Alright alright, I’m at the tail end of a pretty sweet week. On Tuesday morning I went out to Elias’s finca de café to do a little pickin. As mentioned previously, we’re in a pretty busy time right now with coffee production. So I showed up to Elias’s house around seven (this is a really late start by Honduran standards) for some beans and tortillas. After that we picked coffee for about 5 or so hours. I almost filled my second basket by lunch time and Elias was probably on his fifteenth. From start to finish coffee production is a really sensitive process. When picking the “cherries” need to be ripe and picked the correct way otherwise the plants are damaged and it will reduce production for next season. Also the depulping machines have problems with unripe beans. So after the beans are picked they are brought to a machine that removes the pulp from around the bean. This has to happen within six hours of picking otherwise the beans start to ferment and pick up defects, like I said an extremely sensitive process. After the depulping the beans are left with a sticky coating of “miel” (honey). To get rid of the miel the beans are left out over night and then soaked and rinsed with clean water. The aguas mieles that leave the rinsing tank are a huge concern for water contamination, we were told in training that it is actually worse than raw sewage; I’m not sure in what way, probably bacteria production or something. Anyway while the coffee is being rinsed the coffee with defects (pest problems, dried out, rotten or just plain bad seeds) floats to the top of the tank and is removed, also the pulp that was not removed by the machine is picked out. After being rinsed the coffee is removed from the tank and dried. At this point it is crucial that the drying surface be clean and free of critters, as the drying coffee beans act as little sponges picking up whatever flavors they’re presented with. Elias stressed the important parts of ensuring the quality of the product throughout the entire process. The problem comes when it is time to sell. The coffee from all the local producers is basically lumped together by the buyer. So if Elias takes steps to ensure that quality is maintained his neighbor may not and his efforts are essentially lost. If there are enough interested producers a cooperative can be formed and they can consider exportation, but this is a huge step requiring a great deal of sacrifice and patience and it may or may not pay off in the end, depending on the quality of the coffee and if it meets exportation standards. And Honduras already has a poor reputation with exporters. Next time you’re in Starbucks try and find the Honduran roast, good luck. We were told that one of the reasons Hondurans don’t stress quality is because they do not come from a coffee culture. Coffee is ingrained in everyday life in places like Columbia, Guatemala, and Nicaragua, for most people here it is simply a way of scratching together a little pisto (there are exceptions of course). Recently a Peace Corps volunteer began a coffee festival, I haven’t been but I’ve heard it is a pretty big deal. And economically it is a huge deal, in my area the average campesino earns 50 Lempira (about two dollars and fifty cents) a day for manual labor. During the coffee season he earns 15 lempira per gallon (a Honduran gallon is one of our five gallon buckets filled past the brim) of coffee picked. On average a coffee picker can sack around ten or eleven gallons a day, under ideal conditions up to fifteen. That is three or four times what he normally makes, not to mention the work is steady and his wife and children are working along side him. I’ve been seeing 5 year old boys picking coffee with their little brothers and sisters playing underneath the plants. There are child labor laws here but they don’t really apply during coffee season. For the producer huge gains are made too. During those two days I worked with Elias we processed about 11 gallons of dried coffee at 220 Lempiras a gallon (coffee is measured by volume here, not by weight), that comes out to around 1420 Lempiras, minus expenses. Ok ok this is getting a little long winded, I can’t wait to talk about illegal immigration and the Catholic/ Protestant fight, stay tuned. Hope some of you folks up there are makin some turns and thinking ‘bout me. Peace love and all that other hippie BS.

Ps. Gabe, if you’re reading this please make any editorial comments you’d like about my description of my two days of observations. Your coffee Kung Fu is much stronger than mine.

picked coffee, there are a couple of different varieties in here.
Measuring out the coffee in gallons

Picking out the floaters (bad java) and pulp that made it through the machine.

After rinsing and floating the beans, the bag on the left is good coffee, the basket on the right are the floaters, and the bottom basket is full of coffee pulp that made it through the machine.

Elias spreading out the depulped and rinsed coffee for drying.

Hey everyone, I just got back from a weeklong project design and management workshop in Tegucigalpa. I took my best friend from Cruz Alta and we hung out for 3 days of grueling class work (all in Spanish) on designing a project in our community and following it through. If this project thing pans out it is going to seriously cut into my hammock time (only kidding I’ve actually not spent any time in my hammock lately, a sad thing really). The only thing about getting to Tegucigalpa is that it is a complete pain in the nalgas (look it up), Elias and I spent about 12 hours walking, hitching rides in the back of trucks, and riding in chicken buses to get there. It is easy to forget how far out there I am sometimes. But this little trip did some pretty amazing things to our confianza (trust, more or less), and I really look forward to working with Elias on some of our ideas. And after another 9 or so hours getting back to Gracias I’m ready to get back in the saddle so to speak. Actually I’m probably going to chill here for tonight and head out Sunday. On Tuesday I’m going to head out with some folks and pick some coffee and de-pulp it. The coffee season is in full effect right now and nobody in Cruz Alta is dealing with much else. Classes won’t begin until the coffee season is over (late feb early march) and it looks like I’ll be picking up a sixth grade English (with some environmental Ed. thrown in to spice it up) in addition to teaching the ninth grade. Some folks have also expressed interest in more intensive, optional English classes. I’m up for it but it isn’t really what I came down here to do. I really want to set up a wilderness camp for some of the youth up here. Nobody from my town has ever been camping (well life in Cruz Alta is pretty much camping), rafting, rappelling or any of the cool stuff that these camps have to offer. I think it would be a huge deal in terms of improving self esteem and environmental awareness. This is pretty much what I want to focus my Master’s thesis on; the role of outdoor recreation in environmental development. Or something like that anyway. The only problem is money, these camps are expensive and I’m probably going to have to write a grant and solicit funds from NGOs or something to that effect. Alright alright, I’ve got to go get some café or risk facing the tremors and sweats of a serious caffeine withdrawal. Much love to everyone who’s reading this and also to those few who aren’t. Joe