September 10, 2007
Williamson Central School and Genesee beer
A long time ago I graduated from Williamson Central School, a small-town high school in upstate New York. Imagine my surprise recently when I saw a big yellow bus go past that said “Williamson Central School” on the side. The majority of buses here in Nicaragua, both within the city of Managua and going from city to city, are old used school buses from the United States. Some of them have been painted so they aren’t yellow anymore, others are still that same yellow color but have had the name of the school painted over like the one in the photo, but many still have the name of the school on the side. People who come here in delegations often have fun seeing school buses from places near their homes, and they wonder about the problems of bringing a bus from the United States to Nicaragua.
Most buses in Nicaragua were bought second-hand in the United States.
Besides school buses there are also trucks that identify their connection with some part of the United States. Recently I saw a “Genesee Beer” truck, which obviously had to come from the area of New York where I grew up. Frequently, I see other trucks with markings from almost every part of the country.
While it is fun for people to recognize something from their home area while they are here, these vehicles always remind me of something larger. They are the daily reminder of how closely linked the economies of our countries are. The rich economies of the North and the poor economies of the South are really one, and the poor inherit the cast-offs of the rich. The connection comes in many ways.
Sugar and chemicals
The cheap sugar of Nicaragua is found on store shelves all over the United States, either by itself or as one of the ingredients in dozens of products. There are thousands of acres of sugar cane grown, refined, and sent to the United States from Nicaragua every year. The price is kept down by the lousy wages of the people who cut the sugar cane and get it to the mills. However, there is a deeper price that these poor farm workers and their neighbors are paying—the price of chemical poisoning from the various herbicides and pesticides used on the cane fields.
In the area around the community of Chichigalpa, the ground water is so polluted with agricultural chemicals that it has been declared unsafe to drink by the Ministry of Health. But since there is no other water to drink the people continue to use it. There is a huge epidemic of chronic renal deficiency related to this contamination. For the past year, people have been dying at an average rate of 60 people per month from chronic renal deficiency! In one municipality, two people are dying every day from the same cause—chemical pollution from the sugar cane fields! Who knows? Maybe some of that cheap sugar ends up in the snacks that people eat with their Genesee beer? The poverty of the South and the wealth of the North are interconnected.
Bananas and chemicals
Another major export crop from Nicaragua has been bananas, beautiful yellow bananas without any black spots on their skin. When there are black spots on a fresh banana, they are usually caused by a microscopic little worm called a “nematode.” But the chemical industry of the North found a chemical that can be injected into the ground near the plants to kill these nematodes and produce a beautiful yellow fruit without any blemishes. The only problem is that the chemical is so toxic its use was banned in the United States after only a few years of use.
That ban did not prevent it from being manufactured, so the chemical, called “nemagon” was used for many years in banana plantations all around the world, and it was used extensively here in Nicaragua. The containers of chemicals came with safety instructions printed on them in English. Workers on the banana plantations of Nicaragua do not speak or read English, so the safety instructions were useless!
The chemical, however, settled into the organs of the workers and their families who live in or near the plantations. In women, it settles mostly in the breast tissue, the uterus, and the kidneys. In men it settles mostly in the testicles and kidneys. There are now three generations of people with congenital birth defects related to this chemical. The relationship has been proven in court, but the U.S. companies who made and used the product have yet to pay a single dollar of compensation to those workers whose health has been damaged by this chemical. Paying a just compensation would certainly raise the cost of bananas. Who knows? Maybe it would make the bananas so expensive that they would no longer be offered in the cafeterias of the school systems that sell their used buses here. The poverty of the South and the wealth of the North are interconnected.
Cheap labor
I guess I like to buy things cheaply as much as anyone else. I don’t want to pay more than I have to for my clothing. But in the “Free-Trade Zone” factories of Nicaragua, women sit at sewing machines 50 to 60 hours a week, performing the same repetitive motion hundreds of times a day. For this the pay is supposed to be 65 dollars per month. That’s right! Fifty to 60 hours per week for 65 dollars a month!
However, to earn 65 dollars per month, the worker has to meet his or her quota. And if everyone meets his or her quota for a few weeks, the quota will be raised. Very few of the workers actually make the legal minimum salary of 65 dollars per month. My clothing choices, i.e. buying the cheapest I can find, are closely linked to the poverty of factory workers here in Nicaragua and around the world. The poverty of the South and the wealth of the North are interconnected.
No, Williamson Central School doesn’t send groups here, but people in Williamson eat Nicaraguan bananas and wear clothes made in the sweatshops here. No, Genesee Beer is not sold here, but people in the Rochester area eat snacks sweetened with Nicaraguan sugar along with their Genesee beer. The connection that upstate New York and every other part of the United States has with Nicaragua is very strong, and the used vehicles here are simply the daily reminder of it.
Doug Orbaker
The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 58 |
