from the plant in your cup!

the evidence: me in the cargo bay

Last weekend my director, 4 other students and me, we went to a coffee farm and he showed us the different steps, how the coffee comes from the plant in our cup. I know, I lived over a week on a coffee farm, but the people were so busy there, they couldn´t show me anything. Unfortunately! So I was happy as Enrique told me, if I sit in the cargo bay of the car, I can go, too.



Enrique and the baby plants



The coffe farm we went is totally different to Loma Linda. A few families are living on that farm, but the owners are from Italy. The families are just workers, but not owners of any piece of land. In the period with a lot of work, the harvest time, come more and more workers or whole families from the city to harvest. They earn compared to their amount of picked coffee.



Enrique showed us first the baby coffee plants in the tree nursery. I think he said, after 15 years a coffee plant produce less and less fruits.

After that, we sat down for watching a volcanic eruption. And we also remembered the 2 last days with their three earthquakes. By the way, I felt my first earthquake in my life at five in the night and it was, I can´t discribe what I felt. It was crazy! The day we went to the coffeefarm, the sky was blue, the temperature enjoyable farm and we had a great few of the volcano. Guatemala has 33 volcanoes and it is just half of Germany (like the DDR).

look at the little one left

First, of course, picking coffee, but only the red fruits, the green ones are not mature. After this going to weight the coffee. Next step: remove the pulp around the coffeebean. You can actually eat this, but for example at Loma Linda, they use it as food for the worms. After removing the pulp the bean has to be in water for 48 hours. The reason is the smeary substance around the bean. right after this 48 hours the bean has to dry for 24 hours in the sun and another 24 hours in a dryer. The dryer is heated up by fire. According to that, a man has to be there all the time to control the temperature and the fire. So, you can see, coffee needs over two days from the plant to the roasting facility. Coffee farms normally don´t roast their own coffee, they sell the dry beans to roast facilities in the USA or Europe. But the Gautemalan coffee goes mainly to the USA.

the fruits (picture from Loma Linda)

weight



remove the pulp

 

waiting 48 hours



sun drying



drying mashine

Then we drove to a house were workers live in the main harvest time. What I saw, I don´t want to live there! But our director said, that this like a 4 stars house. First, it had a tight floor (not soil), second: walls, third: a roof, fourth: light (one tiny lamp). But he also told us, that families come with little children. When a little child is sick and cries all the night, nobody might sleep, but they have to work hard the next day.

Our last stop that day was the Pacific Ocean in Champerico. We ordered food and went to the beach. The sand is black and very hot. Erin underestimate this and went barfoot. Big mistake! So she runned, jumped on her towel to relax, and runned again. For me it was kind of funny! Sorry Erin.... The water was so warm, the waves high and the current strong. But I expected more nature, more trees or palm trees. But we were in the city, I think out of the city there is more untouched beach and more beautiful than Champerico!

beach in Champerico



me in the Ocean



she likes beef and chicken

Because pictures say more than words...

I show you one video, which is from the waterfall at Loma Linda. You can see there how amazing it was, you can also see Ryan and Courtney and how much wind produce the water. Unfortunately you have to hold your computer in your hands or turn your head! But doing this for one minute it´s really worth it!

Don’t eat this Guatemalan cheese wrapped in banana leaves!!!

This can affect you bad pain in the stomach and give a sleepless night, like I had it from Sunday to Monday.

I was on the coffee farm ‘Loma Linda’ near Retalhuleu expecting staying at first two months volunteering and, if I like it, stay longer. But after a few days I changed my mind. Why? Well, the first day I helped in a garden a man is developing, showing to the others that it is possible to work without chemical stuff. Great idea!! But after more or less two hours I had so much bites, unbelievable. Here aren’t mosquitoes, but flies which are a lot tinier and you can’t feel it when they bite you. Terrible! So I counted 48 at the left hand and 25 bites at the right hand! The second day I helped the same man with his worm project. We had to feed the worms which kept me busy like one and a half hour. He is producing fertilizer with the worms. People can buy that very cheap and use it instead of chemical fertilizer. The problem is, it is very heavy, so people prefer to buy a little bag of chemical fertilizer than carry a really heavy bag over hours to their land. And after this day, there weren’t something to do for the volunteers, so I was sitting every day in the hotel, waiting for….what I was actually waiting for? So I feel that I wasted time there doing nothing all the day. I decided to leave at the same time with the other volunteers Courtney and Ryan and head back to Xela.

Loma Linda from the Albergue

waterfall in the jungle of Loma Linda

 But, I will tell a bit about ‘Loma Linda’. This community has about 120 families and is a lot bigger than ‘Santa Anita la Union’ and ‘Nueva Alianza’, for example. There are three camionetas every day going to Reu (Retalhuleu) and back. The first starts between 5 and 6 o’clock in the morning. They have a church and all of them are catholic Christians. Courtney (she and her husband already visited some coffee farms) told me, that you of course might have another religion, but then you have to leave the community. They don’t sell alcohol here which doesn’t mean that there aren’t people with alcohol problems. But these people have to go to Reu every day for drinking. Every family has a lot of children, somewhere between 5 and 12. Here is one school until 15 years old kids. Older ones need to go Reu to school. The families have different sources to earn money, some only life from their land, other also have a little store or a bakery or build furniture or are teachers or even camionetas drivers! This farm isn’t 100% organic; there are two groups, an organic and a conventional, which is almost 50\50. The day I arrived I asked if the land of the families is far away or not. Pascual told me that they are not far away, but some people have to walk 2 1\2 hours. Imagine that, if you want to start working at 8am you have to leave home at 5:30am. Then you have to walk through the rainforest up and down and in the rainy season it is very slippery. On the way back a lot of people carry fire wood, vegetables or coffee, I also have seen some with bamboo.  What they have is a great waterfall very close, it is like 20 minutes walk, you can see some pictures. There is also a volcano very close, who is active and there is always volcanic ash on the street. Ok, that should be enough for today; soon I will tell you what I’m planning to do when I’m not working on a coffee farm! Enjoy the pictures!

this bird makes strange sounds!

Santa Maria from the Loma Linda site

a bit more jungle

who likes flowers?

Xela impressions!

Before Iam leaving Xela after 2 weeks, here some pictures were I lived, how my school looks, how the city looks, my teachers, and so on...

parque Bolivar

view from the top of my school

I live behind the beer fabric

another view from the top of my school

top of my school :)

the yellow building is the school

patio

patio

teacher Edwin

teacher Carlos

Shortly, I wanted to go to the coffeefarm Santa Anita la Union, but here I talked to a woman from Entremundos. After the conversation I changed my mind, tomorrow I will leave to Loma Linda, another coffeefarm, wish me luck that I find the right bus! Also because I couldn´t contact Santa Anita....

Los Vahos...

Hey, this time not so much text, just photos to give an impression how it looks around Xela!
Yesterday we have been to a natural sauna with heat which comes from a Vulcan close to Xela.
It was hard to go uphill (it took us 1 and a half hour), but it was worth it!
Here some pictures:

surrounding of LOS VAHOS

the baño LOS VAHOS

downhill

Erin, Desi and Edwin

Xela in the rainy season

Momostenango...

gallo

Last Saturday me and 5 other students we went to the village Momostenango or better to a family close to that. A woman picked us up in Xela and we drove with a chickenbus to her family. She is living there with her husband and 5 kids. There is also the whole family of her husband living. I asked her, it is normal that after the marriage the woman move to the family of their husband.

comb

So she showed us how they weave. First they have to comb the fur of the sheeps, then spinning with a spinning wheel to make a thread out of the fur. We all tried it, and it seems to be to much easier as it is!

spinning

After this she told us, how they color the threads, her family does this only with natural things, insects, plants, fruits and barks. The different intensities comes through the different time of cooking, sometimes  they cook the threads 5 hours, sometimes a week. It is very different!

colors

Then her son showed us how to weave and everybody weaved one line with his help. A huge blanket for example need 2 weeks, something more tiny 2 days.

weaving

Then, tortillas with egg, she baked the tortillas over open fire, but after a while the smoke burned in my eyes and I had to leave the kitchen. She has (for us) a very simple life. cookinf with fire and wood, an outhouse only with some plastic around, the kitchen without a door, very simple, and surrounded by nature!

We drove back with such a chickenbus, very cheap, very slow, very crowded. On the way to the woman they played ska music in the bus, yeah!!! On the way back the motor was too loud, I couldn´t hear something. Of course the few in the nature is great, we saw a waterfall. But sometimes we also saw, that the people throw their rubbish in the nature and don´t care about it.

kitchen

                                   

in the prison!!

No, I haven´t been in the prison, not as a prisoner!

My spanish school I.C.A. has a project in the prison for women in Xela and the last Wednesday (23.09.10) me and three other students went with the teacher Edwin to the prison.

We played some games with them, ate cake and drunk Coca Cola together. The first game was with a hoop, we hold each other at our hands and had to climb through the hoop which made a round through all people. When Edwin stopped to clap, the woman who had the hoop in this moment had to response a question like: Do you remember the name of your first boyfriend, or: What color has your underway today? We all laughed a lot!

Second game was not really a game! We made groups and every group had a huge piece of paper. Every group wrote their wishes for their lives on this paper. After this, we students decided which sentence was the best on every paper. So hard! All were really good and emotional (with God)! The woman who won, got a present.

 Another good thing was the Jenga-game, you know, this with the tower. This was so much fun for the women. We made two rounds, or better, the women were crazy to play a second round! And after this, both losers had to dance with each other!!!

Our last presents were cake and Coca Cola!

It was so great that all women participated in our games, my teacher told me, this is not normal! But they, and we of course too, had so much fun this afternoon. Poor thing was, one woman is pregnant and two other are living with their children in the prison. All together are 39 prisoners!

prison from the outside

the marks for showing that we were visitors

I couldn´t take pictures inside, it wasn´t allowed to take the camera inside. But a man made some pictures, I hope I get some of them, then I can post some!