Coffee plantation, tech training, and birthday celebrations

Yesterday we had the privilege of visiting the "terrenos", or land, of Kelly´s host dad. He owns several acres outside of Alontenango so we all piled into the back of his pick-up truck for a trip to the "campo." He grows coffee that we sells in the raw form to an intermediary which de-husks it and dries it, which then sells to Starbucks which roasts and sells it. It was a huge learning experience for me to hear about the entire process first hand from the guy who plants the seed himself. He talked about the difficulties with the prices on the world market and the poor prices that the intermediary pays to him. In turn, he cant pay a good wage to his two helpers that work with him. The intermediary makes the greatest share, but Starbucks pays a lousy price. The coffee grown in the this area (available at Starbucks as the "Antiguan Blend" - ask for it) is supposedly world-renowned and very unique due to the special growing conditions of a high altitude of 3000 feet and the fertile volcanic soil. He talked about blends of different beans that he grows that are mixed together to obtain the desireable blend. "Aroma, cuerpo, sabor..." meaning aroma, body, and flavor. It actually seems a lot like cultivating grapes for wine in some ways. Coffee likes to grow in the shade, so there are lots of other types of plants growing in with the coffee trees. limes, bananas, poinsettas, avacadoes, and jocotes (a small bitter fruit with a giant pit that is very popular here to eat with salt). Right now the coffee is almost ready to be harvested...it is bright green and big and some of the pods are starting to turn red, meaning they are ready. We bit some open and took out the white beans inside which are covered with "honey". Unripe, untoasted beans are not very tasty, FYI. But is was absolutely fascinating to see the process and talk about it...at the source!!! He invited us back in December or January during the harvest to hang out for a day and pick with them. I hope to take him up on that, depending on where my site is, of course. We wandered around his property for a awhile down to the river and we talked about the problems of deforestation (due to people depending on firewood to cook over open fires) and contamination (Guatemala has virtually no water treatment and everything from the toilet goes directly into the river in Alotenango. Not the swimming type river.) Before leaving, we sucked honey out of bright red flowers and he gave us some parsley, jocotes, and carrots to take home to our families. Very kind.

In case is sounds like Im having too much fun here and Im not working....dont worry, Im working very hard. Every day we have four hours of Spanish class in the morning and in the afternoons we have technical trainings or we work on projects.

In the afternoon yesterday we led our womens group meeting on The Importance of Women in the Community. I led a participatory activity on self-esteem and we all played a part in a skit where I had a baby doll on my back like a local woman. They thought that the ginga carrying a baby like that was hilarious and they generally enjoyed the whole presentation I think. This was a practice run of sorts and we will give it again for a different group of women during our field-based training next week.

Today we received our first formal GIS (Geographic Information Systems) training and went around Antigua gathering GPS points. We can get ArcView (the GIS program) for free from an organization if we prove that we will actually use it in the municipality. So that is cool. However, the data in Guatemala, as you can imagine, is not of the highest integrity...so it can be rather challenging. The different government agencies use different projections of the flattened world, so their data doesnt match up. Such is life in the developing world. Still, its a great opportunity to be able to use GIS both for the municipality and for my own professional development.

As since today is my birthday, Im spending the entire day in Antigua coincidentally for Spanish class in the morning and the GIS tech class for the afternoon, and coveniently hanging out here for the rest of the evening. Thus, last night was my Guatemalan family celebration. When I came home in the evening with my three other trainee friends, I was greeted at the door with of large number of my "cousins" (kids) all handing me flowers and singing some celebration song in Spanish. It was a adorable and very touching. My mom made hamburgers, french fries, and strawberry cheesecake! that we all endulged on. Of course everybody sang "Feliz cumpleaños" to me with some additional verses that translate as, "we want cake now, even though it may only be a little piece" and "and chocoate too." I received nice cards from a bunch of people and gifts of jewelry and underwear from my sisters and aunt. Overall, I felt very celebrated and appreciated and really part of the family. Im about to go meet up with a bunch of people for dinner and drinks for the rest of the evening. Happy birthday to me!