Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The political symbolism of health
- 2 Banana medicine: the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica
- 3 The international imperative: foreign aid for health in Costa Rica
- 4 The primary health care movement and the political ideology of participation in health
- 5 Participation in Costa Rica: dissent within the state
- 6 La Chira: participation in a banana-growing community
- 7 The political economy of participation
- References
- Index
6 - La Chira: participation in a banana-growing community
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- List of abbreviations
- 1 The political symbolism of health
- 2 Banana medicine: the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica
- 3 The international imperative: foreign aid for health in Costa Rica
- 4 The primary health care movement and the political ideology of participation in health
- 5 Participation in Costa Rica: dissent within the state
- 6 La Chira: participation in a banana-growing community
- 7 The political economy of participation
- References
- Index
Summary
On days when there is corta (cutting), the men who cut bananas rise at 4 a.m. to dress quickly. Their tee-shirts and shorts are permanently stained with black juice from the banana trees. A truck passes at 4:30 to drive them to the plantation three miles away. By the first light of day they are already at work in teams of two, measuring the hanging stalks of fruit with a calibrator to check whether the bananas are the right size for shipping to Germany, or Italy, or the United States. If the bananas are the right size, one man stands underneath the stem with a cushion on his shoulder (to avoid bruising the fruit), while the other cuts the stem with two or three swift swings of his machete, taking care to avoid hitting his teammate. The carrier hauls the 60 to 90 pound stalk to an overhead cable gridwork that crisscrosses the plantation. Together they hang the stem from the cable and go back to find another. When they have collected 25 stems, another worker comes by and hitches himself to the front of the line. He is the sweat-drenched human tractor who pulls the fruit to the central packing plant (empacadora).
The women get up at 5 a.m., fix a breakfast of bread and coffee, and get their children up and dressed. The truck passes again at 5:30 to pick up the women and the few men who work in the packing plant.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Community Participation in HealthThe Politics of Primary Care in Costa Rica, pp. 119 - 158Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993