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We humans like the idea of adventure, derring-do in foreign lands, or
testing our mettle in wilderness. Adventure invokes physical or emotional
challenge; or great risk, maybe the loss of life or limb.
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Barrio El Rosario (on the outskirts of Granada, Nicaragua) is a dusty
neighborhood of about 2000 people, typical of many poor, third world
societies. We have been raising funds for their school for 12 years
and working closely with them for the past four years, supported by
many friends in Tennessee and elsewhere.
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Ten years ago, I spent a year in Nicaragua and observed the beginnings
of a type of modernization. From my recent visit in April/May 2004,
the most striking change in "my" neighborhoods of El Rosario and El
Escudo (on the southern edge of the city of Granada) is the apparent
lifting of poverty. There are some new houses, two small businesses, a
few vehicles, and everyone has TVs and radios/boomboxes. This
accompanies a larger, ongoing population shift from rural to urban and
the physical expansion of the cities outward. I believe these changes
are typical of worldwide "globalization."
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For poor people, More is usually Better. If your shoes have
holes, another, new pair is better. Two fish feed a hungry family
better than one fish, or no fish. Two rooms in a house is better than
one room, or no house at all. More
"Globalization" is a phenomenon often seen through a
macro-prism of world trade agreements-- GATT, NAFTA, CAFTA-- that
minimize government control over coporate trading practices and
profits. This is often accompanied by the shift of traditional
governmental control of water and electricity to corporations. There
is a more natural wave of globalization sweeping the planet that has
much less to do with trade regulations and everything to do with
unprecedented ease of travel and universal communication by TV, radio
and telephone. Thus diseases, both human and plant-related, move
easily beyond their native continents. Information is everywhere,
particularly the incessant drumbeat of commercial messages: buy, buy,
buy more. On the ground, poor people everywhere are made more
homogeneous by getting the same information and learning from very
similar messages. Cultural differences are vanishing.
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We've heard much about Marango (Moringa oleifera) for years from many
smart people. Marango is the most hopeful tropical leaf crop for human
nutrition, with values very high in vitamin A, iron, protein, zinc and
other healthful compounds. It is also apparently remarkably low in
toxins. Recently we found two fields of marango-- under careful
monitoring-- in full health at the end of the dry season in Nicaragua.
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