Well, we thought we were going to work on cleaning up one of the houses that isn't currently in use, but el jefe Pablo had other plans for us most of which was centered around coffee. We have lived out the maxim "Blessed are the flexible for they shall not be broken."
We started with all four of us cleaning coffee in the drying tents. Then Martin and Tom were drafted to add more barbed wire to the fence around the drying tents. Toward the end of the morning Chris and Steve went up to see a demonstration of the coffee roasting operation.
After lunch we all had a new experience. We picked coffee 'cherries' off the plants in the finca. We probably didn't meet our quota, but we weren't at it for very long. Our brief stint at imitating Juan Valdez was ended so that we could go up to the campo to play with the kids while all the women on the Ranch were celebrated on Honduras' annual Day of the Woman. It's sort of like Mother's Day in the U.S.
Next, we went to the de-pulping station to see how that works. Pablo explained how the machinery works to remove the outer pulp from the cherry so that the beans can then be dried in the drying tents. It takes about two hours to remove the pulp from about 1,600 pounds of cherries. We didn't hang around that long!
After dinner we had a very fun play time with the younger kids at the Ranch. We started with Martin and Chris reading in Spanish part of a book that Martin brought for the school library - Jesus Ama a Los Pequenos Ninos - Jesus Loves the Little Children. We celebrated one of the kid's birthday with cupcakes and interestingly the kids wanted to sing Happy Birthday in English. Finally we played a variety of games and did some coloring. A good time was had by all.
ANOTHER FOGGY START TO THE DAY
AND HERE IS THE COFFEE PROCESS FROM FARM TO TABLE STARTING WITH PICKING
REMOVING THE OUTSIDE FRUIT OR CHERRY
DRYING THE BEANS; REMOVING THE BAD ONES AND RESIDUAL FRUIT
ROASTING THE BEANS
AFTERNOON PLAYTIME TO ENABLE THE DAY OF THE WOMAN CELEBRATION
EVENING GAME TIME AND BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
THERE ARE ALSO FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES FOR PEOPLE WITH SEWING SKILLS
