La Esperanza (Casco)

In my travels, I’ve also spent some time in La Esperanza proper.  When I was in España, they used the word casco to describe the historic center of the city that was formerly walled in (it also means helmet, and I’d love to talk about this topic more but don’t want to bore anyone).  It doesn’t exactly work here but I like the continuity so we’ll just deal with it.

There was one specifically notable day in La Esperanza where I met with a government official, an agrochemicals retailer, and a coyote (potato chain intermediary).  These interviews were very valuable and not exactly easy to set up but I assume that you aren’t as interested in the revenues and costs of producing potatoes in-vitro as I am.  So let me just provide the color.

I met my government official at the main terminal in La Esperanza, fresh off my bus from San Pedro Sula.  I figured I had a little bit of time and went to grab some lunch at the “comedor” next to the busses.  I love eating fried chicken, beans, rice, and vegetables for 40 lempiras.  Coffee?  Yes please.  Okay, that will be one quarter.  Sounds fair.  Adan showed up a little late to the meeting so I had time to review what I wanted to ask him in advance.  We had a great chat and he offered to put me in contact with someone involved in seed production.  Then he gave me a lift into the center of town for my next interview.

Eric (there’s that name again) works for Cohorsil and provides local farmers with any agricultural inputs they may need.  He stepped away from the front counter and started to talk about his role in potato production.  It was a productive meeting and made all the better by the fact that we could watch the Spain – Portugal whenever there was a noteworthy play.  I actually felt bad for Ronaldo when his own teammate robbed him of a truly amazing goal.  Eric had a lot of good ideas and information, plus, he alerted me to a new group that I hadn’t heard of before.

At Cohorsil, I met Rynaldo and he took me to see Don Lancho, one of the area’s largest coyotes.  The coyote plays a very interesting role in agriculture here, providing seed, inputs, a buyer, and an informal social safety net to the producers.  They are frequently demonized, but, in my mind, they are just responding to incentives like everyone else.  As we rolled up to his little compound, Rynaldo mumbled something about “student” and “Washington”.  Apparently Don Lancho didn’t want to talk to any NGOs or other companies about his business so I had to pretend I was a student still.  I asked Rynaldo how we would explain knowing each other but he had an answer ready: “Just tell him, something”.  Great, thanks Rynaldo.  But the meeting went very well.  First time I’ve met with someone wearing a muscle shirt and with me wearing a backpack.  Plus our meeting room was a pickup truck bed.

I spent the night at Rynaldo’s before leaving the next day for some more meetings in Tegucigalpa.  It was a good way to start my week and gave me a lot of valuable information.  Unlike my previous projects, the knowledge I need to get is scattered all across a country, locked up in people's heads.