August 16, 2004

Greetings from Nicaragua, usually known in the tourist literature as “the land of lakes and volcanos.” It is land of great God-given natural beauty, warm and wonderful people, and the deepest poverty anywhere in Latin America. What a contrast!

Last week, I went with a delegation from First Presbyterian Church of Sarasota, Florida, to “Cerro Kilambe,” one of the highest points in Nicaragua. Here, with the help of four-wheel-drive trucks, horses, and mules, and our own tired feet, we visited Las Vueltas, Aguas Frias, and Laguna Verde, three of the seven little communities of coffee growers that dot the slopes of this mountain. A visit to places like this is enough to make most of us re-evaluate the cost of our morning cups of coffee.

Through the rural development programs of CEPAD, the Nicaraguan Council of Protestant Churches, the seven communities have begun to organize into a regional association to help meet their own needs and to pressure their government to be more responsible in meeting the needs of its neglected citizens. This organization, which CEPAD brought together and trained, has worked to bring in a new system of sanitary latrines (cleaner and better-smelling than any I’ve seen in the United States) and to bring down water from springs up in the mountains into the homes of the people. It has also begun to enable these people to try to take some control of their own lives, after living in fear during the “Contra War” and in grinding poverty ever since. In the process, some of the highest, least accessible places in the mountains have also organized their own churches and built schools for their children.

With the help of CEPAD regional worker Juan Carlos Palma, the small coffee growers are working out a new way of removing the hull from the coffee beans. The new process uses less than a third the amount of water, and therefore reduces water pollution downstream. It can be done right on the farm with a human-powered system made from readily available machinery and old bicycle parts.

No, the price they receive from the buyers is the same as any coffee anywhere in the area. They receive less than $.25 per pound for coffee that will bring $15.00 per pound in Starbucks-type coffee shops in the United States. Now the regional association has registered a brand name and is receiving help from CEPAD in building a co-operative to bring their coffee to roasters and markets in the United States. They remain strong in their commitment to grow their coffee with the least amount of water contamination possible, and to handle the used water in ways that keep it out of the water sources of other communities further down the hill.

I continue to marvel at the ways I see people in the simplest of places around Nicaragua struggle to take control of some small part of their lives, and I continue to be appalled at the way the economic systems of the world throw barricade after barricade in their way whenever they try to get ahead.

The delegates from Florida went home with a challenge to do something about the conditions in their own country. At the final meeting with the coffee growers, one of the Nicaraguans asked a question. He said, “We have heard that in the United States there are big factories that make lots of great things, and that produce huge amounts of pollution in the water and the air, but that they make a lot of money. Here, we are working hard to keep from polluting the water for the people who live downstream from us and to protect our natural environment, but we aren’t making any money. Why is it that in the United States people can make a lot of pollution and a lot of money, but here in Nicaragua, where we are trying not to make pollution, we can’t make any money? Can you help us to understand this? And can you do anything about it”

Personally, Penn and I have settled nicely into life in Managua with a warm community of neighbors and friends in one of the friendliest countries in the world. We hope you will all come to visit Nicaragua. We would be happy to give you ideas about organizing a group, and CEPAD would be glad to host your group in our facilities.

Contributions to CEPAD may be sent to: Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Individual Remittance Processing, PO Box 643700, Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700. Write the title (CEPAD) and the ECO number on the subject line (#E347002) of the check and put it on your cover letter, too. Send a copy of the cover letter to: Area Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean, 100 Witherspoon St. Louisville, KY 40202-1396. Or click on the "give" button below to contribute online. Thanks.

Doug Orbaker