Research with a Side of Bacon
By: Kimy Grandi
This past July, I was blessed with the opportunity to travel to Nicaragua for the second time. However, this time I was exceptionally lucky because I got to work with fellow SCU students, local Nicaraguans (campesinos as well as colleagues from a few different organizations), and the incredible, hard-working Professor Chris Bacon.
My first trip to Nicaragua in 2014 was with an amazing program that does an excellent job of educating high school students on the different facets of a country –the history, politics, culture, aid & development, poverty, local business, global business, and education. But what is most beautiful to me is that, with this most recent trip, I feel like I’ve come full circle.
This past research trip has been such a privilege for me because it truly encompasses all my passions. After my 2014 travels, I became certain of what I wanted to spend my life 
studying. Currently at SCU, I am an Environmental Studies and Spanish double major with a minor in Latin American Studies. How fortunate am I that I found this incredible job that involves all three? I’ve learned so much –far beyond simple technical skills like using a flow meter and 3M Petrifilm Plates. I’ve learned that wherever you walk in Estelí you will always hear music. I’ve learned that –as our host mom Magda liked to put it—cheese has a wife and her name is cuajada. I’ve learned what to do after getting stung by a swarm of wasps. I’ve learned that Estelí and many other areas of Nicaragua are plagued with diabetes and nothing is being done about it. I’ve learned that women’s empowerment and education are very prevalent themes, especially in Estelí where you can find a mural of a woman yelling “El silencio me condena” (Silence condemns me) or hear about an organization called Proyecto Miriam for which our host moms both work. I’ve learned about the roles that multiple Nicaraguan-based organizations and cooperatives play in research, organization, and collaboration with not just our SCU team, but each other. I’ve learned more about the process behind starting a social enterprise thanks to the time we spent with some of SCU’
s brightest GSBF fellows. I’ve learned a ton of new technical and environmental Spanish vocabulary thanks to all my translation work. I’ve learned about the livelihood vulnerability of rural farmers under the context of different environmental hazards such as climate change, the drought, La Roya (Coffee Leaf Rust Disease), and the canícula (midsummer drought). I’ve learned about the aforementioned topics not just through reading and translating documents, but by listening to the people, immersing myself in their stories, and doing my best to completely understand their circumstances. I found myself committed to do so not just out of respect to the research we are conducting, but more importantly out of respect to the people themselves.
The most important lesson I learned was one of integrity and accountability, as exemplified by Professor Chris Bacon. Working under his leadership has been such an honor because I can’t imagine anyone possibly doing a better job than him. Through my own experiences of participating in things such as studying aid and development on my 2014 Nicaragua trip or learning about systematic issues within development in my Human Rights and Humanitarianism class, it’s become evident to me that in order for true growth to occur it is imperative for one to genuinely care about understanding, learning from, and listening to the people of the communities one intends to collaborate with. Professor Bacon goes above and beyond the typical investigative research structure to embody and subsequently teac
h the participatory action research method. He has spent years forming meaningful relationships with many different people and communities. He is always eager to learn –about the people’s livelihoods and ability to adapt, about how environmental changes have a ripple effect on people’s lives, about how he himself can grow and improve his ways. He highlights the true meaning of accountability by addressing the fact that it’s a two-way street. We are not simply entitled to the accountability of the communities we are researching. We in return must be accountable to them because –unlike purely statistical scientific research that walks into a community to take measurements then walks out again—we hold ourselves accountable for the effect our research will have on these communities. Professor Bacon makes sure to promise to return to the communities and present the results, for he knows how important they are for the communities’ betterment and autonomy.
Reflecting on how much I’ve grown since my 2014 trip to Nicaragua has been really wonderful. It wasn’t even until this first trip that I heard about a term foreign to me called “fair trade”. And now I’ve returned to Nicaragua with SCU’s very own King of Fair Trade, Chris Bacon (true story, if you google “SCU fair trade” the very first link will be his name). Looking back on it now, I cannot believe it took until almost my senior year of high school to learn about such an important topic. I still have the article we read on the 2014 trip: “Rethinking Fair Trade Structure: Nicaragua & the Starbucks Campaign”. I decided to re-read this article upon coming back from my most recent trip to Nicaragua as a way to reflect, and as I did I was gifted with a special surprise. I came across the name of an agricultural cooperative from Jinotega, Nicaragua called SOPEXXCA which I am now familiar with thanks to this most recent research trip. The article I read revered it for being one of various “purposefully small cooperatives” that are “able to focus their attention on truly impacting the lives of the individuals and families in their cooperative.” It was almost surreal seeing their name in this old article. To me, this coincidence serves as a good marker to evaluate my growth since 2014, as I now have a much deeper understanding not only of the idea of fair trade, but of the purpose, challenges, and benefits of cooperatives. This is just one way I have come full circle. Yet circles are infinite, so I’ll keep traveling among them, making infinite laps as I continue to grow and learn.