My week at Santa Anita

So like I said two posts ago, I spent last week volunteering and living at the Santa Anita Finca, the coffee plantation I visited in mid-October. Back then, I knew that I wanted to come back but I wasn’t sure if I’d have the time. In the previous weeks in Xela, I found myself growing antsy and dissatisfied with the way things were going in Xela: volunteering at the school was frustrating and felt like neither the kids nor I were getting much out of the classes, there wasn’t much use for me on the construction site with the school drawing closer and closer to being finished, and I wasn’t speaking nearly as much Spanish as I wanted to. So I decided to pack up my things and escape the cold mountain air of Xela and get a change of scenery.

Coffee Talk with Doña Maria

My friend Eleni joined me at Santa Anita for a few days in her last week in Xela. The pickup dropped us off at the farm around 11am, and we wandered through one of the grass “streets” in the community to find Gloria, the woman in charge of the ecotourism project. When we couldn’t find her, Eleni and I decided to stop by the house of Maria, the woman that cooked and ate with us during our visit back in October.

We walked off the grassy road and passed by the cinderblock walls of her house, ducking under the hanging flowery branches. Chickens scurried about on the ground, clucking as they stepped out of our way. We found her in her “kitchen” in the backyard. She was standing over the wood-fire stove – where we always found her – surrounded by maize tortilla mix, a stack of dishes, baskets, and bags, and the food that would be our lunch.

She saw us and broke out into her witchy cackle, a laugh that would be creep out of context but always felt real coming from her. She walked around the concrete table and greeted us with a lively “Buenas dias!” She said she remembered us, but neither Eleni nor I completely believed her. Lunch would be at one o’clock, and she told us to come back then.

After spending an hour on our hands and knees weeding in the coffee nursery, it was time for lunch. We walked down to her house and passed through the doorless, concrete threshold into her kitchen. The room was spacious, but with the barred and glassless window, the sparsely decorated cinderblock walls, and the single hanging light bulb, it felt more like a prison cell than a house. There were two other rooms: a storage room and a bedroom. The roof didn’t meet the walls, but I guess it was sufficient protection from the elements. Eleni and I pulled out our white plastic chairs while Maria finished carrying in our bowls of soup – a mix of broth, veggies, and a huge chunk of beef – rice, and, of course, a stack of tortillas wrapped in a woven napkin.

Almost every one of the nine conversations we shared followed the same progression. We’d sit down and Maria would be all smiles. She’d laugh at almost every little thing that was said. Then something would come up – be it the war, her unfaithful husband, crime in Guatemala, problems at the finca (plantation), etc. Her face would change. Her smiles would descend. The laughs would cease. Her gaze would turn inward as she lost herself in the memories of events I can’t possibly imagine. And she would always whisper, “Asi es la vida en Guatemala.” Such is life in Guatemala.

It would take too long to describe every conversation we had, so I’ve made this bulleted list to sum up the most memorable points.

- Many people who joined the guerrillas in the civil war here were not welcomed back into their homes for fear of the national army. Maria told us of one woman in the community who’s mother told her, “you’re not my daughter anymore.” So it went for many.

- We talked about the recent lynching of a gang member by the public in Panajachel. “The people are getting tired,” she explained, “tired of the corruption in the police force, and tired of them not working to protect the people.” Bus drivers are killed in extortion rings, women – young and old – are sexually assaulted, and people are mugged and even killed for as little as 50Q and a cell phone. In a few cities, vigilante crowds are taking the law into their own hands.

- Her first husband, a fellow fighter in the war, was abducted by the army and never seen or heard from again. Her second husband is currently the president of Santa Anita. We only saw brief glimpses of him, however, as he came and went to drop off and pick up his bag. He has a second woman whom he lives with outside of the Santa Anita community. Maria lives by herself.

- She grew up on a finca, but not one like Santa Anita. There was a patron there and, like most patrons, he didn’t care much for his workers and their families. She said the ceiling of their one room house was old and worn and the wood walls were falling apart. Now, she says, she is so grateful to have a house like the one she has now. Perspective is an amazing thing.

- She doesn’t believe in immigration. Life is tough in Guatemala, but she knows that it is no easier in the States for an immigrant. She’d prefer to be in her home country.

- She proudly told us she was the first woman to join the guerrilla forces in the conflict. In contrast to the machismo culture that pervades Latin America, in the mountains in the army camp, everyone was equal. Men and women both cooked and did the laundry. Now that the war is over, men have reverted back to their old ways. They say that in the war it was out of necessity that they did “womanly” things, but now things can be restored to their rightful order.

- We talked of the 15 years she spent in Mexico in exile. She could not return to Guatemala because she feared for her life and the lives of her family members. Instead, she made a new life for herself in Chiapas selling chickens.

- She told me she lived on 15Q a day, just about $2.

- Through it all, she always reassured me that she was happy to be living where she was, being able to meet travelers and share her story, and spending her time cooking. I’m not sure if I completely believe her.

¡Cosechemos! Picking Coffee

After a long morning of picking weeds on Tuesday, Eleni and I were able to help out two families on Wednesday as they harvested their coffee. After cooking ourselves some beans, tortillas and chowing down on some banana bread made by the ladies of the plantation, the families of Teresa and Angelina handed us our baskets and led us our work site for the day.

The way Santa Anita works is that there are thirty-two families living on the plantation. Each family is given thirty cuerdas – parcels of land - on which they are required to grow and harvest coffee and bananas. The harvest season is from late September until, at the latest, early January. Once the coffee is harvested, the families sort out ripe, red, high quality beans from the less mature yellow or green ones. The coffee is thrown into water, and whatever does not float is taken to be deseeded. The seeds are spread out over concrete patios to dry in the sun for four or five days. Afterwards, they are sorted once again before being toasted. After that, they are good to drink. For all this work in a good year, a family will earn 8000Q or about $1,000.

We wandered away from the volunteer house into the heart of the coffee farm, our baskets secured around our waist. The paths were lined with tall trees shading the coffee, banana trees dangling their bundles, and, of course, the coffee bushes. We finally reached the cuerda, but I still have no idea how they distinguish between each one. It was time to work.

It was surprisingly quiet. There was the constant chirping, squawking, and screeching of birds that must’ve been used for sound effects in Jurassic Park. Leaves rustled as we made our own paths from plant to plant. And there was also the constant shaking of the bushes as the colorful beans were plucked branch by branch. Other than that, there was not much else. It was relaxing, tranquil, and surprisingly unstressful. Or so I thought.

One of Teresa’s sons suddenly ran from the parcel and out onto the path screaming frantically and losing half the beans from his basket. His mother chased after him, to see if he was ok, as did the rest of us moments later. We found the little guy crying. Apparently, he brushed against a wasps’ nest and upset the nasty little insects. They stung him about eleven times, and the marks were swelling up on his face, behind his ears, his neck, and his hands. He ended up being ok and went back to working after a few minutes. Afterwards, it was difficult to work without being all too conscious of the constant buzzing overhead.

The rest of Wednesday’s coffee picking was relatively uneventful, though I did get to pick bananas but there’s a different section on that one. On Friday, I joined a different family to work their land. Working on the flat land it seemed like it’d be a relatively uneventful morning, especially considering some of the hills we had to pass. And it was uneventful, aside from one little incident.

I was plucking coffee beans by the main path when I noticed a little sting in my leg. Then I noticed a lot of little stings in my leg. I looked down and my foot and pant leg were covered with dozens of little red ants. I lifted up my leg and there about half that amount crawling on my bare leg. I freak out, jumped off the path, and started swatting myself maniacally. A couple of the pinches were getting higher and higher, but I somehow managed to get rid of every single ant before anything more sensitive than my inner thigh was bit.

Augustina, the woman I was helping, saw me and asked if I got bit. I gave an embarrassed nod and noticed that she was wearing sandals. Then I noticed her son, Carlos, was wearing them too. I couldn’t imagine walking through the heavy brush on the ground, not knowing what was crawling beneath, with essentially bare feet and exposed legs. I wondered if they did it by choice, but my gut reaction was no.

Much more green coffee (unripe) than red coffee (ripe) awaited us that day, and the trees were already pretty sparsely populated to begin with. We ended up with two heavy sacks, each weighing well over 50 lbs . Now I don’t know if I’ve described how Guatemalans carry heavy loads before but it’s quite the sight. The take a rope, fasten it into a belt, let the cargo rest on one side of it, and the strap the other side around their forehead while they carry the load on their backs. Augustina and her son loaded up this way and began our ten minute walk down and up narrow dirt paths back to their house.

Now I don’t know if it was because I wanted to help Augustina, or if I just wanted to experience what it was like. It could have even been a macho-let’s-see-if-I-can-do-this kind of thing. Whatever the case, when Augustina and 13 year old Carlos sat down to rest, I told Augustina to relax and that I would take it the rest of the way. So I sat down in front of the load, she helped me get the belt around the top of my head, and then I was suddenly on my feet carrying a sack of coffee with my face. It didn’t tire me like I thought it would; I expected it to leave me winded and put more strain on my back and legs. Instead, I felt it all in my neck and upper spine. No wonder why Guatemalans are so short. Nevertheless, Carlos and I just put our heads down, only able to see the next couple steps in front of us and trudged forward.

We dumped the bags on a small tarp in front of their house and began separating the good from the bad. Tossing the beans into their respective baskets, I started asking Carlos some basic questions: how old he was, if he liked coffee, and what he wanted to be when he grew up. He told me he wanted to be a doctor. I made some jokes about me being sick and asking what I should do, but this impressed me deep down. To think that the families here went from fighting for better treatment from the government, to forming their own coffee community that they owned together, and then to have kids that have dreams that are achievable. At times I worried for the people of Santa Anita – worried that they wouldn’t make enough money, and that people would give up on the vision as the memory of armed struggle grew more and more distant – but not on Friday. It seemed like things here, as slow as they might seem, are going just fine.

Dodging Banana Trees

After all the coffee had been picked for the day on Wednesday, Angelina’s 13 year old son, Hector, asked me if I wanted to help him cut down bananas. I responded with an emphatic “Sí.” In October, I was really curious as to how they cut them down. Did they use a ladder? Did they climb the

m? What’d they do? My curiosity only grew stronger as I saw Hector pick up a ten ft bamboo pole and hack the end of it into a spear with his machete.

I followed him and his younger neighbors down the steep hills behind where we were picking coffee. We surveyed the banana trees spread about until we found one ripe enough to cut. He asked me if I wanted to try, and I said ok. He handed me the bamboo spear and pointed to the tree. I still don’t know exactly what he said, but I’m assuming it was something like “Stab it.” After half a minute of spastically prodding and scraping the fibrous plant, Hector decided to show me how it was done. Neither of us could get strength from our legs standing sideways on the hill to put enough force behind our stabs. Hector gave up, switched the pole for his machete, and with three whacks of the trunk the 15 ft tall plant split in two and our prize came crashing down.

After moving the bananas to the path, the boys ran down the hills, weaving back and forth in their sandals, as I struggled not to fall on my ass in my proper hiking boots. We found our next victim on flat ground. It was much easier to put some leverage behind the thrusts, but cutting into a banana tree with bamboo is a very monotonous, draining process. Hector got it going, but he let me finish the job. After a minute of stabbing, the tree started to wobble. Hector pointed to the side and, after two more blows to Hector’s target, it came down, quickly at first, but then catching itself on its own hinge and dangling the banana bundle safely within reach of Hector’s machete.

We did this four more times.

As the boys ran playfully from tree to tree, climbing hills, hauling bananas, and so on, I forgot that there was actual danger in this. On the last tree, the bundle came down hanging slightly out of reach of the much shorter Hector. I told him, with unmerited confidence, to give me the machete. I grabbed hold of the phallic end of the bundle and hacked the other side off the tree. The weight of the bananas surprised me and with almost no footing to support me I dropped it a few feet down the hill. I eagerly chased it under the slaughtered tree. Then I heard cracking and something in me realized, without thinking, that all the cracking should have been done. Luckily I was facing to the left because the crashing 9 foot trunk of the tree missed my back by inches. My girlfriend’s pre-departure warning echoed in my head: “You’re not invincible, Tom.” Suddenly, picking bananas wasn’t so fun.

Luckily, we were done for the day. The kids each loaded bundles onto their backs, but thinking I was stronger than I was, I decided to take two in my hands. Mistake. While the boys steadily made their way up hill back to their house, I had to stop at least three times to catch my breath. I made it in the end, and Hector treated me to a plastic bag of chocolate-flavored ice.

Random Observations

So I still have a lot more things to say about this week, but this post is already ridiculously long and instead I'm just going to finish it with some quick observations and thoughts from the week.

- The fast-talking eighteen year old Mauricio had been messaging me on G-mail for months asking when we'd come back. Our first time there, he enthusiastically told us about his plans to go to med school after he finished high school. When I saw him this time, I noticed his hands were blue from playing with blue Playdough. He told me his teacher had told him that it would help his writing and that he had been massaging it in his hands since that morning (it was about 4pm when we had this conversation). Once again, I was reminded of all the things I had access to as a kid and never though twice about how privileged I was. And yes, it is a privilege to have access to crayons and Playdough on a regular basis.

- On Thursday, I joined some of the community members asthey headed to another finca a couple hours away. The point of the trip was to start an inter-community relationship of support. We listened to each of the finca's stories - how they became independent of their patrons, where they're at now, their problems - and also to methods of increasing coffee production in a sustainable way. It was nice to see that competition could be coupled with cooperation.