Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative

Today we visited the Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative to visit the *insert drum roll here* FAIR TRADE CHOCOLATE! Yes - this is what I’ve been talking my head off about (at least during the fair trade month of October). We first met at the Kuapa Kokoo central office in Kumasi before we headed out to one of the farms. So, basically, Kuapa Kokoo is a farmer cooperative for cocoa that sells some of their crop at a fair trade price. To my understanding, it is very difficult (near impossible) to sell all of their cocoa at a fair-trade price, but they are working towards that. The farmers are guaranteed to get the premium price for this part of their crop, and with those profits they can afford to send their children to school, eat, have homes. Because they are a part of this cooperative, they are also bound to certain rules, for example, regulations on child labor. Now while the children will be around the farm learning the trade and helping after school, they are not doing hard labor and they are still going to school. Also, other profits go back into the community to have continual improvements. Kuapa Kokoo, in the local Twi language, means Good Cocoa Farmer. Pa means good (I’m assuming) and Kua means farmer, Kokoo, obviously is cocoa. Because Pa means good, their slogan is “Pa Pa Paa” or “best of the best!” Once someone said “Pa Pa Paa” we all had to join in and repeat it again. Once we were done discussing fair-trade at the office in Kumasi, we headed into a town in the Ashanti region. It was apparent that there was a funeral going on because, according to tradition, they are held on Saturdays (which was today) and everyone wears red and black. Once we finally arrived at the town, we had lunch at the beautiful home of Comfort Kumea - a cocoa farmer and a kindergarten teacher. She is an example of the hard working women that are benefiting from fair-trade. From her house, we went and met with the community elders to get permission to enter the cocoa farm. Finally, we walked amoungst the cocoa trees. The cocoa pods start as tiny flowers about the size of your fingernail along the tree trunk and they grow into football sized cocoa pods. These pods are cut down from the trees during the harvesting seasons (there are two a year), and cut down by hand. Any sort of machine that has attempted to be developed to help cut it down ruins the cocoa trees too much so it remains to be a completely manual job, and a labouriously one at that. One of the guides broke open the one of the pods which are filled with the cocoa beans that are covered in this white goop which tastes like a very sweet cantaloupe and has the texture of marshmallow cream. These beans are the shelled out of the pods and placed in a cocoon of sorts made of banana leaves on the forest floor where they ferment for a few weeks. From here, they are then dried for another few weeks before weighed, bagged, and shipped off to a processing company in Europe. There they are processed and made into the cocoa products we would recognize before they are exported to our grocery store shelves. This is another aspect that makes fair-trade what it is… Fair trade eliminates some of these middlemen involved, allowing the farmers to get more cents on the dollar for their product. As we wrapped up our trip to the cocoa farm, it was very apparent that I was walking through exactly the reason to buy fair trade… but I guess it’s up to everyone else to decide what works best for them.
On the ride from Kumasi to Cape Coast that evening, Ringo shared story after story of his life. He was an absolutely fascinating man. His life story comes from all over Ghana and his occupations have moved from tailor, to carpenter to professional driver. He approaches every conversation with utmost care and attention - a truly genuine personality. His laugh was absolutely contagious. This is also where he taught me my new life slogan: Don’t worry because if you worry, warnibaga, meaning “you will catch a cold” in the Dabani language. Just a little reminder (and my new life philosophy) to stop worrying about everything.
Once we were in Cape Coast, the city was experiencing a black out. It was a creepily eerie feeling - to look down onto a city and see nothing but a few burning oil lamps. We were in a hotel that was perched up on the hill of the city, and we luckily the hotel had a generator providing spotty energy. We ate outside overlooking the dark city, and every time the power restarted Ricky Martin’s Livin’ la Vida Loca would come on again… whoda thunkit that I’d hear Ricky Martin in Ghana… and over and over again at that.
That evening Ringo taught me that instead of “cheers” they say “tables”…I think he was playing a trick on me.
He also told me that I wasn’t a good eater (since I hadn’t been very hungry the past few days). The reason he gave me for saying this: if my future husband saw how little I ate everyday, he would feel compelled to do the same and not eat very much… and that’s no good. So, Ringo closed one of his eyes so that he didn’t have to see my plate.
I went to sleep to the drone of a generator and gasoline smell. But… I was thankful to have a bed to sleep in :)

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