Palm fruit in supermarket looting

Everything seems to have calmed down in Honduras. Not that I experienced what tv images have shown you a few days ago (rather the sight of an empty street next to the hotel), but the uproar in the capital has its consequences on life here.

The 2 full days of curfew last week were followed by a break on Wednesday. Between 10am and 5pm people got out on the streets again. Protests and clashes with police you'd think? Well, not really, rather a rush to supermarkets and gas stations, possibly some arguments with fellow shoppers... The sight of a supermarket flooded with people looking for the last condiments in all but empty racks is quite impressive. You couldn't imagine how long the lines were for check-out.

From Thursday to yesterday (Tuesday) the curfew was installed again, but only at night time. As anything after dark here is considered night time, this meant starting at 6pm. It was one of the first Friday night's at home in a long time. And I hope it will be one of the last one's as well...

I'm enjoying this back-to-more-or-less-normal week. There are only 2,5 weeks left to finish the strategic plan for the palm oil company and its producing cooperatives, and still quite some work to do. The project is a completely different world than what I was used to just a few weeks ago... Not easier though. Francisco, my other colleague on this project, is now visiting all the cooperatives to get an idea about their living conditions. Questions as "Can you read and write?", "Which material is the roof of your house made of?" and "Do you save any money?". It gives an idea about the goals of this project. We try to improve their living conditions by helping them in the planning process of the next months and years of palm fruit harvesting and finding funding for necessary investments in fertilizers and drainage systems. Also the strategic plan for the palm oil processing plant (where the cooperatives are delivering to) is part of the project. And that strategic plan is, well, not such a different world after all... PowerPoint presentations, executive summaries and the pyramid principle seem to work as well here as anywhere in the world.

By the way, for those who wonder what palm fruit looks like, this is an image of a palm fruit bunch. The crude oil that comes out of the fruit itself is sterilized, refined (removal of impurities, color and odor) and fractionated to become vegetal oil, to be used to... fry Belgian fries for example!?