Sweet and Bitter Cocoa Taste of Chocolate

  When reading about main exports of Solomon Islands I realized how much I need a vocabulary. Actually even vocabulary doesn’t help much if you come from Europe, or other country with different climate, as most of the exports here are either exotic crops or raw materials. Leaving aside raw materials from logging and mining activities, we can therefore find among main export commodities such items as copra (dried meat, or kernel, of the coconut; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copra), kava (The roots of the plant are used to produce a drink with sedative and anesthetic properties; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kava) and cocoa (kakao). About 85 percent of the population lives in rural areas and practices subsistence agriculture (Information taken from Guadalcanal official provincial development plan), whereas who would try to look for some decent manufacturing sector would probably have to accept the fact that in this sector are Solomon Islands very underdeveloped (Work force (202,500; 2009): Agriculture--75%. Industry and commerce--5%. Services--20%. – US Department of State webpage).

   This Tuesday was for Guadalcanal province very special day as the Executive Director of UNCDF David Morrison paid us a visit here. After short presentation there was planned a visit of New Tenabuti village, where we could witness official opening of newly build clinic. Local community prepared program, speech and lunch. Short, but very interesting visit of the inner land helped me to get to understand logistic problems the local government has to face to. Infrastructure in the area is very poor and without proper car (meaning land cruiser or something bigger) it’s not possible to get anywhere.

  It’s all what one would expect and absolutely normal in country like this so let’s just get back to the cocoa topic. Cocoa is one of the main export crops at Solomon Islands. The other part of the coin is that as they export cocoa, the import of products made from cocoa, such as chocolate, are so expensive that local people can’t afford it.  When I asked my colleague Ronald about chocolate his answer was more than clear: “I’ve never bought it here. It’s kind of scarce resource and it’s so expensive so only expats can afford it. I’ve seen they sell chocolate here in Plaza, but I don’t remember what the price was”. So it looks like there is no chocolate till December for me. I think it’s another model example how it looks like when a country export is based on corps, maybe raw materials (under control of foreign companies) and economy is based on diminishing return activities (where SI obviously have comparative advantage, which so far doesn’t help islanders to enjoy chocolate bar).

   
   On our way from the clinic to the village was Mr. Morrison and the others advised to go there by car. As I was told it was only 200 meters away so I decided to walk there together with some locals. On our way I noticed this weird looking trees and it’s fruit I’ve never seen before. What a surprise when I realized it’s actually cocoa, one of the main export crops of Solomon Islands. When my friends from the village noticed my increased interest in this fruit they decided to show me one ripened, yellow cocoa. Under the shell there are seeds covered with white plaque. With the words “It’s like a lolly”, I was encouraged to put one of those to my mouth. My surprise was even bigger in that moment as I could taste very sweet/sour taste I would never expect from cocoa. Maybe it’s just my limited imagination, but I always imagined cocoa as coffee and now I could see it’s totally different.


  While enjoying my new candy we finally arrived to the village, at the same time as the rest of the delegation with cars. At the lunch we could drink coconut milk. I noticed one of the guys is eating the coconut meat. It was young coconut with thin coconut shell, so it was possible to break it without problems in hands. I expected coconut meat with coconut taste I’m used to from European shops, but surprisingly this taste was quite different. When you expect to eat something, but at the end it tastes differently, it’s always quiet surprising. One day I thought I have some kind of dry pineapple, but no, it was casava and it had taste very close to potatoes. Similar it was in this coconut case; very soft meat with taste sweater and fresher than what anybody would expect, just not like coconut.

   My European way of thinking and imagining products and situations I know, are here quiet different and many times even when I think I know what I will experience the outcome is quite different. The parallel line can be drawn when thinking about local Economy, administration and attitude of people.