After a tiring week of translating and playing tour guide for the medical brigade I headed up into the mountains to cool off and relax. A Peace Corps couple lives in San Luis Planes, a small town in the mountains about 2 hours outside of Santa Barbara. Their village is wonderfully refreshing, about 30 degrees cooler and a whole lot greener. The town has just under 2,000 people, most of whom grow coffee beans for a living. To celebrate they put on a weekend coffee festival with a parade, music, a coffee queen, competitions, food and coffee competitions. The only thing it seemed to lack was coffee. One of the volunteers I went with loves coffee and was excited to be able to taste and buy tons of Honduran coffee, but much to her surprise and disappointment it wasn’t really like what we would expect in the states for any type of festival (ie. They would actually have the item being celebrated available to taste test and buy). Oh well, even though there was no actual coffee at the coffee festival it was still fun to watch the other activities, especially the horses. They strung up a rope above the road and hung small rings from the rope. The riders had charge full speed on their horses at the little rings with a pencil like pointer and hook on of the rings. If he got a ring he received a bandana and a kiss from one of the local girls.
I also learned more about coffee processing and testing than I ever wanted to know. They had a competition of local beans and did a number of crazy taste tests including smelling the beans, the ground coffee, the coffee with water, tasting the coffee hot and cold, etc. The smell, the taste, the intensity, etc. are all important.
We also met a group of Canadians from the organization Care, a Canadian NGO. We got involved with them to help translate from Spanish to English/French. The leader basically explained to us that he started all of what we saw. Before Care came there was no coffee and no coffee festival. He also explained that he is the director of Care in Quebec and he raised all the money himself to start the coffee production in the town and he arranged the Canadian buyer, etc. He is also the chief lobbyist, chief of this and head of that. It was so disgusting to listen to his arrogance. Just like the American last week, it reminds me how important it is to stay humble. No matter how much good I do or how much money I raise it is not about me. The Peace Corps couple that lives in the town knows some of the farmers that work with the new coffee group and they say that they are not making any money. The volunteers expressed this concern to the representatives of Care and they didn’t seem to care (no pun intended). They said that things seemed to look good and they weren’t going to investigate it further. Hmmm…
I also learned more about coffee processing and testing than I ever wanted to know. They had a competition of local beans and did a number of crazy taste tests including smelling the beans, the ground coffee, the coffee with water, tasting the coffee hot and cold, etc. The smell, the taste, the intensity, etc. are all important.
We also met a group of Canadians from the organization Care, a Canadian NGO. We got involved with them to help translate from Spanish to English/French. The leader basically explained to us that he started all of what we saw. Before Care came there was no coffee and no coffee festival. He also explained that he is the director of Care in Quebec and he raised all the money himself to start the coffee production in the town and he arranged the Canadian buyer, etc. He is also the chief lobbyist, chief of this and head of that. It was so disgusting to listen to his arrogance. Just like the American last week, it reminds me how important it is to stay humble. No matter how much good I do or how much money I raise it is not about me. The Peace Corps couple that lives in the town knows some of the farmers that work with the new coffee group and they say that they are not making any money. The volunteers expressed this concern to the representatives of Care and they didn’t seem to care (no pun intended). They said that things seemed to look good and they weren’t going to investigate it further. Hmmm…
San Luis Planes
Parade
Music
Competition
Coffee Competition
1 comment:
Coffee? What are they competing for?
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