Dry law in wet season

Did I tell you anything in my last post that life in Honduras was back to normal again?

Well, that has changed... It is D-5 to election day. A day that almost all Hondurans have been looking forward to. Because they hope that with their vote, with a new president-elect, things will get back to normal again. But normal has to wait until after the elections, that is for sure. This country is definitely not the boring kind. All public schools have had their last day of school for the next 6 days, the ballot boxes are travelling all across the country in army convoys and some 7,500 soldiers will guard the ballot boxes. As such not so much different from what we are used to, but wait...
...Honduras is being disarmed for the elections. The disarmament started beginning of the week, all guns carried around with a license will be temporarily confiscated and all others, well, probably forever. And believe me, there are a lot of guns in this country. In the province of Colón, Honduras' own piece of Wild West, where my palm oil client was located, people were even publicly carrying guns on their waist...
As from Friday, their is also a Ley Seca (Dry Law) in place. Oh yes, after the curfew, this is another once-in-a-lifetime experience. No alcohol will be sold throughout the election weekend. I wonder what that will give in the bars and disco's around town.

The elections itself seem to go on as planned. The US said it is supporting the polls and a lot of other nations have sent in their observers. Only thing left is to have a safe election day, no boycot and hope for a new start in 2010.

I would almost forget to tell you that the first weeks of the dairy project were really interesting. I have been collecting a lot of facts on the dairy sector in Honduras and Central-America and already did some interviews with farmers and in milk collecting centers. Some parts of the industry strategic plan are already shaping up. Farmgate prices (the price that the farmer gets for his milk) seem to be quite high compared to surrounding countries and guess what, efficiency and productivity quite low. Another element is that Honduran dairy consumption is lower than expected, thus there is some room for improvement - and marketing of course! The last (interesting) finding I will tell you about is the seasonality of dairy production in Honduras. During the wet season there is a surge of up to 50% in milk production, compared to dry season, leading to overproduction and quite some income-loss for the farmers (milk processing plants stop to accept milk when stocks are full).

All in all, some work to do in the sector. I will be spending the next weeks interviewing people all through the value chain and analyzing their answers in order to grasp the reasons behind the sector's main problems.

Will be back with my next post after D-election-day.

Virtual Quietness

It has been all quiet on the western front for the last weeks. Not that Honduras has been flooded by the tropical storms that devastated major part of El Salvador - there was some rain, but nothing frightening. Nor has the political situation exploded with all the deals that have been proposed, but failed to convince both parties - although they were very close to forming a government of national unity last week. It was a taste of virtual quietness because a lot happened since my last post...

October 14th
When the referee blows the final whistle of El Salvador-Honduras, the whole stadium goes quiet in San Salvador. The Salvadoreños because of the 0-1 loss, the catrachos because Costa Rica is winning 1-2 in Washington DC. It is a sad sight on tv, soccer stars kneeling to the ground and fighting their tears. Suddenly the camera turns to some Honduran fanáticos in the stands that start shouting and dancing like crazy. In Honduras, everybody frantically starts switching to the tv channel that is broadcasting USA-Costa Rica. 94th minute - USA scores a last-minute goal that draws the game and sends Honduras straight to South Africa 2010. The entire country goes into a frenzy. They have been waiting 28 years for this, but still...
In Tocoa, where I was staying that night, the streets filled up with everything from bikes to monstruous trucks, relentlessy accelerating and blaring for the 3 hours following the game and competing for the record of how-many-people-can-you-fit-into-one-vehicle. Quite an impressive celebration to be part of!
Some seconds of my video material below to illustrate...

October 17th
Jeroen lands in San Pedro Sula to start our 17-day exploration of northern Central-America. After a brief introduction to my (night)life in San Pedro, we head off to Copán, the town bordering the Copán Ruinas, an impressive Maya site close to the Guatemalan border. We spend a day in and around Copán, a lovely town with narrow cobblestone streets between colourful colonial houses. The visit to the Ruinas the next day shows the glorious past of Copán as one of the largest cities in the Mayan empire.
A long trip in an incredibly small bus with way too many people brings us to Antigua, Guatemala. Antigua is a colonial jewel: beautiful architecture, quiet during daytime (there is even a "no horn"-sign when you enter Antigua), safe at night, several nice spots with really good food - but, lo siento, nothing like Guatemala... Just as Varadero in Cuba and The Islas de la Bahía in Honduras, Antigua appeals (rightfully so) to loads of tourists, but shows very little of the true soul of the country. We climbed Volcán Pacaya, came way to close to a hot lava stream and spent the next day at beautiful Lago de Atitlán, before waking up at 3.55am and taking a shoddy plane to Flores, North Guatemala. From Flores, a bus brought us to Tikal, the most impressive Guatemalan Maya site, located in a giant rain forest. Although less elaborate than Copán, visiting Tikal is a mystic experience. You can walk kilometers in dense jungle before seeing the next Maya temple taken over by nature's forces.
The next day we crossed the border with Belize, and entered - after fighting off corrupt (Guatemalan) immigration officials - a completely different world. "Go slow," is exactly what this tiny English-Creole-Spanish speaking country is breathing. Caye Caulker turned out to be our host city for the next 2 days, a perfect spot for some magnificent dives, of which the Blue Hole is probably the most amazing one. At ~43m (140 ft) deep, you see a weird underwater scenery of enormous stalactites - the remnants of a what was once a giant cave. On the way up, the 5 min "safety" stop (decompression stop at 5m depth) got a whole new meaning as we were surrounded by several reef sharks... We left Caye Caulker for a 3-day sailing trip along the mesoamerican reef, spending the days snorkeling and spearfishing and nights on postcard-worthy palm islands - always keeping the go slow adage in mind of course.
After a fun karaoke night in Placencia, we took the ferry to Puerto Cortez, Honduras. Before heading back to San Pedro, we spent the day climbing (and jumping of) rocks and rafting in the Rio Cangrejal near Pico Bonito.
And yes, we took some other pictures as well - you can find them here.

November 2nd
Back to real life at TechnoServe - well, real life... I'm living a dream for most of my time here.
The team spends the week finalizing the presentation of the strategic plan for the palm oil cooperatives and I finally have some time to recuperate physically (and mentally) from the intense weeks.
It is a kind of special week though - for once a week without political tensions, curfew, World Cup qualification games or the likes. I did read a really interesting interview though: "The Aid Trap", with the dean of the Columbia Business School that just wrote a book on that subject. He talks about why developmental aid not channeled to local businesses isn't working. It made me think about what I'm doing here. I have always been (and still am) very sceptical about volunteering work and charity organisations. And then suddenly I quit a (great) job at McKinsey to start volunteering?! Why?
Well, I think TechnoServe is doing the right thing with developmental aid. We're not building water pumps, giving money to the poor or handing out presents to uneducated kids. TechnoServe is consulting local agricultural businesses on how to improve the quality of their product and services, on how to get rid of profit shaving middlemen, in short: on how to make more profits. We're actually giving brain power to help structure business plans - and we only "give" to businesses that are interested in growing and are able to support us with some of their own people. And the poor health situation, the shacks they live in, the lack of clean water? Well, that's where they invest their own profits in!

November 9th
The big day for my project. We present the final version of the strategic plan to the CEO and the board of the palm oil processing plant. They were really happy with the results and are motivated to take on the challenges ahead. In the meantime, TechnoServe has received enough funding to support the execution of the strategic plan for the next 3 years (if necessary extension to 5 years)! Incredible feeling, because the final goal of the plan is to almost double the collective income of the ~500 socios (cooperativistas that collectively own the company and palm fruit plantations) and their families - and believe me, in absolute terms, this is quite a bit less impressive... They will succeed by improving the quality of the harvested palm fruit, fully utilizing the current processing capacity of the plant by improving the productivity of the plantations, and the additional (very profitable) processing of the palm fruit pit.

And myself, I feel really happy with the strategic plan, the reactions on its details and with me presenting the whole thing in Spanish without using too many lifelines! Next challenge: preparing an industry strategic plan for the dairy sector in Honduras.

I'll keep you up to date!