Project Hope and Fairness

  Thursday, June 15 Visiting the Village chief of Pezoan, whom I've known since 2005. He is now 90 years old. In Pezoan, meeting Servando’s 2-month-old baby girl Eve. We drove to Depa and piled into the conference room.    Left is a banner that was done for a conference where SOCOPLAN showed off its chocolate.   It says, “From farm to transformation”.   Our products:    cocoa butter, cashews in chocolate, peanuts in chocolate, chocolate with ginger.”  We arrived at SOCOPLAN headquarters. The building is in great shape, very clean and organized and best of all our first whiff of roasting cocoa beans! The beans are in very good shape compared to other beans we have seen indicating much better care during and after fermentation. Then we piled into their air-conditioned conference room where we spent an hour doing introductory remarks.  JP Bolou started by talking about the day’s activities.  And then he showed us the Purchasing Register (...

 Wednesday, June 14 We began the day with two breakfasts, one for the Americans and the other for the Ivoirians.   Peggie and I ate croissants and coffee at a Lebanese bakery.   Then we drove to an Ivoirian spot and ate attiéké with grilled tuna.   Guess which breakfast was far and away superior? We drove to the cocoa study center and started rearranging machinery while we awaited the arrival of the electrician. First, we moved the big table onto the porch.   Then we put the roaster in the correct place.   There are two parts:   the roaster and the cooler.   When we arrive back in N’Douci Saturday morning, a representative from the company will show us how to use the machine.   I met with the carpenter to describe the table we need to put the cracker/winnower on.   We will be purchasing cocoa beans Saturday morning in order to roast them.   We moved the fridge into the wrapping room.   This is a very used beverage fridge....

  TUESDAY, JUNE 13, 2023  T he house that is our new center for cocoa instruction in N'Douci.  We arrived in N’Douci at 2:30 PM. We tried to get some cocoa beans but the person who brought the bag tried to sell us totally sub-standard beans.   I showed Roger why these beans were not good enough.   Unfortunately, I did not take a picture but there were flat beans, broken beans, teeny beans, sticks and stones.   In the business, we call that "useful for mulching your garden."  So, off to a bad start with the locals who supplied us poor quality.   We have a long way to go to teach people how to make chocolate and how to pay attention to quality. It took about 45 minutes to assemble the craqueur/vanneur. First , you turn on the vacuum cleaner.  Then you introduce the roasted beans at the top and you turn the hand crank to break the beans into nibs and hulls.    The vacuum sucks air up the lit up column (in front) and the hulls fly ...

 MONDAY, JUNE 12, 2023 We started the day by meeting with David and JP plus Roger et al.  Klaus took video and pictures.   Meeting with TechnoServe at USAID building.  From the left:  Zeze (David’s brother), Roger, Axel, Tom, Jean Joel (translator), Peggie, and David I filled them in on the manual and on the accompanying flash drives.  I also talked about our hopes for the TechnoServe meeting to be held at noon.  We adjourned the meeting at 11 AM.   We spent about half an hour looking for the offices.  Communications between the parties about the meeting became confused. Turns out the meeting was not in the customary place.  We ended up in a building that houses USAID, so it’s very fancy, complete with a small, attractive museum with African sculptures. We joined the meeting at 1 PM, a full hour late.  Jean-Michel Wronmy and Alexis Anouan represented TechnoServe.  The Cémoi Chocolate people did not attend.  One p...

 SUNDAY, JUNE 11:   We all shared carp à l’Abidjanaise.  Left hotel at 7:30 AM.  Checked into gate and flew to Paris.   Peggie Bates, PH&F Board member, joined me around 12:30 PM, we had lunch, and boarded the plane around 2:00 PM.   Flew to Abidjan and landed at 7 PM.  Spent 1 hour in line to get visa.  Line through passports was quick.   Mathurin Zougbo came to customs area to meet us, cheerfully said hello to everyone.   We ate dinner right next to airport.