Day 9 - The rainy season and 1000% worse...

We’re off today to another cooperative.  This is an ACE which is a marketing cooperative.  The individual farmers grow the crop and they band together in small cooperatives called RPO’s (I think it stands for regional producers organization).  The RPOs often come together into a marketing cooperative which is the ACE.  The ACE  bulks the produce (in this case mostly sorghum and soy beans) and negotiates favourable pricing with the buyers; sometimes they do some processing to get a better price for the product.  This time we met in a warehouse that they rent which is a big empty concrete space with a door but no windows, so you sit close to the door for light.  English is an issue in this ACE so I had to have a translator and it makes everything go much more slowly. 

Other than meeting the board members, which is always a great experience, the most interesting part of this trip was the condition of the roads.  Right now we are in the rainy season so the roads, which are really bad at the best of times, are 1000% worse.  There was one particular spot where a big truck got bogged down in a huge mud hole so the road was blocked.  Some farmers pointed out that we could go through their property and go around the mud hole.  That was fine except as we came out of the detour there was a very narrow steep area sloping down to the mud.  We got bogged down there and the truck was on a very steep angle.  In fact there were some papers on the dash and they went flying out the driver’s window into the mud.  We had to get out carefully as we were concerned that the vehicle would tip over into the mud hole.  A group of farmers came and helped push us out and we went on our way.  A little further we came across a small lake that had formed across the road.  Julius, our driver is awesome and he got us through that one as well.

Everything worked out on the road but all this happened on our way to the meeting so what did that mean?  We had to go back the same way coming home only in the opposite direction.  Luckily it didn’t rain while we were there so it had gotten a bit better by the time we were heading home and we made it through.  That was good – BUT – we have to go the same way tomorrow; we’ll see what happens as it poured around 7. If we thought it was bad yesterday, it will likely be far worse tomorrow.

Wish us luck – goodnight.