LWF Youth Blog

“Though hungry [the poor] carry the sheaves; between their terraces they press out oil; they tread the wine presses but suffer thirst. From the city the dying groan and the throat of the wounded cries for God’s help; yet God pays no attention to their prayer”
Job 24:10b-12

On an average day I negatively affect the lives of a paralyzing number of people – people who due to distance, class, or taboo float beneath my radar. This includes the underpaid maker of my clothes, the child soldier fighting in a resource war for the Colton in the cell phone, the hunter in Inuvik whose way of life is vanishing because of my daily carbon footprint, and innumerable others. So why, you might ask, do I choose to be passionate about bananas?

This passion for bananas extends beyond the fact that in high-school I ate one almost every day for breakfast. Whether in a delectable strawberry-banana smoothie, the classic peanut butter and banana on bread, or sliced and topping my special-K and milk, the banana was present. It is perhaps because of the vital role of the banana as a nutritious part of my complete breakfast that this seductive fruit elicits my passion. It was the common place of the perfectly yellow banana in my daily life that gave me the sickening feeling of guilt when I met the slowly perishing providers of my breakfast. I had, like most others, no idea.

I had no idea that this perfect yellow banana became a consumer expectation at the expense of 80,000 Nicaraguans suffering from sterility, birth defects, miscarriages, gastritis, vision loss, kidney failure, mental illness and cancers of the pancreas, skin, lungs and stomach. The cause of this living nightmare is Nemagon, a chemical used to eliminate nematode worms found in the roots of banana trees. These pesky microscopic worms threaten the livelihoods of the big wigs at Chiquita, Dole, and Del Monte. The little worms cause discoloration of the fruit, and in what kind of world would I choose to buy a slightly discoloured banana for my cereal?

Today 800 of the surviving Nemagon workers live in a tent city outside of the National Assembly in Managua. They have been there for over two years: the culmination of a movement that has been struggling against government and corporations for over a decade. I happened upon their encampment last fall with two fellow students curious about the out of place tent city in the middle of Managua’s dusty streets. The people who welcomed us into their community were like no others. Their lives shortened by the effects of Nemagon, the workers have have nothing left to lose. Consequently, they have left their homes, even in some cases children in the care of relatives, to demand health care and funeral costs for the dying.

The number of injustices around bananas is catastrophic. From the expropriation of lands in Latin America by the United Fruit Company in the last century to the stereotype of ‘tropical’ women created by Chiquita banana poster girl, the mass production of the banana has wreaked havoc around the world. But even if the case of the “Nemagon workers” is isolated, none of the horror fades. The chemical Nemagon was used on banana plantations in Nicaragua until 1985, but due to its toxic effects has been illegal in the United States since 1979 – just another painful example of global inequality, perpetuated this time by companies Dow and Shell who manufactured the chemical.

The plight of the Nemagon workers seems insurmountable. They hope to convince Dole, Dow and Shell to come to Nicaragua to meet directly with the Nemagon Directive. (The workers cannot afford to travel to the United States, let alone get visas.) They also wish to receive $200 a month per terminally ill worker, and demand that other affected workers receive some sort of health support in the future. Despite the hopelessness of their plight, the Nemagon workers have given up everything for their battle. Simultaniously, we eat Chiquita bananas with blue stickers reading “Guilt-free Snacking” and “100% Perfection”.

At some point over the last couple of months Job 24 was read to me. The picture that formed in my mind’s eye was the Nemagon workers. Deadly chemical misting over their heads, they carry my breakfast on their backs to their wives, whose bare hands pack the poison-doused fruit. Their dying groan now rises from the streets of Managua and it appears God does not hear it. Oh, but I did. And in all reality God did not send a plague of Nemagon upon the employees of Dole, Chiquita and Del Monte, but God gave me freedom to choose and I chose to eat brilliantly yellow bananas at breakfast for years.

So I am passionate about bananas because they opened my eyes. I now see how by simply choosing this enticing fruit for breakfast I am reaching half way across the world and dashing the hopes of an everyday Nicarguan. After all, the harsh truth is that Dole, Dow, and Shell don’t have to settle the claims of these families and most likely won’t – they can just wait for the rest of them to die.

For more information from me on the Nemagon Workers see: http://www.cordweekly.com/cordweekly/news?news_id=2344

Or seach Revisa Envio for information from the University of Central America