Buy Fair Trade

Here's what I learned last week about chocolate:

1. The majority of us eat chocolate at least once a week.
2. The chocolate industry is one of the biggest in the world.
3. Most people don't know how chocolate is made.
4. West African cacao farmers often employ children, pay them very little, and they work in dangerous conditions.
5. Buying Fair Trade chocolate ensures that farmers receive fair prices, workers are paid fair wages, environmental standards are followed, communities are developed, and long-term farming (rather than short-term) strategies are applied.
6. Dark chocolate is the only chocolate that has health benefits.
7. Here are some Fair Trade Chocolate and locations where they can be bought: Ah!laska: Online, Whole Foods, Henry's/Wild Oats
Amano: Madagascar, Venezuela Online
Art Bars (Ithaca Fine Chocolates'): Online
Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream: Ben & Jerry's, Chocolate: most grocery stores
Camino Cocoa: Dominican Republic Online
Chuao Bonbons: Chuao region of Venezuela Online, Whole Foods, San Diego Locations
Clif Bar: Most grocery and health food stores.
Cloud Nine: Central Mexico Online, Whole Foods, Henry's/Wild Oats
Coffee-Tea-Etc.: Dominican Republic Online
Country Choice: Online, Whole Foods
Dagoba: Latin America, Carribean Online, Whole Foods
Deans Beans: Costa Rica Online, Whole Foods, List
Divine Bars: Ghana Online, U.K. Stores
Domori: Peru, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Venezuela, Madagascar Online
El Rey: Venezuela Online
Endangered Species: West Africa, South America Online, Whole Foods
Equal Exchange: Central and South America, Mexico Online, Whole Foods
Green and Black's: Dominican Republic, Belize Online, Whole Foods
Health by Chocolate: Online, Whole Foods
Lake Champlain: Whole Foods
Larabar: Online, Store Locator
Malagasy: Madagascar Online
Max Havelaar: Bolivia, Dominican Republic, Peru Stores all around Europe
Mayordomo: Tabasco and Chiapas, Mexico Online, Whole Foods
Newman's Own Organics: Costa Rica Online, Whole Foods, Henry's/Wild Oats
Nirvana Chocolates: Online
Omanahene: Ghana Online
Pamela's Products: Amazon, Whole Foods, Henry's/Wild Oats
Rapunzel: Bolivia, Dominican Republic Online, Whole Foods, Henry's/Wild Oats
Raw Revolution: Raw Revolution Online Store Amazon Grocery
San Francisco Chocolate Factory: Online
Santa Cruz: Whole Foods, Henry's/Wild Oats
Scharffen Berger: Cote d'Ivoire Online, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's
Shaman Chocolates: Online, Whole Foods
Sojourn: Dominican Republic or Costa Rica Seattle Shop
Sunspire: Central and South America Online, Whole Foods, Henry's/Wild Oats
Sweet Earth Chocolates: Dominican Republic, Costa Rica Online
Terra Nostra Organic: Central and South America, Carribean Whole Foods
Tony's Chocolonely Slave-Free Chocolate: Netherlands, Online
Trader Joe's Fair Trade Cocoa: Trader Joe's
Yachana Gourmet "Jungle Chocolate": Equador Online, List Read more!

The Dark Side of Chocolate (Part 2)

Double click on any word to see the meaning.



In part 2, we'll look at the real price of cheap chocolate...
Children soaked in dangerous chemicals.

Etienne Babila survived two years of hard and hazardous labor in the cocoa plantations of Southern Camaroon. At 12, he was taken out of school and put to work to feed his sick parents. Now, back at school and captain of the football team, he's been given the chance of a new life but only if he can leave his village to go to secondary school.

Oway, like most villages here, relies on cocoa. It began as a forced labor camp 100 years ago when Camaroon was a German colony. Outside each hut is a hard square for drying cocoa beans. Over the generations, the labor camp has become a community. It has its own school. Primary education is officially free in Camaroon and the health clinic. But when the price of cocoa collapsed a few years ago, so did the wages of the cocoa workers. Families were forced to sell their children to the farms.

A pioneering projects by the U.N.'s International Labor Organization has begun to document the extent of child labor. Well over a quarter of a million children in the 5 main cocoa producing countries of West Africa. 200,000 of them in Cote D'Iviore alone. Tens of thousands here in Camaroon. A quarter of child laborers are illiterate. The ILO project has also documented the dangers. Machete cuts, young bodies crippled from carrying massive loads, poisoning by pesticides. Parents and farmers are aware that the chemicals are toxic but these children are given no protective clothing, apparently no advice on how to avoid exposure to the spray. We were asked not to identify the children or the farmer they were working for.

Julius Fomboh run a development agency which has been working with the child labor project. He asks Etienne to show him the pesticides the children use.

"What is this?"
"It is Gamelin 20?"
"Do you know what Gamelin 20 is?"
"Yeah, it is used for spraying."
"Did anybody ever tell you that it was dangerous to use?"
"Yeah, my father told me that if I am using it that I should be very careful because it is poisonous."
"It is poisonous. And when you are using it, do you use anything to protect yourself to cover..."
"How old were you when you started using the Gamelin 20 spray?"
"Around 12 years to 13 years.

Gamelin 20 contains the insecticide Lindane, a potent organic chlorine. The makers say that used in accordance with their instructions, it should not cause problems. But those instructions include wearing a mask to avoid contact with the eyes and clothing to protect the skin. An overdose and cause permanent nervous damage. Children are more sensitive to its effects.

"When you use the Gamelin Spray, do you feel some itchiness in your eyes?"
"Yes. It's very stinky."
"Very stinky. When you inhale it, it's stinky. So when you do that, what do you do? When you go home, what happens?"
"Just (????)"

He mixes Gamelin with a powder, a fungicide called Ridimil. This is officially classified as moderately toxic. The makers, Advartis, say users should wear gloves, a face mask, boots, and protective clothing. Etienne has none of these nor do any of the other children we filmed spraying the trees. Julius is shocked.

"Etienne, this is very, very interesting because I've read about this, heard about this but I've never had the chance to see it happen. A small young man, a child actually, spraying, I think its surprising for me. How do you feel in doing all this?"
"It's difficult but we do it just to earn a living."
"So you are doing it just to earn a living. That's really, really, really serious."
"Have you seen other children doing this? In other farms around the area working like this?"
"Many children are doing it."
"Can we say there are up to 100?"
"Yes."
"100 childremn, more than 100 children in the farms doing this."

The ILO estimates that more than 152,000 children are employed spraying pesticides and Camaroon, Nigeria, and Cote D'Ivoire.


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Sparrrrrrrrooooooow!

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The Dark Side of Chocolate (Part 1)

Double click on any word to see the meaning.



They start young in the West African cocoa farms. This girl who has been put to work clearing weeds with a machete, Cutlass (?), she's just 5 years old, one of tens of thousands of child laborers here in Camaroon.

Etienne Babila survived two years on the farms. He was rescued thanks to a child labor project, run by the International Labour Organization, ILO. Now he's showing Julius Fonboh, who has been working on the project, exactly what he went through.

Click below to read the rest of the transcript...

While many of his friends are still laboring in the cocoa plantations, Etienne is back at school again learning to read and write and now full of ambition. "I think that to be a medical doctor is good. Or, to be a judge. Because, if I be a judge, I will like to judge any parents that is sending children to the farm." "That sounds very, very interesting Etienne."

Etienne was taken out of school when he was 12. Both of his parents were ill. He had to become the family's breadwinner. He was strong. He could earn up to 3 dollars a day in the cocoa farms next to his village. But without an education, this is all he would ever do for as long as he survives snake bites, machete wounds, and most dangerous of all according to doctors, exposure to the highly toxic pesticides used to drench the cocoa pods.

This is Camaroon's main cocoa producing area. One of the site in 5 West African countries selected by the ILO for the first major attempt to tackle to scandal of child labor in the cocoa farms. Most of the world's chocolate is made from West African cocoa and the ILO estimates that nearly 300,000 school age children work in dangerous condition to produce it. For Julius Fomboh, the exploitation of child labor, taking children out of schools to do adults work in hazardous conditions, is a violation of human rights.

"It's really serious, children working on the farms. It's really, really serious. I think it's worse than slave trade because at least adults can protect themselves but children, their response is not like adults."

As he says, it's also economic nonsense. A sound economy can not be built on the back of a child.
"When did you start using the machete in the field?"
"Around 12 years."
"Can we see?"
"How do you get treatment?"
"I go to the house and tie it with cloth, just like that."
"And you don't go to the hospital?"
"No."
"That's very, very sad. Your parents, is it because they have no money to take you to the hospital or they just don't feel that they should take you to the hospital?"
"There was no money."
"What about your hand? You are comfortable when handling...?"
"And the treatment is the same?"
"Yes."

Etienne is showing Julius how the pods are opened, when children appear through the trees with heavy sacks on their heads. There is a distinction between what the ILO describes as child work, helping out with light tasks after school, and the expoitation of cheap labor. As a United Nations organization, the ILO is committed to eliminating child labor worldwide. When the cocoa project began, workers from local organizations, spent time talking to parents and farmers, about what was necessary and acceptable and what was simply, exploitation. In Etienne's village and elsewhere, the committe came to agree that children should stay at school for as long as possible, that they should be protected, and that child labor was not a solution to their problems. Etienne was among the first to be rescued.
"Can you tell me how it happened that you stopped working in the farm and you went to school."
"I was in the house one day when some people came. They said that they are angels. They said that they are fighting for children. Like that they should not be working in the cocoa farm, they should go to school. I told them that I am one of them. So they identified me and I said that I would like to go to school. So then they give me all that I needed and I started going to school."

For Etienne to return to school, his family had to find another way of making money. The solution, with the help of the ILO's cocoa project, their very own restaurant. And this is today's lunch.

"Ok this is stew and about how many people will eat this?"
"20 people."

Rachel, Etienne's mother, was given help by the cocoa project to start the restaurant. She charges 250 African francs, about half a US dollar, for a bite of spicy chicken stew and plantains. 20 customers a day will give her a profit of around 3,000 francs, or 6 US dollars - enough to pay the rent, feed her family, and keep Etienne at school.

Rachel explains that her husbands has suffered from epilepsy since childhood so he has never been able to work full-time though he does brew palm wine which they now sell in the restaurant. When she fell ill, a few years ago, there was no one to provide for the family. Etienne, she says, was the strongest, so it was he who had to go to work.

They had to stop Elienne going to school, she says, so that he could earn money on the farm and support them all. But now she is pleased that she is back in class. I'm very happy with Etienne she says. I want him to go on with further education so that he can be a better person.

I the ILO's child labor project, has succeeded in sending 50 children back to school in this one small village, well over 1,000 throughout Camaroon, and 11,000 in the 5 countries covered througout the project. Etienne is catching up on 2 years of lessons and his teachers say he is doing well writing and speaking English and French - necessities in this bilingual country. He is doing so well, he wants to stay on at school but that is now in doubt. Despite its success, the 3 year project has ended. Far from becoming a judge, Etienne may have to return to the cocoa field.

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Is Chocolate Health Food or Junk Food?

Long but informative.

Comprehension Questions
The cocoa (cacao) bean is native to what area of the world?
How is white chocolate made?
How did the Aztecs prepare cocoa?
How much chocolate does the average American eat in one year?
Why don't most Americans receive the health benefits of chocolate?
What does an inverse relationship between sugar and cocoa?
What kind of chocolate can give you health benefits?
What are the disadvantages of eating chocolate?
Why does cacao contain theobromide and caffeine?
How many teaspoons of sugar are in a candy bar?
1 chocolate bar equals how much fruit?

Click below to check your answers

The cocoa (cacao) bean is native to what area of the world?
Central America
How is white chocolate made?
Just cocoa butter - no cocoa
How did the Aztecs prepare cocoa?
Almost like coffee. They made Xocolatl, or "bitter water"
How much chocolate does the average American eat in one year?
2 pounds of chocolate
Why don't most Americans receive the health benefits of chocolate?
Because 92% like milk chocolate which doesn't have antioxidants
What does an inverse relationship between sugar and cocoa?
If the cocoa percentage goes down, the sugar level goes up. Conversely, if the cocoa percentage goes up, sugar goes down.
What kind of chocolate can give you health benefits?
Dark chocolate that is not processed with alkali
What are the disadvantages of eating chocolate?
It's addictive, high calorie, high fat, high sugar
Why does cacao contain theobromide and caffeine?
They are bitter and it protect the plant from being eaten
How many teaspoons of sugar are in a candy bar?
About 7
1 chocolate bar equals how much fruit?
1 apple, 1.5 oranges, and a cup of strawberries
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Farm to Market: Chocolate

Comprehension Questions:
1. Where does chocolate come from?
2. When was chocolate discovered?
3. Where does cacao grow?
4. What countries are the main producers?
5. How much chocolate will one cacao fruit produce?
6. Why do lizards hang around during the cacao harvest?
7. What other products go through a fermentation process?
8. Why are the beans put in machines?
9. Why are the beans roasted?
10. What does the winnower machine do?
11. What determines the color and sweetness?

Click below to check your answers

Comprehension Questions:
1. Where does chocolate come from?
Cacao seeds from the cacao tree.
2. When was chocolate discovered?
2,000 years ago
3. Where does cacao grow?
In tropical climates
4. What countries are the main producers?
Ghana, Madagascar, Venezuela, (US) Hawaii
5. How much chocolate will one cacao fruit produce?
7 candy bars
6. Why do lizards hang around during the cacao harvest?
Cacao tastes sweet.
7. What other products go through a fermentation process?
Yoghurt, Cheese, Coffee, Pickles, Wine
8. Why are the beans put in machines?
To shake off dirt and dust.
9. Why are the beans roasted?
It releases the flavor and the smell
10. What does the winnower machine do?
It takes off the shell and grinds the beans into nibs (small pieces)
11. What determines the color and sweetness?
The amount of milk and sugar added
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Uncensored Cuba

Changes in Cuba since Raul Castro has taken over for his brother Fidel:

Double click on any word to see the meaning.

Only a month has passed since ordinary Cubans won the right to own computers, and the government still keeps a rigid grip on Internet access.

But that hasn't stopped thousands from finding their way into cyberspace. And a daring few post candid blogs about life in the communist-run country that have garnered international audiences.

Yoani Sanchez writes the "Generacion Y" blog and gets more than a million hits a month, mostly from abroad - though she has begun to strike a chord in Cuba. On her site and others, anonymous Cubans offer stinging criticisms of their government.

But it isn't simple. To post her blog, Sanchez dresses like a tourist and slips into Havana hotels with Web access for foreigners. It costs about $6 an hour and she can't afford to stay long given the price and the possibility someone might catch her connecting without permission.

Click below to read the full article.

It's a testament to the ingenuity and black-market prowess Cubans have developed living on salaries averaging $20 a month, with constant restrictions and shortages.

The connections Cuban bloggers are making with the outside world via the Internet are irreversible, said Sanchez, who this month won the Ortega y Gasset Prize for digital journalism, a top Spanish media award.

"With each step we take in that direction, it's harder for the government to push us back," she said.

On an island where many censor themselves to avoid trouble, Sanchez says Generacion Y holds nothing back.

"It's about how I live," she said. "I think that technically, there are no limits. I have talked about things like Fidel Castro, and you know how taboo that can be."

But she added that "there are some ethical limits. I would never call for violence, for instance."

Since taking over from his ailing brother Fidel in February, Raul Castro has lifted bans on Cubans buying consumer electronics, having cell phones and staying in luxury tourist hotels.

While the changes have bolstered the new president's popularity, most simply legalized what was common practice. In a typically frank recent posting, Sanchez noted that many Cubans already had PCs, cell phones and DVD players bought on the black market.

"Legally recognizing what were already facts prospering in the shadows is not the same as allowing or approving something," she wrote. Cuba's leaders are responding to the inevitable, "but they won't soothe our hunger for change."

Authorities have made no sustained effort to stop Sanchez's year-old blog, though pro-government sites accuse her of taking money from opposition groups.

Only foreigners and some government employees and academics are allowed Internet accounts and these are administered by the state.

Ordinary Cubans can join an island-wide network that allows them to send and receive international e-mail. Lines are long at youth clubs, post offices and the few Internet cafes that provide access, but the rest of the Web is blocked - a control far stricter than even China's or Saudi Arabia's.

Still, thousands of Cubans pay about $40 a month for black market dial-up Internet accounts bought through third parties overseas or stolen from foreign providers. Or they use passwords from authorized Cuban government accounts that hackers swipe or buy from corrupt officials.

Sanchez said so many Cubans read her blog that fans stop her on the street.

Generacion Y takes its title from a Cuban passion for names beginning in Y. It offers witty and biting accounts of Cubans' everyday struggles against government restrictions at every turn.

Some of the bloggers hew to the belief that openness is the best answer to official surveillance.

"By signing your name, giving your opinions out loud and not hiding anything, we disarm their efforts to watch us," Sanchez wrote on her blog.

On a blog called "Sin EVAsion" ("Without Evasion"), Eva Hernandez dared to mock "Granma," the official Communist Party newspaper, for taking its name from the American yacht that brought Castro and his rebels back to Cuba from Mexico to launch their armed rebellion in 1956.

"Cuba is the only country in the world whose principal newspaper, the official organ of the Communist Party and the official voice of the government, has the ridiculous name 'granny,'" she wrote. Piling on the heat, she added that the name "perpetuates the memory of that yacht that brought us so much that is bad."

Generacion Y is maintained by a server in Germany, and Sanchez says the Cuban government periodically attempts to block her site within Cuba, though the problem is always cleared up within hours.

Administrators of the "Petrosalvaje" site also claim to struggle with government-imposed limits. A recent post called uncensored Internet access a "virtual raft" - a reference to the rafts on which Cubans flee to the United States.

The government is also into blogging - maintaining dozens of sites dedicated to promoting the island's image overseas.

"Raul needs time," reads a post on Kaosenlared.net, a forum based in Spain. "We are confident, calm and staying united in favor of the direction of our revolution." It is signed Rogelio Sarforat and was apparently posted from Cuba.

Reynaldo Escobar, Sanchez' husband and a former journalist for official media, now uses his own blog to criticize the government. He said Cuba pays supporters to flood the Internet with positive opinions.

He says he knows of nobody who would spend money to go on the Web and defend the system. "Everyone who argues in favor of the government is paid to do so, or does so because they have been asked to," he said.

On the Net: (Spanish only)

Generacion Y: http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/

My Island at Midday: http://isla12pm.blogspot.com )

Potro Salvaje: http://www.desdecuba.com/potro/

Click here for the original article.
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Musical Warm-up

Here's the song and the music video I made for this week and two trivia questions about it:
1. Can you recognize what part of Mexico most of these photos are from?
2. Do you know the two latin musical styles that are featured in the song?
Click on comments below to post your answer.

Teachers: use this song with interview #885: Beaches. Page 1 of the free, downloadable lesson plan has some ideas about how to use it in class.

For the full interview and accompanying lesson, go to elllo.org lesson #885 (it should be updated now or within an hour or two).

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Sabrina's Tortillas

This week Diego talks about Cancun, Mexico which is in the Yucatan peninsula. Here's a wonderful recipe from that area.


Double click on any word to see the meaning.

Last winter, Christmas time to be precise, I'm in Merida, the Yucatan, Mexico. And I say to my friend of mine, David Sterling, who runs a cooking school down there - great place, great guy, expat New Yorker - "Take me somewhere good." That's what you always say, right? So we barter, we negotiate. He says, "Wait until Sunday morning. I'm going to take you to have tacos made by Sabrina."

Click below to read the rest of the transcript.

Sunday morning, beautiful day, we go down to the square, and people of all ages are dancing. And off to the side, in the midst of this kind of chaotic, loud, wonderful scene, is Sabrina. She runs up to David, "Oh David!" and proceeds to make us these unbelievable tacos.

So this one is poblano chiles, chiles poblano, corn, potatoes, onions, that's pretty much it. We start by roasting the chiles. So these have had the skin removed. These two haven't. You can use a knife for this but evidently I'm not going to. Pull the cap off, brush out as many of the seeds as is practical. Again, if you leave a few behind, it's not a big deal. Cut these into strips and the strips are now known as rajas, which I believe means rags and they go into our onions. Since we are running a little behind since our onions are doing so well and my rajas are taking awhile I'm going to add the potatoes which are ordinary baking potatoes, boiled, you could bake them if you wanted to until pretty soft and then cubed. Those go in here. We going to now put in a couple of cups of corn. In the summer you can use fresh corn, this is frozen. Now this is done. Sabrina brings this to the market pretty much in this state and keeps it warm. What she does when you come up to her and you say, "I'd like a taco with poblanos and potatoes," is spreads a little lard on a tortilla - corn tortilla of course which is all they use in the Yucatan. Spread a little lard on the tortilla and heat it until it blisters. We eschewed the lard...we don't have any lard so we're using vegetable oil. She said that was ok. She probably did not say that was ok. I was told she said it was ok. Anyway, it's ok. You want to heat the tortilla until it browns lightly on both sides and then I'll show you how to serve. Like crepes, like pancakes, like almost anything you cook on a grill, the first one is usually not perfect - you've got to get the temperature right. That's a little too hot. Not bad though. So then just a scoop of the filling - maybe a scoop and a half, a little bit of crema, you can use salsa rojo (red salsa), green salsa, some crumbled cojita cheese. A little bit of sour cream (or crema), some cilantro.

So it was a great trip. Thanks to David who really knew what was going on. Thanks to Sabrina who was running one of the best places in town. As usual, you have to ask a local and you have to be willing to go anywhere to find the best stuff, which this is.

I'm making these tonight.

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