This month has already been busy…a whole week of planning and meeting about the upcoming harvest! I felt like I was back in the United States working because my guys wanted to work from 7 in the morning to 7 o’clock at night, can we say loco! I didn’t know that signed up to work til I could work no more! All of the other people in my group keep complaining that they do not have any work, they have nothing to do, I on the other hand can barely make dinner at night because I am so tired!
I spent this past weekend out at my sitemate’s house! While she was home for Christmas, someone donated a solar oven for her to bring here, so we invited some of the women in her women’s group over to bake some bread! When they saw the oven they were really skeptical but thankfully the corn bread and zucchini bread turned out fabulously! The women were amazed, they could not believe that it worked! Now they are asking her how much she would charge them to use it! It is funny the things that happen haphazardly are the things that work out the best here!
Today I picked coffee for the first time, it was interesting! I can see why people do not have a lot of coffee because it takes so long to harvest. We picked for about a half an hour and my coffee barely covered the bottom of my basket! You have to handpick every bean and you have to feel them all to see which ones needed picked! You have to pick the soft, squishy ones
because they are the most ripe and ready! After my adventure picking coffee we tried out the desulpador (the machine that takes the shell off the coffee bean. It was really cool to see how in less than 10 minutes you can take the shells off almost 10 lbs of coffee fruit (which means an increase of about Q 200 for the farmers)! I cannot wait until the harvest really gets going, I think it is going to be exciting!
Tomorrow I am having breakfast with the Director of the Peace Corps! He is going to be in country for 4 days and he is traveling around meeting all of the volunteers! It should be interesting to get to talk to him and hear what he has to say about his future plans for the Peace Corps! I know that his main goal is to increase volunteer participation for adults 50 years and over!
I spent this past weekend out at my sitemate’s house! While she was home for Christmas, someone donated a solar oven for her to bring here, so we invited some of the women in her women’s group over to bake some bread! When they saw the oven they were really skeptical but thankfully the corn bread and zucchini bread turned out fabulously! The women were amazed, they could not believe that it worked! Now they are asking her how much she would charge them to use it! It is funny the things that happen haphazardly are the things that work out the best here!
Today I picked coffee for the first time, it was interesting! I can see why people do not have a lot of coffee because it takes so long to harvest. We picked for about a half an hour and my coffee barely covered the bottom of my basket! You have to handpick every bean and you have to feel them all to see which ones needed picked! You have to pick the soft, squishy ones
because they are the most ripe and ready! After my adventure picking coffee we tried out the desulpador (the machine that takes the shell off the coffee bean. It was really cool to see how in less than 10 minutes you can take the shells off almost 10 lbs of coffee fruit (which means an increase of about Q 200 for the farmers)! I cannot wait until the harvest really gets going, I think it is going to be exciting!Tomorrow I am having breakfast with the Director of the Peace Corps! He is going to be in country for 4 days and he is traveling around meeting all of the volunteers! It should be interesting to get to talk to him and hear what he has to say about his future plans for the Peace Corps! I know that his main goal is to increase volunteer participation for adults 50 years and over!
1 comment:
I have a part-time job at Starbucks and they are crazy about using every single bean because of the process it takes to get this beans. So cool you're doing what they were talking about! Have fun!
Post a Comment