We just watched our neighbor hack down a very tall and beautiful Mango tree. It must've been atleast a hundred years old. We used to watch the kids, young and old, gather there every day to practice their aim and knock some fruit out of that tree, and it bore fruit for hundreds of hungry stomachs.
When I asked the man why they took down the tree, his answer was simple and matter-of-fact.
"For charcoal. They needed the money and the fuel."
It broke my heart.
But they don't have a choice.
We have some friends who are trying to bring import ethanol into the country, along with some more friends who've made ethanol-powered cooking stoves. Hopefully the visionaries can see through the red-tape and this dream will become a reality sooner than later, before there's nothing left to burn.
The trees go down, the topsoil blows away, the crops suffer, the people breathe in the smoke and the entire process is a state of accelerated atrophy.
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