I went swimming today for the first time in a few weeks.  So much has been happening with overseas visitors,  Nina’s party and I guess also I was just feeling a bit low on energy.  Once you get out of the habit of exercising, even for a week or so it can take  a bit of effort to get back into it .  It feels good though now that I have and to be back to my routine.  You know how much I love it.

Last week was a particularly full week but really interesting.  I worked four days translating for a woman who was here representing a Swiss company who wants to buy fairtrade, organic dehydrated mangoes from an association of mango farmers here.  Currently her company is buying from a place in South Africa but it is not organic of fairtrade certified.  The company aims to assist all their suppliers move towards these certification but the current suppliers are years off this so they are looking elsewhere.  The market in Switzerland sure is miles ahead than Australia in terms of their interest in fair trade.  Her company sells to the two major supermarkets in Switzerland who have 80% of the market.  These supermarkets have as much as their products fairtrade as possible and are always trying to buy more.

The association who hired me to translate for them is organic as well as fairtrade certified although I have to say there are a few little issues.  They are honestly trying though the Swiss company has concerns about food safety and the quality of the dehydrated mangoes. The dehydrating plant was built with donations from a foreign embassy and another NGO.  It was obviously built too quickly as they wanted to spend the money donated to them and be ready for this season but the Swiss company says they need to do a lot more samples.  They said they would have been better building something half the size and building up once they had tested it and had the market but because they were donated a certain amount to build a plant they had to use it.  It certainly highlights a problem with large donations without relationship.  Anyway, she made some suggestions and her company is willing to assist with expertise to help them improve their quality and food safety.  I do hope they can.  It would be really positive for the association and the farmers.

I really enjoyed translating although it is hard work.  I learned a lot but have a lot more to learn.  I also learned a lot about fairtrade, organic and the market.  I would like to do more of this kind of work.