Is Trade Really Free?

I was really inspired and delighted by the trip to Goshen and getting the chance to meet and talk with some wonderful people. Kudos and a big Thank-you for taking time out of their presumably busy schedule to talk to a bunch of students. I was really interested the fair trade talk. I must admit I was not totally abreast on the meaning of the word in it's entirety. It is funny how things are expressed differently in the city and I come here and there is an official word for just paying people what they are worth for the product in which they create. I was really interested in this talk on fair trade because for those who do not know I went to the Bahamas for Christmas, yes I had to say it again; however in light of our family vacation, my husband and I have been toying around with the idea of buying a home there to retire or possibly live there in the winters and spend our summers here in the states. This has been going on for the past 11 years in which we have visited. Did I say all this to give you insights to our visions and goals, quite the contrary! This particular visit, we made some monumental movements and steps towards really exploring this option. We sought out Realtors and car rental and traveled by bus throughout the island leaving the tourist part. Even as I write this I am really disheartened at some of the things in which we found. Once you leave Free port (tourist) and travel into the native settlements there is a really different landscape. I noticed that natives were walking and riding the bus for miles to set up these shops in order to sell their merchandise. The sense of oppression I saw has me repressing depression because it reminds me of slavery. It really hurt me to go to the grocery store and spend $10 for a gallon of milk because it is imported from the US and then taxed knowing if I was having reservations with paying it in the words of a native "how do you think we feel"? As a result of this whole EE introduction, I literally cried seeing the devastation of the island in the native settlements where they were clear cutting and degrading the land to make the tourist part look good. I found out that there is no plan for recycling, and green initiatives have yet to reach Free port ie trash. I wrestled with a feeling of helplessness realizing that yes I went there for fun and pleasure, yet there are people who live there and are suffering for my pleasure. Tourism is the number economic push followed by imports primarily of concrete. It is something when you look at the vast array of American business which have set up shop and then are really exploiting the natives because they can not afford to live in their own land, are working for these companies but are struggling. I agree with Myron when he referred to the economic dance requires that a decent wage for decent work in order to make a decent living.