People are just now, in 2018, recovering the remains of family members lost after the Spanish Civil War, almost eighty years ago…
This 28-minute radio documentary, produced by Overtone Productions, and which I reported and presented, first aired on BBC Radio 4 on March 18th, 2019: [streaming link].
It is the first of a two-part documentary called Spain’s Lost Generations. The second part, airing March 25th, focuses on Spain’s stolen babies.
See also my related 2016 feature for SAPIENS: [html].
A plague of whiteflies descended on the Martínez family’s fields of yellow, red, and deep purple chilhuacle in southern Mexico two decades ago. Chilhuacle is the star chilli in several versions of Oaxaca’s signature dish – mole – and cooks had long paid a premium for the chilli’s unique smoke and citrus flavours. But its cost was about to climb higher.
The Martínez family and the few other growers lost much of their chilhuacle crops in 1997. That year marked the start of a slow decline in chilhuacle production. Despite the chilli’s high market price, many growers stopped planting it. Continue reading Saving Mexico’s most totemic chilli
On a dirt road high in Nicaragua’s northern mountains, a small knot of men and two precocious young boys uncoil electrical cable from the back of a pickup truck. Other workers swing machetes at overhanging tree branches. Along the cleared shoulder of the road, another crew tightens a cable on a freshly planted utility pole. Continue reading How Nicaraguan Villagers Built Their Own Electric Grid
