The day the bus driver saved my life...

If there were only one thing I could chose for you to understand about Dominican culture, you will find it here.

So the bus driver didn't really save my life. He saved my recent trip to the US though and gave me one of those mind jolting, reality-checking experiences that make you step outside your life and realize that maybe there is another way to look at things.

At 10 AM I carried my nearly empty suitcase down the stairs of my apartment complex and into my community's town hall vehicle to take me to Nagua to get on the bus to Santo Domingo.
"Do you have everything?" The driver, who is a family friend asked me in  Spanish.
"Of course!" I said. Obviously I was super excited to go back for a week and had thought this through a couple of times. We dropped off my keys at my host family's house and headed for the bus stop.

Normally I take the big air conditioned bus that doesn't stop and has a zero tolerance policy (everyone gets a seat and it is forbidden to talk to the driver during the trip), but that costs more and leaves less frequently, so I opted for the regular old guagua. We left at 11. Per usual, the guagua filled up 5 to a row back to front. About 30 minutes in to the ride, I realize my passport is on my dresser in my apartment. As we turn on to the main highway to head south, I tell the cobrador that he has to let me off because I didn't have my passport and my flight was at 4:30. I wasn't sure what I was going to do but I had to get back to my house.

The driver insists that this idea is ridiculous and that I'll never make it to the airport in time. Call your family, he says. Tell them to go get your passport and I'll call the bus stop to see if the driver will bring it down with him on the bus that leaves at noon. You can wait for him at the bus stop along the highway. I begin to sweat... and curse. The whole bus now knows what's going on. The woman sitting next to me with a chicken in a cardboard box on her lap grabs my hand and tells me to have faith and breathe. Yeah right, lady.

I call my host dad in a panic and explain to him what's going on and that I needed him to go get my passport. The next bus was leaving at 12, and it was now 11:45. He was in Nagua and my passport was 20 minutes away. I begin to tell him where it was in my house but of course, I lose cell phone signal as we pass through a national park. Meanwhile, my driver had called the next driver to tell him what was going on. He agreed, but said that he wouldn't wait. When we finally come out of the black hole of cell phone signal, I call my host dad. He located my passport and was on the way to the bus stop but I soon find out from my driver that the bus has already left. We call back and ask him to wait about 30 minutes outside of Nagua for my passport to be delivered. He agrees and then we lose signal again before I can tell my host dad where to meet the bus.

25 minutes later I'm drenched in sweat despite the blasting AC. I get signal back but I'm out of minutes. I borrow my bus driver's phone to find out what was going on. The passport was successfully delivered to the driver of the 12 o'clock bus. As I pass the news to the driver and the cobrador, the entire bus erupts in applause and the chicken lady gives me an "I-told-you-so" smirk.

When I arrive to the stop in Santo Domingo it's 1pm. My taxi guy is already there waiting for me and I explain that we have to wait an hour for the next bus to arrive before we can head to the airport. At 2pm, the bus pulls into the stop and the driver hands me my passport in it's gold case and says, 200 pesos (about $6). I would have given him 500. Passport in hand, I was off to the airport.


I know some of you are probably wondering how in the world I forgot my passport. Others are wondering how I put a document with my social security number on it in the hands of perfect strangers. I guess it's like the chicken lady said, have faith. This story is the best example I can give you about the hearts of Dominicans. They never worry, so why should I?
I couldn't think of a better way to leave the country I call home for a quick vacation to the US, which was fabulous!

xoxo, Kaley

Why "Fair Trade" Isn't Really Fair

Connecting the chocolate supply chain from my Peace Corps service to your mid-afternoon sugar buzz

Let's face it. It's totally trendy to be conscious about where your food comes from. Americans and Europeans alike are more than willing to pay a little extra for a variety of premium items that morally connect the consumer to the product's origin.

Fair Trade is one of the most recognized certifications today. The logo which can most commonly be found on coffee and chocolate products signifies that a premium has been paid for the ingredients. Although I cannot speak for coffee, in cocoa that premium is critical for farmers. As it stands currently, the supply of cocoa is dwindling.

Cocoa doesn't grow just anywhere. The “cocoa belt”, is the tropical zone that spans 20 degrees north and south of the equator. Most cocoa farmers (I speak for the DR) are older (60+) and today's youth, which make up for nearly half of the population, are uninterested in taking over the family farms for fear being poor like their parents and grandparents. On the other end of the supply chain, chocolate consumption worldwide increases at an incredible rate each year. What does this all mean? Prices on all levels must increase in order to sustain the cocoa industry.

In a recent conference with other (Peace Corps) volunteers who work with cocoa we had the opportunity to speak with the official liaison for Fair Trade (FLO) in the Dominican Republic, Maria Trinidad.

Since the message to the consumer of Fair Trade products is intended to be ethical and the little Fair Trade logo appears on the final product, I wanted to know if Fair Trade required a certain amount (or all) of the ingredients in a chocolate bar (for example) to be Fair Trade sourced. The short answer is no. In fact, Maria went as far as to say that all ingredients in the bar that could be Fair Trade should be. As you may know, this is impossible. Things like sugar and vanilla, absolutely. But that chocolate bar contains quite a few more ingredients that are not Fair Trade. So the logo makes it all the way to the final product even though a very small amount of the ingredients are actually Fair Trade.

That being said, I want to mention that cocoa is a commodity that is purchased by the ton from origin. Large chocolate manufacturers buy thousands of tons of cocoa beans annually and not all of them are Fair Trade certified or from the same source. What is the likelihood of Fair Trade beans staying separate from the non-Fair Trade? In fact, Fair Trade uses a system called 'mass balance' when it comes to the certified final product. This means that for every chocolate bar made intended to be certified Fair Trade, that company must buy the equivalent mass of cocoa under Fair Trade terms. In other words, that's as far as Fair Trade reaches in content control of the final certified product and that in reality that chocolate bar may not contain Fair Trade cocoa beans at all.

Let's talk about the premium that is paid per ton for Fair Trade cocoa beans. In addition to the floor (minimum) price for the beans, Fair Trade pays $400 per ton. That breaks down to $20 per quintal (a quintal is 150 kilos). That money is paid out to the exporting organization at origin to cover administration costs and what's left over (?!) is distributed to the farmers. In short, the benefits are not enough. Not to mention the initial sign-up fee of 550 Euros in addition to the annual fee to stay certified.

Maria says that Fair Trade is the first step for small organizations to begin exporting. They get certified through larger organizations that have the capacity to export with the intent that in time they will be able to use the premiums paid out to export on their own. Here in the Dominican Republic Fair Trade's poster child is CONOCADO, the first organization to be Fair Trade certified in the country. CONOCADO started out as a cooperative for small cocoa producers and has turned into a three part mega company that is anything but small. However, for the last two years, CONOCADO has not distributed benefits to their cocoa farmers. They have lost more than 600 members nationwide since 2012. Basilio Almonte, head agronomist for CONOCADO was also present at the conference. When asked why they have failed to pay benefits to their members, he informed me that the organization had too many internal expenses and has not been able to distribute anything to the cocoa farmers. On a whole other level of opaque, the director of CONOCADO has opened his own private cocoa purchasing business, BIOCAFCAO, putting himself in direct competition with his employer, CONOCADO.

Maria Trinidad, well aware of the situation at the Fair Trade poster child, commented that although the transparency issues at CONOCADO are unfortunate it is the responsibility of the farmers to advocate for themselves and that Fair Trade cannot be involved in internal affairs of the certified exporting organizations.

If you are familiar with my job here in the DR with La Red Guaconejo, you have probably read about Taza Chocolate and their Direct Trade philosophy. Taza works exclusively with organic certified cocoa beans and on top of paying a minimum of $500 per metric ton above the New York International Commodities Exchange (ICE) price, owner Alex Whitmore visits the organization each year in order to ensure long-term personal relationships with the cocoa farmers. In my previous blog post you can read a little bit about Alex's most recent visit to the DR. What's in it for Alex, you may be asking? These relationships and purchasing principles allow Taza to manufacture and deliver a high quality, traceable chocolate bar with an ethical message and a real story to the consumer. The Somerville, MA based company is not exactly comparable to Nestle or Kraft (Mondalez). Most famous for their stone ground Mexican style chocolate disks, Taza has a unique market.

So what's the problem?

Is Fair Trade allowing consumers to believe that a $2 chocolate bar with their logo on it is just as ethical as an artisan chocolate bar that costs four times the price? Or will the trendiness of being “food conscious” or in this case “chocolate conscious” make for a saavy consumer that knows the difference?

That, my friends, is for you all to decide but I whole heartedly encourage you to be more aware of the origin of you next chocolate buzz.

The Dirty South

As I mentioned before, I spent the weekend visiting Tyler and Erin (their dominican names are Rosy and Ralfie), two current volunteers living in Pedernales. The area west of Santo Domingo along the southern coast is what is referred to by PCVs as the dirty south. It's hot. And dry. And really hot. Like I step outside and immediately start sweating...which I am beginning to get used to. Good thing pitting out is totally acceptable here and happens to everyone.

The PVC visit is designed to let trainees have a little peak at what being a real live volunteer is like. I will say the weekend made me super excited to get started as a business volunteer but even more grateful to be in such a beautiful country as a pcv. I'll leave you with some pics from our mini tour along the southern coast which includes Pedernales, La Mercedita and ending at the cliff side house we stayed at Saturday night in San Rafael.

I admit I probably wouldn't be mad if they placed me in the south...

Peace corps acronyms, volunteer visit assignment and Santo Domingo

Saludos! I have come to learn that the peace corps loooooves acronyms. An entire training session could not be understood without knowing what these are and as consequence, if you read my blog regularly, you're going to want to know too. These are the important ones that pertain to my service and some pertinent dates.
PST: pre service training- what I am doing now.
PCT: peace corps trainee- what I am now until swear in on May 15.
PCV: peace corps volunteer- what I will be after May 15.
CED: community economic development- my program/sector that I will be working in for the next 27 months.
PCVL: peace corps volunteer leader- usually a volunteer who extends their service to lead a program for incoming volunteers. My PCVLs name is Sasha.
CBT: community based training- my CBT will be April 1- May 3 with the rest of the CED trainees in a town called Peralvillo. Obviously more on this to come, but the main industry we will be working with there is cacao.

On Thursday March 21, everyone will leave Santo Domingo for the weekend to go visit a real life volunteer and see what it's all about. Each of us will visit a different volunteer in a different site for 4 days. I, by fate, will be visiting Erin (who's blog I have been reading religiously since I got my invitation and who I have been in communication with) and her husband Tyler. They live in Pedernales, which is on the southern coast very close to the Haitian border. The trip will take me a total of 7 1/2 hours each way by guagua (that's a bus) but I'm confident it will be well worth it and I'm beyond excited to visit them!
Also by chance, I was able to meet both of them at the peace corps office yesterday in Santo Domingo.

Below are some photos of our trip to Santo Domingo- including the guagua ride, the colonial zone and some of the city itself.
Also a pic of me making dominican empanadas and Kate's birthday which was Wednesday. Her for real party is tomorrow.

Besitos!! Kaley

Un chin de dique

I know my spelling and grammar errors are probably driving the few people who read this absolutely nuts (I just re read my last post, ha, you got the general idea, right??!) but please bear with me as I figure out the best way to do this!

But what, you may be asking, is dique?

I'll get to that in a second. I am now living in a northern barrio of Santo Domingo with Doña Casimira, a 78 year old spitfire of a host mom who I am convinced has more energy and definitely more friends than me. Everyone in our neighborhood calls her Mom. This is partially because everyone loves her like a mother and partially because she is related to a solid 60% of our barrio, she has 10 kids and some 30 something grandkids. Below (I think it's below, I write these posts from the blogger app for iPhone and I have yet to see how they post on a non mobile version of my blog) is a photo of Casimira buying plantains from a street vendor just in front of my house. She's pretty b.a.
There are 2 other volunteers living next door with her daughter and about 6 others living in my barrio.
I'll also leave you with some pics of the training center, the house, my room and of course my bed with my mosquitero.
I will be living here for the next three weeks of basic training. The peace corps training center is within walking distance from my house. After these first 3 weeks I will relocate for my CBT (community based training) which will be a much more rural setting. This will be with the other CED (community economic development) volunteers to train for job specific stuff for 5 weeks.
Anyway, the power comes and goes here como si fuera de moda. And each time it does, it's like a competition to see who can yell "SE FUE LA LUZ!!" first. I hear it from every window and street corner juuuust in case I didn't notice that the music from the corner colmado is no longer blasting. Don't get me wrong though, those of you who know me know that I looove me some bachata music.
The god news is we have a generator so my novelas do not get interrupted when we lose power. Score.
So when I asked about why the power goes out so much or why the water doesn't always run I often get an answer that has the word dique in it. Dique is the first dominicaism that I have learned thus far and I've never heard it anywhere else. It means "supposedly" or "they say that". But not just that, it's a polite and socially acceptable way to say that you believe something is maybe not true or only a rumor.
I have also recently began what I am sure will be a love/hate relationship with public transportation in the DR, but that will warrant a post of its own.

In other news, I have found myself a running trainer (lisanne, the volunteer next door) who I will repay with Spanish lessons. I'm covered in noseeum (no idea how to spell that) bites and have not been sick yet! I'll try to get another post up before malaria miercoles.

Paz, amor y dique! Kaley