Earth Day is April 22

Earth Day is a global campaign to raise environmental awareness and inspire the masses (that's you) into taking green infused action (not just talking about it). It's a good idea.

Here is what I wrote about Earth Day for Green Parenthood; Earth Day Is Tomorrow,

and here is what the Earth Day Network has to say about it.

A Billion is real big number and depending on what part of the world you are from it will have 9 or 12 zeros. The English speaking portion of the world means a thousand million (9 zeros) when they say a billion. The rest of the world defines a billion as million million (12 zeros). Weird huh?

Anyway the Earth Day Network has set humanity a goal of making A Billion Acts of Green before 4th June 2012. An act of green is anything that is good for the earth or that tells others to be good to the earth, ie. an act of environmental service or advocacy.

This link is to my article on A Billion Acts of Green and this is the real A Billion Acts of Green website, were you should go to record your good green deeds.

Green Parenthood

Greenparenthood.com is not a website about mothering plants or raising little green men. It is about being a parent and going about it in a way that nourishes your child and the planet.

I am not a parent but if I was it’s the sort of website I would visit. I now write for GreenParenthood.com so by the time I do get around to having kids I should be well informed.

Links to articles:

The importance of Omega-3 For Children

Shoes

I have spent the past year searching for the greenest travel shoe possible. I arrived in Peru with a pair of hiking boots and very old Chuck Taylor One-Stars. Neither of which were particular eco-friendly choices in footwear. They were just the shoes I had in my cupboard, thus using them avoided unnecessary consumerism (Not buying is better than buying, even if you are purchasing the latest “eco” model outdoor shoes).

This search for clean, green, earth friendly footwear that is easy to pack and looks OK with most of my clothes has lead me to sell the hiking boots that were too heavy, socially awkward and only actually necessary about 2% of the time; spend too many idle hours drooling over the latest model of Patagonia footwear, only to realise it is entirely pointless buying an eco-friendly product shipped internationally; embarrass my girlfriend and amuse the local people by being shoe-less for weeks, and finally I came around to admiring the poorest guy in the markets sandals.

Why the shoes of the dirty guy with matted hair and smelly clothes? Well, they are locally made out of recycled car tyres, hand stitched roughly but still no glue is used to hold them together and they will last longer than a really long time. You can’t fault the dirty guy on his environmentally conscience choice of foot protection, nor me since I bought these in Colombia.

Eventually I couldn’t help myself, and in Costa Rica, I took a hacksaw to a tyre and bought some leather straps to come up with these.

Now I wear them everywhere, or go bare-feet.

Outside The Hostel Door

A sea of voices fill the air, chatter and clatter, fruit and dreams. Hay piña, Hay piña, Hay piña y sal, nasal and piercing.

Bananas piled high sandbag their sellers in, creating, an oasis of yellow and brown blotchiness; separation from the mess and chaos on the street.

Pink lace-frilled apron, faded and dulled by yesterday’s dirt, hold coins exchanged for oranges, onions and limes. Maybe pink-lace frilled apron does not have any lime trees. Maybe all she has is 3 children and worries. She need not worry, humans are resourceful, kids especially. The fruit that appears in their pockets at the end of each day playing helps them grow and lets her earn some dough.

A grey neatly trimmed moustache sits atop firmly pressed, down-turned lips, like a gecko on a basalt grey crack in the wall. A gecko, shaded by a New York baseball cap and framed by bare sinewy, brown arms, far stronger than mine.

This is life. This is Nicaragua, outside the hostel door.

Chocolate

A very brief history of chocolate.

The Mayans were the first people in history to figure out the complicated, 5-step process involved in transforming cacao seeds into chocolate. They realised if you remove the seeds from the fruit, ferment, sun dry, roast , winnow, grind and then mix them in hot water you have a delicious, energising drink – the world’s first hot chocolate. The Mayans liked their hot chocolate bitter, with maybe a little cinnamon, but no sweetener.

When the Aztecs came down from the north and took over the Mayan lands they discovered the Mayan’s beloved hot coco. The Aztecs soon demanded their newly conquered subjects pay taxes in the form of cacao beans. Rather like children "I beat you up once, if you don't give me your lollies I will beat you again." Back in the Aztec capital cacao was an expensive imported product and was only consumed by royalty, and the priesthood. The Aztecs preferred their chocolate as a cold, unsweetened drink, sometimes with a dash of chili.

Enter the Spaniards and their quest to bring new lands into the embrace of the church. The conquistadors held the Aztec royalty hostage and demanded all their wealth and treasure, or else a beheading was in order. They were presented with (among other items) sacks of dried cacao beans. The Aztecs were beheaded and the cacao shipped back to Spain. It was the Spanish who were not so fond of the bitter taste and mixed the ground cacao with sugar cane juice, giving birth to chocolate as we know it today.

I learnt all this on a visit to ChocoMuseo, in Granada. Here in Nicaragua they like their hot chocolate as a mix of roast maize, roast cacao and sugar, called Pinolillo.

I would love to write an in-depth article on chocolate if any editor is interested.