Working and shopping



Woke up at 0600 to go to Mass at 0630.  The church was very full.  I liked seeing that there were people of all ages there.  It seems like religion is still very important here.  After Mass I went back to the house, changed, and had breakfast.  A farmer, Gabriel, met us and took us to his house where we picked up baskets and then hiked to the coffee plots in the direction of Volcan de Agua.  We didn’t get to go as far as originally planned, which was kind of a bummer for me because I was enjoying the climb.  Gabriel told us the whole process of growing from seed to harvest.  A coffee plant reaches full production around five years, and has to be periodically pruned after that.  We harvested for about an hour and a half, then went back to Gabriel’s house for lunch.  After lunch we processed the coffee cherries, and Gabriel told us how the seeds would be rinsed and left in bucket to ferment for several hours, then spread out to dry for several days.  When the second husk comes off the seed easily when you rub them together, that’s when you run the seeds through another machine to get that husk off.  Gabriel’s wife roasted some green coffee on a clay pan, and then showed us how she ground it by hand with a stone.  Then they made coffee for us that Gabriel had roasted previously, and it was very good.  The harvesting and processing of the coffee has been my favorite part of the trip so far.  We went back to the house for a short break, then caught a chicken bus into Antigua.  We got rained on, and stood under the eaves of a shop for several minutes until it stopped.  Then we strolled around the marketplace, and I found a T-shirt for my friend and a beer mug for myself.  We walked back to the square and sat down in a coffee shop because we were all tired.  We got a ride to a farmer’s house for dinner but didn’t stay long.  After we got back to the house I showered, wrote a bit, then went to bed.  This was probably the longest and hardest day but I enjoyed it very much.  I’d rather do field work than sit inside all day.

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