2 hrs, 3 kms

The road climbs up through the jungle cliffs where I find a quiet spot for my Parkbench Concert, since I couldn't find a decent spot in town . I'm soon joined by a fellow wearing torns and wielding a machete. Ironically I feel more at ease when I see guys in dirty clothes carrying machetes: that means that they're hardworking farmers, not just unemployed youth "liming" (chilling out doing nothing).

Sure enough this fellow is a farmer, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have time to stop to listen to some music, and even try out the guitar himself. And he gives me some important insights into farming in Grenada

"We grow our food and send it to Trinidad to be canned and packaged and sold back to us much more expensive... we should be able to do that ourselves. Under Maurice Bishop it wasn't like this--we had our own factories and canneries--but that's all gone now."

Later I talk to Kim about this to get his take on the Grenadian economy. His response is pretty cynical.

"Grenada has one of the highest debts per capita in the world . It seems half the budget goes to paying the interest on this debt, and the other half goes to pay the civil servants--Grenada has way too many of them" (I'd have to confirm this, based on my experience coming through immigration)

"Farming is very hard work and pays little, and few young people want to do it. And there simply aren't many other jobs unless you have the connections so you can be a civil servant. They feel trapped and frustrated, and someday that frustration is going to explode"

He continues, "We have a huge pool of non skilled labour basically sitting on the side of the road with no future.
This is primarily due to the fact that we are no longer a labor intensive society.....nowadays 4 men can do what used to take 20. Also it is much more difficult for the young to emigrate which in turn means more unemployed youth and also less funds being sent back to the island...

Add to all the above that this section of the society is also the least educated and the most influenced by drugs,fast money and the worst of cable TV . It amounts to a lot of angry seriously pissed off kids who really dont understand the root cause of their situation or who the real enemy is"

I suddenly realize that there's a dark side to this lush jungle landscape, which I've so fallen in love with (most other tropical areas I've explored like Southeast Asia and West Africa are heavily deforested). The reality is that all around are orchards and plantations where fruit simply falls to the ground and rots because no one bothers to harvest it--in a country with very high unemployment! Something just doesn't seem right.

Lylette pitches in "In Guyana it's not like this. During mango season, we make mango juice, mango curry--we use it for all sorts of things. Here, during mango season, it's a driving hazard because there are so many on the roads."

It suddenly strikes me how little countries are mini-models of our planet, and the problems I see in Grenada can also be seen in this planet on a much larger scale . Just like Easter Island gives a stark image of what happens when natural resources are depleted, Grenada is an example of what happens when a country underuses its resources and just gets deeper and deeper into debt with no real long term plan.

An outsider can look at this and see how obvious this is a path to a very avoidable disaster. But I guess when you're inside, the problems might feel insurmountable.

For me, realizing how much of Grenada's agricultural produce is wasted is particularly shocking after my travels in the deserts of Morocco. For example in the Draa Valley every square meter of watered ground is precious and cultivated with utmost care and passed on from one generation to the next. Here, not only is the land watered, but the fruit is already there--but the country is lacking the organization to harvest and export much of their produce.

"But what about the Grenadians living abroad--why don't their reinvest their money back in their country, setting up juice factories and canneries?"

"The government makes it very difficult for development projects... And once you start making good money, government officials will come along and bleed you dry"

I think back to that fateful American invasion when we came and made sure Grenada got a "democratic" and "capitalist" government. Although I don't think it would be fair to blame all Grenada's problems on the United States, I"m becoming very suspicious that whatever we did, did not in fact make this country better that what it would be if allowed to figure out its way on its own.