Gary Kirkpatrick

Coffee grown in the highlands and perhaps elsewhere are subject to attacks by insects as well as molds and fungus.  The current threat is a fungus, I believe.  Since the 1980’s the ‘cafeteros’ (coffee farmers) here have mostly used harsh and costly chemicals to combat the threats, including Round Up.  During our Peace Corps period we worked with the organic farmers who had once used these chemicals but found them to be too harsh and not always effective.

Coffee grown in the sun needs heavy chemical fertilization as coffee naturally prefers the shade.  So the organic farmers first had to provide shade for their plants.  Plantanos (plantains) grow quickly and in addition provide additional income, so provided one route to a shaded plantation.  They planted other trees as well, many of which provide nitrogen and other nutrients.  As the leaves and trunks of the platanos fell they decomposed quickly in the moist soil, providing nutrition for the coffee plants and reducing the need for weeding.

Nonetheless these plants are vulnerable so some of the farmers developed organic solutions.  We worked with Lito and Julio Lezcano who have developed solutions which are sprayed on the plants.  The fungus which came last year was quite devastating and everyone lost many plants, but they came up with a solution that seems to be working.  They have a bed of compost materials which have been seeded with small worms.  The compost is used to start coffee plants.  It produces a liquid run off when combined with molasses seems to control the fungus.

By comparison, another friend of ours has sun grown coffee.  The chemical sprays have proven to be too expensive and not very effective and he is very discouraged.

This is by no means scientific proof of course, but suggests that an organic approach can prove to be more effective in the long run.   It is also more friendly to the birds and other creatures and plants that populate this area, famous for its birding and the Biological Corridor, by means of which many birds and other animals migrate from South to North America.

https://plus.google.com/photos/111993279450383941292/albums/5918991093912808753

September 2, 2013

Here’s the link to 21 photos we’ve taken over the past few days, focusing on the coffee plantation of the Lito Lezcano family.   I’ve commented on the photos.

https://plus.google.com/photos/111993279450383941292/albums/5917891477441100753

Boca Brava-  there be whales nearby in quantity!   We are here for the second time.  About 3 and a bit years ago  the Peace Corps regional leader, a wonderful young woman named Abby (now a PC volunteer in Ecuador), organized a regional meeting here.  It is just as lovely now as then.  The hotel sits on the corner of a small island a short boat ride from the mainland.  It’s a bit of a drive from the highway but the boat ride is less than 10 minutes.

Our trip yesterday went smoothly.  There’s a guy at the hotel who’s given us lifts before in his rattletrap.  He got us to the main bus station.  The bus took us to Santiago in Veraguas and we hopped in a Thrifty rental car from there.

We head for the highlands today, so there is no time for whale watching.  Too bad.  In Boston about 15 years ago I went out and saw some of these wonderful creatures but Peg has never had the pleasure.

Here are the photos that go with this story.  It will open in a new tab.   https://plus.google.com/photos/111993279450383941292/albums/5917335637422970225

After our late night I got up at an unglodly early hour, since my clock was an hour off, and waited for everyone else to get up.  It was hours later before we met up with Marivel.  I think I already mentioned that she loves across the street, which simplifies matters as long as you can figure out how to cross the street even at 8 am.  There are no cross walks.  This is a skill we learned living here, and not one we have lost.

It is already warm and it is always humid here.  We’re on the coast in a tropical country, after all.  Off we went to some Chinese place for a Chinese breakfast.  It was really good- and no it wasn’t a pretty place.  We ate several dumpling sorts of things stuffed with rice and what not, and a kind of Chinese tortilla, which was rice and whatnot battered with an eggy thing and pan fried.

Marivel lent us a SIM card for the phone, which saved us the trouble of buying one, and off we went to the Peace Corps office.    We got a warm welcome from the training director Raul, Lourdes and Emmy in medical, Maria Elena the security chief who makes sure they know where the volunteers really are, Brandon (not sure what he is doing) and a few others.  It was nice to see these people.  The new office is quite spacious and attractive.  We tried to make arrangements to see our host family for the training period without success.   Panamanians are very friendly people, and I like them as a rule even though I do not care for many aspects of the culture.

Marivel took us to a dumpy place at the fish market for lunch.  The food was top notch. The shrimp al ajillo (shrimp in garlic sauce) and the tiny clams in the same sauce were the best I’ve had and the price matches the surroundings more than the quality of the food by a long shot, and Panamanian beer, which is decent, is still only $1.25.  for a mere $25 for two there is quite the lobster meal.  In the market fish is abundant and prices are low, if you can handle the strong odors and lack of ice.

After  lunch we drove through nearby Panama Viejo, the oldest part of the city.  It is a mess.  Full of 19th century buildings, perhaps older, many of which are in bad repair.  There are quite a few being renovated, and a lot of road work going on.  The Presidential palace is here.  I can not imagine it would be easy to get him out of there in a hurry.

By now the sun had scorched the humid air.  You needed heavy sunglasses to handle the glare.  Her tiny car fortunately is air conditioned but the heat kept us in.  Some touristas wandered about.  This area has great potential but fulfilling it is quite the project.  Then again so is most of the rest of the city, where you find some of the ugliest, scariest looking slums you can imagine.  Decades of neglect and poverty don’t do wonders for a city landscape.

The new Biodiversity Museum by Frank Gheary is a ways away given the route you have to take to be greatly shortened once the coast road opens.  But for now you have to wind your way through a maze of local streets–  Panama City navigation is not easy even with the poor maps you can get so this is for locals to do.   This country has a dearth of museums, sadly, but this should be a much appreciated addition to the flimsy cultural life.   I think there is one other museum only, an art museum.  I’ve been in.  The art is not bad, there is just not much of it.  There is an anthropological museum (I think it was), but the contents were robbed and it never opened, last I heard.

There are some very good restaurants here.  We had dinner in one.  Pomodoro it is called.  Good selection of fairly traditional Italian cuisine, including hand made ravioli.  They have a salad topped with gorgonzola that I really like.

Tomorrow we head for the western part of the country.

We flew last night to Panama.  We served in the Peace Corps here 2009-2010  and wrote about it here (there are links to the right).   In the community where we lived on the Costa Rican border they produce some mighty fine coffee and some mighty lovely people, some of the most kind and intelligent people you could imagine.  Under better circumstances they could go very far.

We did a few things while we were there that were helpful.  We helped some of the locals find a better market for their coffee.  We helped set up a local fair, which included booths and entertainment, including the two of us dancing to some international folk music, some traditional Panamanian dance, and a Thai woman performing traditional dance from that country.  We produced a newspaper, helped get trash cans into the community, and set up a website for a local environmental group.  Peg took some children to a development camp and taught budgeting at a local church.

So here we are again for a visit.  Marivel met us at the airport. I did not think she would stop hugging us. It was really sweet.  Her family lives in Santa Clara Chiriqui, in the highlands.  We met her here last time and in fact she lives across the street from Hotel California, where we are staying again.

I think the international section of the airport is new, at least I do not remember it. You are fingerprinted at immigration. We saw some of the new city buses on the way into town.  For decades and decades the people here have been stuffed into old school buses whose ancient diesel engines cloud the air with soot.  I hope these work out better for them.

The highway into town requires a prepaid card, no cash. City streets are dug up making way for the metro. We ate a bit of dinner past midnight local time, 1 am our time and we caught up on the news of her family and made some plans for the next day. She’s staying with us for the day.

Today we plan to visit the Peace Corps office and perhaps our host family for our training period here.