Ghosts of Economic Models Past: A Poem

An  amateur attempt at poetry.

                                            One of several rusting hulks that inspired this...

Ghosts of Economic Models Past

"How many people prosper in times of prosperity? How many people find their lives developed by development?"

Eduardo Galeano, "Those Little Numbers and People"

Rusting in the mud of the jungle

And in the depths of the Rio San Juan

Lie steamboat wrecks

Nowadays this is nowhere

People live with palm rooves, questionable electricity and laughable medical care

But back in the day

The river was hopping

As Vanderbuilt's shipping line sent workers to California for the gold rush

Undoubtedly as well as some important packages

Sure, it wasn't the Silk Road

But they passed on through alright

Until history passed the steamship by.

But hey, all the jungle creatures ain't complaining,

Hear them roar.

If you start to look for them,

There are more jungle wrecks with stories to tell

Like in mi pueblo

Once a busy port for rubber and precious wood

Now just the marketplace of nostalgia

Just outside town

The iron skeleton of a rice storage plant sulks pathetically

Somoza's cronies owned a plantation

And then the Sandinistas nationalized it

And then that damned widow sold it off

Doña Violeta!

Who also sold off the railroads, and Lord knows what else

To sate the appetites of the gods of structural adjustment

So what remains?

Fishermen netting a few catches for other mouths

Cattle ranchers grinding down what remains of the forest

Cacao cooperatives growing for the Germans

Talk about modern day gold!

Orange pickers working 16 hour days for laughable wages

A few painters capturing the delicate balance

But now, the great arrivals!

Tourism trickles in

And...much awaited and lauded

Other people's infrastructure!

A bridge to link us with the Ticos

With their light skin and low wages

But don't you forget it, the biggest attraction is still to come!

Prophesied for over a century, will it finally come to pass?

A Chinese interoceanic canal to cleave the landscape

Shrouded in mystery and ambiguity

But development! And jobs! Poverty will be a thing of the past!

Ah, yes. The obligatory script. 

I've got a feeling Mother Nature's got something to say about this

As she trembles and shakes

Refuses to ripen the mangoes properly

Sends the rains just a bit to early

In good time we'll see who wins this great game