One of the contemplative practices that stuck out to me the most in our class is the contemplative practice on chocolate. One of the reasons I loved this exercise is because not only did I learn something new, but I had time to connect and think about what I was learning to something I was simultaneously tasting in my mouth. It was also nice that I was able to learn more about what I was eating and where it came from. I also enjoyed this exercise because it completely shocked me that the man who grows cacao had never before tried the end product of his hard work, chocolate. Learning that was insane to me because it greatly reveals how our world works. Poorer people in poorer countries make the things and the stuff that rich people and rich countries like you and I reading this (on our expensive technology) consume. If you pick up something cheap around you, it will probably read “made in China” or “made in Taiwan”. Just as the Ivory Coast specializes in cacao and food, countries like China and Taiwan specialize in making technology for our consumption. This just goes to show the lack of fairness and equality there is in our world. A lot of people these days (fairly) get riled up over the lack of equality in America, and you will hear a lot of phrases like “the 1% own 99% of the wealth” and although that is important to focus on, what bothers me more is how starkly contrasting rich and poor countries are, and how people who work hard to harvest things like cacao don’t even get to enjoy their hard work because they are too poor to do so. This demonstrates the in-class concept that free trade or fair trade isn’t what it claims to be. If someone who works hard for 6 euros a day can’t even taste the fruit of his labors, chocolate, and someone in America can buy that same chocolate for $1.00, how is that a fair trade?
