the nomadic road: early morning coffee picking!

buenos dias!

well it is 6 am. there is a chill in the air. the roosters started crowing intermittently more than 30 minutes ago. why am i up so early? am i ill? am i sad? am i lonely? the answer to all those question (save the first) is NO. i am up at what i considered before this trip, an ungodly hour, because in a few minutes i am getting picked-up by who i think is the nephew (or little brother) or my guatemalan mama, gloria. he owns a small coffee plantation, which employs 8 labourers. the other night when we were talking and i discovered that he goes out early every morning with his crew to work the land, being me i quickly asked if i could come one day to take pictures and maybe even be taught how to farm coffee. confused, probably due to the fact that my spanish is less than good and that nobody in their right mind chooses labour over ... well anything and whether it was because gloria was sitting there too and he felt obligated or he thought it would be fun (and funny) he agreed. so here i sit after having had some coffee and toast, mentally steeling myself for the unknown ahead. i will admit that to anyone with a rural background is probably laughing at damon the gringo who is nervous about manual labour, and you know what? i don't care. for me it's new and exciting and you can just judge away, judgy mcjudge'erton....

wow, so we are just back from a morning of picking coffee, that was amazing. i know i say that a lot here but it really was. as aforementioned i am a city boy and aside from being a server (which isn't as easy as everyone thinks but pales in comparison to what i just did) i am not what you would call a sporty guy or even an active guy. true i guess you could say that while i am abroad i do some pretty hairy things but i speak now of me back in ottawa, the land that sucks me dry. so, i left you at about 6:45 am when i went out to wait on the street for tono, as it turns out brother-in-law to gloria (me madre). it wasn't so bad as the newly arrived sun had removed some of the early morning chill. after not more than 2 minutes outside up walks tono and his two children, juan pedro and frank (please note am i not describing child labour well at least not what immediately comes to mind when we here that taboo word. juan carlo and frank are on holiday, what i referred to it as a "trajaveracation" {a working holiday} which elicited a more than a few laughs, though not from the kids). gloria was so cute before she let us go she ran into the house and got us oranges for our day out and about. tono, picks us up and we walk to a "pick-up" stop (pick-up refers to actual pick up trucks that operate much like buses in that they have specific corners to wait at to be picked up at, but they are independently run and provide no real schedule, that being said they seem to be more frequent that oc transpo {a dig at ottawa's brutal public transport system, if you do or have lived there you know what i am talking about}), where we patiently/grogily wait for our ride.

shortly thereafter, a pick-up arrives and our motley crew (two of which were under the age of 11) climbs in the flatbed for an exhilarating ride to san juan, the next town over on lago atitlan (the lake i am living on) where we jump out and head on our way {the cost of the pick-up was 2 Q each which = about $ 0.25, so for literally pennies you get transport that doubles as a ride at the fair} i should note know that i had some expectations in mind when i was first told about the coffee plantation. my only experience being the 'cafe cristolinas' where i have my daily cup of coffee and they grow it in their backyard, literally. that being my only experience i assumed a field of coffee much like a field of corn that i've seen in canada and pretty close at hand. that was not the case. after getting dropped off in town we walked out of town, which didn't take long at all, then we began the 45 minute hike up the side of a volcano to tono's plantation! it wasn't that it was grueling or brutal it was simply that i didn't not plan nor expect to be ascending volcanos early this morning. suffice to say we arrived no worse for wear, in fact upon turning around and seeing the 'bueno vista' all thought of how tired i was or how early it is faded away. we were standing in a lush coffee plantation overlooking a bursting green valley and topping it off the sun was just begin to crest over the ridges ahead. it was so nice i almost forgot that i had a mornings worth of labour ahead.

the directions for the day were of course in spanish and they flew mostly over my head. what i did manage to gather was that we were there to pick the red coffee beans and not the green ones. and from there i stuck close to the elder of the children (grade 7) and did as he did, we picked off the same tree and did what i could to make him laugh. two trees in i started to realize that though not terribly difficult without the knowledge that i was taking off 11ish to make it home for lunch and not sticking around picking beans all day might have turned my mood. however with the knowledge of my early departure i was eager to attempt fill the sac tied around my waist faster and fuller than the others. what made it even more agreeable was that whenever i was feeling like the work was getting the better of me i would stop, walk back to my bag, grab my camera (which was the primary reason for me asking to join) and would migrate to one of the other pickers and take some photos and or videos

upon rereading this after my most delicious lunch i realize that i led the reader to the plantation but aside from describing the view said little else, i shall now rectify my lapse in description. i suppose it can be assumed that in order to reach our plantation we climbed and climbed and climbed that the plantation was also on an incline, if so, your suspicions are correct. the large tract of land was too on an incline, mind you not as steep as some of our ascent but still steeper than i would have ever expected. this meant that you were either below or above the coffee tree. below meant that you could see the red vs. the green beans and so know which to pick, however it did mean that reaching the upper 1/3 of the tree was not an option. hence we would make our way above the tree and in bending back the tree with the left hand could pick with the right, in fact not a bad little system. suffice to say that by the end of the morning our collective hands were filthy and though floating from working with my hands i was more than happy to be embarking on our way home for lunch (our refers to my german friend who has joined me on more than a few of my latest adventures.) after scrolling up i realized was a bit wordy so i shall cut short here and say, hasta pronto!