Dispatch 6: Road Trip

Fast-food Trinidad-style: "doubles" from a popular shack in downtown Mayaro. Doubles are fry bread ladled with a sauce of chickpeas, cilantro, and hot pepper. You get two (at a time) on a piece of wax paper. Eating them is tricky — mostly it's fold and shove 'em in your mouth, then mop up what you dropped — but they sure taste good.

This was breakfast, eaten on the fly because we needed an early start: the plan was to drive to La Reunion to visit the propagation station there, then on to Port of Spain to buy materials. If we met success and got back by mid-afternoon, there would be a few hours of light to start on the roof.

Driving up the coast we passed through a palm plantation, where a team of three workers was climbing trees and cutting down bunches of coconuts. We stopped and they treated us to some of the fresh milk, neatly clipping the top off each coconut with a couple of sharp machete strokes.

In La Reunion, in the north central part of the island, we toured the government station that propagates cocoa, citrus, avocado, and exotic fruits like pommerac — something like a very crisp, tart apple. We spoke with Ian Muhammad about local practice. One thing striking was the amount of empty space in the facility: much of the aging greenhouse area is not being used. Yet even while we were there, three farmers came in looking for plants and were turned away. A nurseryman told Carter they had about 30 requests per day, and there's a waiting list. So they aren't making enough plants to fill the demand, which seems curious, since the government is subsidizing cocoa farmers so heavily.

Roopchand's greenhouse, once established, could help to fill that demand — and be for him a profitable side business some day. Although it would on the face of it be hard for him to match the subsidized price for rooted cuttings, he could take advantage of the inconvenience of waiting and the fact that farmers in Mayaro have to pay transport to get plants from the north. He could be a local provider.

It's a complicated economy that runs in cycles. "When cocoa prices rise," Mark says, "people want to grow it. Then the market gets flooded, prices drop, and people abandon the farms. Then demand increases again, and people want to grow it again."

After we left the station, the afternoon turned into a scavenger hunt as we scoured the hot and smoggy city for roof plastic and other items unobtainable in Mayaro. We didn't get back until 5:00. Changed clothes and went out to the site even though there wasn't much light left. "It's a symbolic thing," Mark said. "I don't want a day to go by that we haven't worked on the greenhouse."