The flowers to the left in this picture are extremely prolific at above 2,000 feet in our area. Can you identify them? And even better, can you find a good use for them, such as in soap or shampoo or any other product?
Use what you've got:
One theory of modern globalization affirms that each country and sub region needs to find out what it is good at; and then capitalize on that strength. The global market, we are told, requires this kind of specialization. Thus we hear that Paraiso needs to develop echo-tourism, since the ocean and verdant mountains offer breathtaking scenery, unequaled in many other parts of the Caribbean.
Flower wonders:
No one needs to plant this flower. It grows almost anywhere in the highlands and there are varieties of it that form thick clumps on the road to Cachote. How great it would be to find a good use for it. The same is true for the "campana" bush, pictured beside the flower:
Diethylene glyco or toothpaste:
Today the NYT ran an article on toothpaste, poisoned with diethylene glycol. Governments throughout the world have denounced the Chinese manufacturers for deliberately placing people at risk of poisoning. Tonight you can go to Chene and purchase all the tubes of this toothpaste that you want. They are on sale in the large grocery store at the top of the mountain road, within sight of "campana" bushes. One wonders if unscrupulous importers have taken advantage of the first world expulsion of this product and gathered up a stockpile... in order to sell it to poor Haitian immigrants or Dominican campesinos in the mountains. The packaging is in English and the second ingredient is precisely the one that has caused numerous deaths when it is included in children's cough syrup.
Devious assumptions:
The manufacturer probably thinks that as long as the ingredients and instructions are in English, people will presume that they are safe. Also, they think that the proclamation of "Diethylene Glycol" (as if it were a positive attribute worthy of advertising) right on the outside of the cardboard packaging, will fool everyone since the campesinos will believe that it is a powerful, "modern" ingredient meant to enhance the toothpaste. Now that we've found the contaminated product in one store, we will check the toothpaste on sale here in Paraiso.
Poison watch?
How weird: people are solemnly warned by public health officials and teachers concerning the dangers of drinking "campana" tea... even as a poisonous product is openly driven into the community and distributed under the charade of being "good for your health"!