If you wanted to send us some knitting needles, we would not be opposed.

Most things I can get in Panama, but some things I can not. One of these things are knitting needles. This is unfortunate because I have a large group of women in my community begging for knitting classes (a past neighboring volunteer taught her community) and there is nary a needle to be had.

As such, if anyone feels inspired to spread the knitting craft movement down to the tropics, my ladies and I would looooooove any knitting needles, yarns, patterns, materials etc. In exchange, you can feel proud imagining small babies wearing knit hats and slippers in the jungle and I will send you some chocolate. Also, if your envelope is feeling empty, I can also always use crafty items with the kids in town. (I think I might even be starting a Girl Scout troop!)

My address:

Cuerpo de Paz
Elsie McIver
Entrega General
Changuinola, Bocas del Toro
Republica de Panama

A Chocolate Roast

This is one of my favorite (or at least more productive feeling) things I have done here yet. Another volunteer (Oti) and I organized a small grant to take some women from my "Chocolateras" group to his community, to teach his peeps the high quality cacao into chocolate process that my ladies make once a month or so. In the video are two of my closest lady friends in town, Eddi and Hilda explaining in Gnobe to the peeps of the community "Sharkhole" (named as such for the reasons you might think.) I was so proud to watch my ladies play the role of teacher. Also, please notice the natural beauty.

For an even better video, my friend Michelle (who also brought some ladies to the training) made a great video, which you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBsPSg2yPUU

For those of you who wonder, how exactly does one make chocolate from cacao beans, it goes a little something like this.

First you collect all the cacao pods and then take out the seeds. As demonstrated by a group of my friends and neighbors below:



The beans are surrounded by delicious white goo, which is fun to suck on, but for the sake of the next stage of the process, best left on the bean. The next stage is fermentation, where all beans are placed in a fermentation box or bag for a couple of days.

Then the fermented beans are put out in the sun to dry for another few days, which can be difficult as the main harvest also happens during the rainy season. Seeds turning a bit moldy is a big problem in these parts. See some nicely dried beans below.



Once you have your finely fermented and dried beans, the chocolate making process can begin. First all seeds are roasted (as shown in video above). After roasting many peeps just grind the chocolate and roll it into balls and ya! Buuut, my ladies with their higher quality chocolate then peel all the beans (they are covered in a fine shell), chop the beans up and re-roast them, grind them and then throw in a mixture of spices, milk and sugar. Then using homemade "chocolate cutters" made from sliced PVC tubes, they make little discs of chocolate, as seen below.




By spending a day turning their cacao beans into chocolate, my ladies make 4-5 times more money from their beans. Not a bad turnaround.

And that my friends, is the story of chocolate.