignificant Honduras had cheered them up.

It has been difficult to tell what was going on down there, reports conflicted - but it was clear that the country had become badly divided between the right and the left. The right bought good lobbyists in Washington, and had good access to the Administration and to Congress. The left was represented by a gaggle of left-wing groups, who also tried to influence Washington, but with much less success.

I am on the mailing list of the Latin American Working Group, whose motto is Action at Home for Just Policies Abroad.  According to them, it promotes the interests of over 60 major religious, humanitarian, grassroots and policy organizations to decision makers in Washington, which you can see here. Their lastest email, about the elections in Honduras, which took place on Nov. 29, quoted the Quixote Center:

A peaceful march of over 500 people was just culminating at the Central Park of San Pedro Sula when a large armored tank with high pressure water cannons mounted on the top pulled up at the rear of the march--along with a large truck full of military troops. The 500 peaceful, unarmed protesters turned around to face the tank and troops--and in unison, they sat down in the middle of the street. The truck retreated 2 blocks. The soldiers got off the truck, and began to put on gas masks. Everything went silent--and suddenly the crowd was attacked with water cannons and gas. People are fleeing. There are wounded and detained.

I have been to San Pedro Sula. Back in the Seventies I decided there must be some good people in Honduras, and I wanted to meet them. What I saw instead was the wreck of a country, where the poverty was horrible. There were lots of nice people there, as there are anywhere, but the people in charge were far from nice.

Jimmy Carter tried to help the country, and they appreciated that. But succeeding administrations have only made the situation worse, and Obama seems to be going down that same rut.

Those Cute Little Peppers

Today I made a batch of vegetable stew using my secret recipe: include everything on hand. This has its drawbacks.

I had been working for some time chopping up vegetables, I was getting tired, and the mind was not working very well. I noticed a small bunch of some cute little peppers in the refrigerator that I hadn't used for awhile. Why not use them? So I did - without tasting them.

I just tasted my new veggies, and were they hot! My sinuses got an instant cleaning. Too bad you can't help me eat them.

The Tico State of the Nation Report

I have said so many bad things about Costa Rica I want to balance my reporting with something positive for a change. And this really impresses me: their Estado de Nacion. I quote here from the Nov. 6 Tico Times:

This began as an independent joint effort of Costa Rica's four public universities and the national Ombudsman's office...The program and its report have been hailed by professors, professionals, and decision-makers as one of the few things that consistently work well and can be depended on in a country where things can easily go awry. 

I wish to note in passing that none of Costa Rica's private universities, which are large and prosperous, were involved. Evidently, they are not interested in their social responsibilities, and many of them little more than diploma mills - which many students prefer, because they are cheaper and less demanding.

The painting at the top of this posting was on the front cover of the report. This is not typical Costa Rican art, of which it has practically none, and it is not flattering to Ticos in general. The setting is a wedding party. The groom is a familiar type: a man with more money than brains: a scary figure. The bride is familiar in any culture: the woman with no brains at all, only interested in fancy clothes. The dominant figure is a young woman dressed in a skimpy black dress, looking at her cell phone. Here again, a familiar figure. Two agricultural workers are deliberately placed in the right background where you can hardly see them. This is because they are now a small and unimportant part of the national economy. In the left background is a male tourist and his temporary Tica girlfriend - also a common sight in the capital, where some hotels cater to them. In the left foreground is a poor fat woman, another common sight. She is trying to look seductive.

The economic part of the report is encouraging. Costa Rica has made giant strides since the financial crisis of 1980-1982, which devastated all of Latin American. The bad news is the unemployment is rampant - and more wealth has been concentrated in the upper economic strata.

The ecological report is sobering. Costa Rica likes to bill itself as an ecologically advanced country. The report says this is simply not true. Costa Rica produces far more carbon than it locks up in its forests.

Ticos are losing faith in their democracy. Their government is not working for them. The report has the statistics.

Crime rates are up. In 2008, homicides reached 11 per 10,000 people. That represents the highest number of murders in the nation's history and surpasses the widely acknowledged limit of 10 murders per 10,000 that determines whether a country is labeled safe or unsafe.

Mexicans are Trash

If you have ever lived close to an Hispanic Ghetto, you know what I mean: the worst kind of people end up there. This is true of any ghetto, the worst places imaginable. It is hard to imagine anyone wanting to help them.

However, I had a girl-friend in Silicon Valley who was Mexican-American, her family had worked as migrant agricultural workers. But she was different: a nun trained as a nurse, who dropped out of that life and became a social worker. But she still defended her people vigorously. I didn't dare say anything critical about them. After a while, I got to see her point: these people deserve a chance for a better life - after all, they are people. It was hard to argue with that.

During the Contra War in Nicaragua, a Christian organization called Witness for Peace sent observers to Nicaragua to witness the atrocities perpetrated by our allies. I had to admire their guts. Who doesn't want to help the underdog? I am still on their mailing list and donate a little to them. Recently I got another appeal:
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In May, Roberto died in the Arizona desert while trying to make his way from his native farming community in southern Mexico back to a low-wage restaurant job in Los Angeles. The Witness for Peace staff in Mexico consoled his dismayed father, Pantaleon-an elderly man with tears streaming down his checks - after he was told the search and rescue operation for Roberto in the Arizona desert had been called off.

"A person should not have to risk their life to work," Pantaleon said as he wept. Roberto was a good son and a hard worker. He had a dream shared by the children of farmers the world over - to own a piece of land to farm alongside his parents. 

But by the time he turned sixteen, Roberto already understood that jobs paying a living wage in post-NAFTA Mexico were almost non-existent for farmhands like him. That year. he risked his life and followed another 500,000 Mexicans north, across the border and into the U.S.

After five years in El Norte, Roberto missed his family and native Mexico and so traveled home this April. His father, Pantaleon, was overjoyed to see him. But without enough money saved to buy a piece of land and with no jobs to be found, Roberto left again for the border.

He died just days later.
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A sob-story obviously, but a true one. I can see both sides: the desperate migrant workers who only want a job, and the Americans who want to keep foreigners from destroying their way of life. 

One cannot reason with the desperate migrant workers, but one should be able to reason with resentful Americans. Unfortunately, this is not usually the case. Human rights are not something they are interested in.

Why Latin America will never Catch Up

Basic cultural changes are extremely difficult, and for Latin America to catch up it would have to change its culture - which it sees no reason to do. It is content with a superficial layer of American popular culture on top of the late medieval culture it inherited from Spain or Portugal.

A short historical review is in order here. Northern Europe went through profound changes that changed its countries into Protestants (who rejected religious authority, and by implication authority of all kinds) - and who recognized that reality is objective (scientific), not subjective. 

Southern Europe made none of these changes, and to this day is unaware of them - except for some of its intellectuals. Its culture is subjective and personal, which certainly has its advantages - but also severe disadvantages.

France, after a brilliant start, did not get its political act together until well after WWII. The same could be said for Italy. Once the Italian Renaissance was over, it was over.

A Tico friend was complaining to me about Costa Rica's low-quality infrastructure - meaning, for him, physical infrastructure - bad highways, for example. He is certainly right, you risk breaking you legs walking on Tico sidewalks. There are practically no sewerage treatment plants. Raw sewerage just runs down the gutters directly into the streams.

Unsavory as these are, their cultural deficiencies are more severe. They suffer from a lack of organization at all levels. And this comes, as I have said before, from deficient concepts of space and time and ethics - all things that the North is better at, relatively speaking. 

Some of my friends will object that the poor condition of the South is due to colonialism - and that is partly true. The South (and the undeveloped world in general) has been exploited, and is still being exploited. The effects of colonialism have been profound and long-lasting. Latin America, for example, has never recovered from the effects of the Spanish and Portuguese. 

But the most serious defect was the cultures they inherited, which they kept in their isolation from the rest of the world, which keeps them from joining the modern world.

I want to add that there are many individual Latinos, and Latino organizations, that are as advanced as any anywhere. Like advanced Americans, they realize that can have little effect on their culture.

Fixing the Shower Heater

Homes down here do not have hot water tanks and hot water pipes. Instead, they have electric heater coils inside the shower heads. When you turn on the water, that turns on the electricity to the coils, which heats up the water flowing over it.

Getting the temperature right is a fine art, required minute adjustments of the water valve - and since water pressure changes frequently, frequent additional adjustments. The only alternative, a cold water shower, is worse - although on the coast, where it is much warmer, a cold shower feels good.

The heating coils don't last very long and have to be replaced every six months or so. On Sunday, I stopped getting warm water in my shower, so I complained to my landlord, who was visiting with his mother, who lives next door, for the weekend. He does this about once a month, right after I pay my rent, when he proceeds to cut the lawn and trim the hedge very nicely. He said he would come over and fix it. Much later in the day, he did.

Two days later: no hot shower water again. I didn't want to bother my landlord, who lives two hours away in the Central Metro Area, so I decided to do it myself. I have plenty of tools to do the job.

As I was taking the shower head off, I noticed that the electrical connections, which were secured by wire-nuts, were not on tight. I took the shower head apart, making a mess on the floor, but I couldn't see anything wrong with the heater coil.

So I put the whole thing back on again, which was a struggle for my old body: my hands shake and if I hold my arms up for very long I start to faint. Anyway, I finally got the job done and had a hot water shower again. The problem was simply bad electrical joints.

The last family I lived with had moved into a new house with two showers, one in the master bedroom, which the only son claimed as his own, and one in the shared bathroom. One month after we moved in, the showers stopped working. They got the joints fixed in the wiring to the shared bathroom, but never bothered to get the one in the master bedroom fixed. Can you imagine!

Every Latino male thinks he knows everything about everything - and he considers any questioning of this to be a deadly insult to his authority. But as I just discovered, this is not always the case, especially where electricity is concerned. I have often wondered why they haven't all been electrocuted.

A New Business Model for Coffee

In my last posting Improvement is Destructive, I took some pot-shots at the business world. But I had also said good things about it in Business is Opening Up - where the Harvard Business School is advocating business practices that are less authoritarian. This is about a business that tries to walk its talk about better business practices: Starbucks. 

You can hear almost anything you please about Starbucks, and I was undecided what to believe. Then I read Wrestling with Starbucks: conscience, capital, cappuccino By Kim Fellner. You can read most of it online on Google Books. This is an excellent introduction to the coffee industry. It seems to be fair and balanced. 

You can also read about the Starbucks C.A.F.E. Practices: 

(Coffee and Farmer Equity) Practices to evaluate, recognize, and reward producers of high-quality sustainably grown coffee. C.A.F.E. Practices is a green coffee sourcing guideline developed in collaboration with Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), a third-party evaluation and certification firm. C.A.F.E. Practices seeks to ensure that Starbucks sources sustainably grown and processed coffee by evaluating the economic, social and environmental aspects of coffee production against a defined set of criteria, as detailed in the C.A.F.E. Practices Guidelines. Starbucks defines sustainability as an economically viable model that addresses the social and environmental needs of all the participants in the supply chain from farmer to consumer.

It's too bad the coffee farmers in Central America can't read this book. The coffee growing business is doomed if they, their governments, coffee companies like Starbucks, and the many helpful coffee organizations, such as Fair Trade, don't get their act together. However, their governments are useless, and Starbucks has had to cut back because of the economic crisis.

I was thrilled to find a Starbucks outlet at a mall near my cousin's house when I visited them last year. But my cousin had switched to buying his coffee at Burger King because it was cheaper. Americans don't sit down and really taste their coffee, coffee that is good enough is all they want - and buying at a drive-in is more American. They are fussy about the wine they drink, but not their coffee. 

As things are set up, the large international coffee companies make huge profits, while the farmers and farm workers just barely survive. A new business model is needed and Starbucks has led the way - but the market economy (or the consumer economy) is not supporting it.