This past week has been quite eventful, yet also very tranquil. I am slowly noticing the immersion sinking into my thoughts and words. However, I am at the stage where things are beginning to permeate the outer walls of my language. My grammar is still very much so lacking but I am doing my best to practice (both naturally and via internet) and am trying to dedicate an hour each day to reading articles. Recently, a friend that lives in Esteli, working in the Peace Corps, sent me a document with the first three Harry Potter books (in Spanish). This is now another new project, to attempt to (for now) read the first book. I write words down that I don’t know typically, but sometimes this can be a bit overwhelming given the number of words I encounter daily that I am unaware of.
I visited a farm in Dipilto this week. In the morning Claudia and I grabbed food for the group we were traveling with and headed to a farm on the Honduran border, a bit north of Dipilto, in prime specialty coffee territory. Pedro, Henry-a man that informs farms how to comply with standards of the rainforest agriculture group in the US, and I rode there in the bed of a truck. We chatted about his trips to Miami, Dominican Republic and talked a bit about photography and its importance in the coffee industry. Once we arrived we drank a bit of coffee while looking at the incredible landscape. The further up in the mountains you go the climate becomes much cooler, but for me it is the perfect climate, and the air is significantly cleaner and fresher than any of the surrounding areas. I felt very happy to be there, I am excited for the time when I will be staying at the farm in Dipilto, which is in the same area that we visited.
That day we hiked through the coffee fields. We saw the area, a huge rectangular shaped retention area, where the coffee seeds are peeled and where the shells are temporarily stored. We visited the drainage areas and the irrigation systems to make sure they are not negatively effecting the natural flow of local creeks and streams, and finalized the day observing Henry speaking to the workers of the farm, approximately 30 men from surrounding towns. While my Spanish is still slowly developing I could understand the majority of what was going on. Henry, walked through and was explaining to the directors of the farm exactly what they would need to meet the criteria necessary to become part of the Rainforest Society. They would need enough bathrooms for the workers, multiple potable water sources at different locations, efficient run-off systems, and internationally approved fertilizers. Henry closed his speech (charla) asking whether the workers felt like the work conditions they were granted at the farm were satisfactory, or if they were mistreated. They all said conditions were good and he joked that they only said this because people were there. At the end he offered them his contact info and said that if anything ever came up at the farm regarding mistreatment, or any questions they could contact him. This made me feel like the work the Rainforest Society does actually makes a difference. With all the money in coffee, its important that the benefits get shared in a just manner, creating a sustainable structure for the workers, owners, consumers, and of course, the land.
Why the farmers want to be members of the Rainforest Society? The answer I received was because it is an ethical practice that promotes better working conditions which ultimately yield benefits in production. It promotes sustainable agriculture that will produce good crop yields beyond the next three seasons. Finally, international exporters and their respective buyers will pay more for coffee of all grades, whether specialty grade or not, when the Rainforest Society backs a farm. It is a form of credibility stamped on a farm.
http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/work/agriculture/coffee
This past Thursday I went out to Mozonte to visit the family and see how everything was going. When I arrived Wilmar was working in the farm and he gave me a tour of everything he had been working on. We went and checked out a field behind the house where he and a friend had cleaned up what seemed like a 2 acre plot to prepare for planting corn and beans, in that order. There’s a tree in the middle of the plot and he plans to use that as a dividing point between the corn and beans. I thought what a huge amount of work! He agreed and explained that he loves the work he does, and that the soreness he feels at the end of the week is reassurance that he is working hard. We then went and checked out the tomatoes as it is approaching time to pick, and picked all those that were ready to go.
A quick side-step, the whole time we were working I was sucking on a sweet/tart TASTY fruit called mamones- certainly my favorite fruit that is in season now. I have never heard of them in the US but after coming here I realized that they are awesome, I can eat 50 of them without thinking about it.
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melicoccus_bijugatus (in Spanish).
Afterwards, we returned to the kitchen area, and sat and chat for a few hours, we talked about politics, things he has in mind for the house, his wife’s work in Ocotal, and for a while about baseball, soccer and how the sports are in Nicaragua and the United States. After great conversation and many more mamones, which he graciously offered for me to take home to the family, I set off for the taxi, which was returning Delia to the house. On the taxi ride home I spoke with the cab driver about how he had earned $30,000 in the United States and was sending it home. He told me his lover at the time ended up contacting the police, claiming the money was hers, and running off with $30,000. It was a very eventful day and these sort of things I hear about pretty frequently. Maybe because I’m a “gringo” “chele” or simply an extranjero in Nicaragua, but it is always interesting and fascinating to hear stories of life here, there, and how everything interacts.
Life is good!
Saludos y Namaste,
David Jones
econicadventure 