the place of tea and chocolate and vanilla

having navigated the border and washed out segment of the road to Copan, i get a lovely note from my Guatemalan phone provider - only $2 per minute for roaming in Honduras.  i only pay about $15 per month in Guatemala for my phone so this is not a welcomed note.  

it is just another 10 minutes to Copan.  my first stop is the tea and chocolate place  to meet up with the vanilla guy - David - that i was introduced to by the macadamian guy.  i get a tour of the vanilla experiment he is running and i'm not disappointed.  in fact, being a vanilla geek, i am shocked and amazed at the work he is doing.  vanilla is only native to mesoamerica so i was excited to see it in that environment.  instead of the hand pollination methods used elsewhere, he is cultivating the insects that naturally pollinate these flowers and getting very high yields.  i totally geek out about this amazing work he is doing [not just on vanilla but on other levels as well] in awe and humbled by how we all have such different ways to contribute to making our world a better place.

the tea and chocolate shop they run by his family is only open for a few hours in the afternoon but it is charming and rated very highly on trip advisor for a good reason.  the tea they give me is heavenly.

next we set off to find our accommodations.

the african view of trump

i was asked very often about and spoke many, many times to people about a trump presidency and told them in very clear language that he will not be a friend to Africa.  as early as January when i was talking to USAID workers it was clear that resources were being pulled and money going away.  

now, more than ever, it is important that resources be channeled into sustainable economic solutions for Africans or the cycle of challenges will continue. the old aid model of sending money to African countries is a catastrophic failure.  with billions of dollars in aid there is little or nothing to show for it and the lives of the average African hasn't changed much.  

immigration, income equality and gender discrimination are all hot topics in the international development community BUT also impact the lives of westerners.

we see migrants [people who have left their home country and no legal status elsewhere] flowing into Europe and the US and westerners recoil but without sustainable environmental and economic solutions the systemic problems that create illegal migration will not go away. 

it would also be nice if trump would stop offending everyone outside the US and provide some real leadership.  America is already great.  if it wasn't illegal  immigration wouldn't be a problem because no one would be trying to get in.