Nitty Gritty Coffee

With the family

Manuel and Martha are the heads of the host family with which I am staying. They appear typical of the area. Their extended families are deeply entrenched in the area with cousins, parents and siblings living on all sides. They have six children, making their family a little small compared to those of their parent's generation, but I think pretty normal for theirs. They own three small plots of land which were acquired through a mix of parental gifts and purchasing. Before receiving any land, Manuel worked in Spain for seven years, moving with the harvest and coming home for a month or two at a time. A strange number of people in the community seem to have done this in fact. And like many of them Manuel saved enough money from his time abroad to build a house in the center of town. And also like many of people who left, he came back to work the coffee farms that grow all around town.

Picking coffee

The plots they own have mainly old plants, some as old as 15 or 20 years old which produce less fruit than they used to . This I believe is due to the fact that they inherited much of what they now cultivate from aging parents who may not have taken as much care as they as Manuel now plans to with the land. He is planting at least three varieties of coffee: Arabica Tipica being the most plentiful, Colombia 6 which produces plentifully, but only for three years, and something which sounded like “Chakchimoro” which will be the primary cultivar in the coming years. Although I have spent only a few days working with Manuel harvesting coffee beans, we have almost picked all of his plants clean, leaving him with only about 100lbs of dried coffee. Due to some sort of plague as they call it here the harvest has been drastically decreasing for the past two years. For reference, Procairo, the grower's association Manuel is a part of sold around 400 quintales of roasted coffee in 2011, in 2012 however that number was around 125, and this year they think it will not reach more than 70. But even without this dramatic plummeting of local coffee production, it is hard to make a living growing coffee.

The morning's haul

The process itself is not easy. Although the plants do not need intensive care, the organic processes used here require a good deal of composting, weed and pest control throughout the year. The harvest season is about 3 months from June to August, and because not every coffee cherry comes ripe at the same time, the grower must return multiple times to the same plot to harvest all of his/her fruit. Coffee in the area grows on steep slopes, though I didn't measure it, I would say that the average slope I harvested on was more than 15 degrees and often much more, making it very hard to remain balanced, and definitely putting a strain on the leg muscles. Once the red cherries are harvested the coffee is ready for processing. Though some people simply dry the cherries at this point, Manuel and his fellow association members de-pulp the coffee removing the fruit and skin so that it dries faster. This process uses a specialized mill that does not damage the inner bean which is after all what they are after, and garners a better price in the open market.

De-pulping while the family watches

The local coffee market has two main branches. The first, more conventional branch, is that controlled by local store owners who buy at much lower prices and then sell their coffee to other middle-men or processors in bigger towns. At the moment the prices of a dried pound of de-pulped coffee is $1.70, and of non-de-pulped coffee is only $1. The stores offer local growers the benefit of being able to sell their coffee at any time, effectively making dried coffee a fungible currency. In town however there is also another branch of the coffee market which is the independent cooperatively controlled Procairo association. Procairo seeks better markets for the region's coffee and is required to pass on a larger portion of the earnings. Procairo buys coffee from its members at $2.40 / lb, making it a much better source of income for its members than selling to the local stores. However, because of the nature of the association it can only buy during the harvest season, and then only once a week.

Washing the de-pulped beans

Manuel, in a very good year his three plots of land can produce 8 quintals of coffee which is 800 lbs. This means that all he can hope to earn from his land is $1920 at the current price of coffee. Though the cost of life in Ecuador is low, it is hardly possible to live on $2000, especially with a family of 8, whose average monthly expenses they estimate are $450. Manuel's family situation appears to be typical of association members none of whom produce large quantities. After all, there were about 100 member families in 2011 when around 400 quintals were bought by the association, meaning that the average family plot produced 400 lbs of dried coffee. Indeed without other sources of income it is impossible to see how a family can exist. I think this should be startling news.

Dry and ready for sale

Check out EqualExchange's History of Ecuadorian Coffee for a broader picture.

A homestay in Coffeeland

There is a very particular kind of awkwardness that I believe is only known to guests in home-stay situations and particularly those in smaller towns.  It is the kind of awkwardness that is perhaps avoided in daily life either by the anonymity of a city dwelling, or the presence of ones own family.  It is a funny mix of feeling that one has overstayed ones welcome, that one is somehow crashing a party and not having anywhere else to be.  When work is done and the kids are no longer as cute as they once seemed, a guest is left with a lot of alone time.   But it is not easy alone time.  It is a discomfort explained best by the feeling one gets when rereading Harry Potter for the umpteenth time.  Guilt, at being reclusive. Pleasure at finding something familiar, and then guilt again at not forcing oneself out  the door – a curious feeling.  But what comes of this stomach curdling can be curiouser still. 

A cuter dance

And so I found myself Friday night in the procession of Saint Vincent, the local patron saint who comes out for a moonlit stroll once a year to start off the local three day celebration.  I, an non believing Jew standing one head taller than all, and as much as 2 feet taller than many, in a town of no more than 300 inhabitants, all of whom are related to one another, was walking with over half of them down the candle lit path around town.  I can't say it did much for my regular discomfort in the Jimenez household after all, there were a dozen other Jimenez households walking with me. But I stuck it out all the way back to church and then to the ensuing festivities.  True there were other people all alone (my host family had responsibilities that took them away from me), staring off with nothing to say.  But everyone has the right to be sulky at ones own family reunion. So at first I was a little annoyed that no one in town wanted to talk to me, however, I found that after helping with the beautiful flying paper lanterns and chipping in for some sugar cane alcohol the whole festival became a lot more bearable, if not enjoyable.  The catechism youth group put on at least four dances ranging from the adorable to a mildly inappropriate (at least for 11 year olds) “Gangham style” hip jerker. 

"Globo" or paper lantern launching

Chickens for sale

A few local crooners did some karaoke for us.  The church auctioned off some donated chickens to raise funds.  And a skit about driving while drunk was performed for the benefit of I'm not sure who, considering not a soul drove to the party, the town being far too small.  Fire played a role throughout – my host father was in charge of that, the paper lanterns dotted the sky, fireworks shot up at irregular intervals, and finally there was the “Vaca Loca” or “Crazy Cow” This was a costumed man with about one hundred different sparklers and fire crackers attached to him dancing around the central town plaza.  Needless to say, the kids had been talking about this for days.  And they were quite tired enough around midnight when it finally burned out and the family friendly part of the party came to an end. 

Da me Dale Dole (Bananas)

Thursday June 8th, I left Manglaralto for San Juan, a small town in what is apparently the second largest banana producing region of Ecuador.  Outside of town I met Ngabo, a Peace Corps volunteer, at a shopping mall that could easily have been anywhere in the USA.  The only tips otherwise were signs such as “ordenar aqui” at the KFC, and Carl's Jr.  Ngabo works at Fundacion Dale—a keen reader might note the similarity to Dole, and they would be correct to make the link.  Dale stands for something about helping Ecuadorians, but written in that unmistakable font with a sun shining through the 'a' as it does the 'o' in Dole, and there is no question for whom Dale works.  That said, it is clearly doing good things.  Dale runs free private clinics for workers and families, and has built and maintains two public schools for the communities in the area.  Ngabo does HIV sensitization, which in his region is apparently more of a problem than it is on the coast, among other health projects and student workshops.  He was fabulous, I could not have asked for a better contact or guide.  Upon meeting up we immediately went to one of the Dale schools where Ngabo had worked over the summer, and which is situated deep inside of banana and cacao plantation territory.  Although the school was interesting to see, more exciting for me was the chance to talk to workers on their way out of the plantations or “fincas”.

Unlike in some plantation systems, the fincas in Ecuador do not generally contained whole communities. At least not according to Ngabo.  Rather, the workers live in surrounding communities, some of which are right next to plantations, but one worker we spoke with lives an hour away.  Even though we were right outside the finca, the workers were very forthcoming about work at Dole.  In general they were all agreed that work at Naboa (the other banana company across the road) was far worse.  Unlike Naboa they said,  Dole generally gave out protective equipment when handling chemicals, although not always, and they were all given a variety of work from day to day, something which they seemed to appreciate.  This finca, known as finca Elba, does not have a unionized workforce, however as was later corroborated, the workers told me that another Dole plantation nearby does in fact have a union.  But all they were able to tell me about it was the fact that union dues were deducted at $13 dollars per month.  In one  response to whether they wanted a union at Elba a worker said, “it is just not something that we would have here.”  This however was not their complaint.  Rather, after two minutes of speaking with them they told me about a wage dispute they were having.  Though government mandated minimum wage for banana workers was raised from $292 to $328 at the beginning of 2013, according to the workers, Dole only started the new rate in June, and had yet to pay their back wages.  Needless to say, if true, that would be pretty serious delinquency on the part of Dole. 

Me and Henry counting bananas per bunch (about 150)

After lunch we were taken onto a different plantation by Henry Morales, a friend of Ngabo's who is a quality control manager for Dole.  Between raucous laughter fast Spanish and broken yet proud English, Henry led us to the packaging plant of an affiliated finca, in other words, a banana plantation not owned by Dole but whose product is exclusively bought and exported by Dole.  It was a something to behold, and Henry held nothing back.  He insisted I ask him anything and everything about the process.  I spent the whole time trying my hardest to absorb information he was throwing at us a mile-a-minute—everything from how many different fungi can form on the banana, to what sort of pesticide they use on the banana bags.  Unfortunately we only had one hour at the packaging plant and I did not feel comfortable asking about worker-management issues.   Just long enough to get a sense for how banana processing works, and to watch Henry Morales chew a number of managers out for poor practices (I guess that's his job). 

Cuenca 

Ngabo's host family was nice enough to put me up for the night.  The next day we left bright and early—As I write I am in Cuenca relaxing for a couple days before Loja and the coffee farm.

Montechristi Revisited (A little late)

Tuesday the 4^th of June I went back to Montechristi to visit with hat makers.  Unfortunately I was unable to go to the High School in Manglaralto as I had hoped, but rather organized my things, which had gotten surprisingly out of order, to prepare for Montechristi.  And so I left on the 3^rd, Monday afternoon to arrive during daylight and find a hostel because we were slated to leave early Tuesday morning.  A hostel was not so forthcoming.  Instead what I found was a reasonably priced hotel in what used to be an opulent house as far as I can tell.  After changing rooms due to the obviously unwashed sheets and bathroom offered to me, the 80 or so year old hostess, and hotel owner sent me up to my fourth floor room next to the only other occupants, an older American couple on their 4^th year of sailing around the world.  Peering into the second floor which was still apparently private residence I caught a glimpse of a huge grandfather clock, ornate woodwork around the bar, and marble flooring.  Sadly, this old world finery did not extend to the acetic though quirky rooms for rent.  At least the water worked after our hostess turned it on. 

But my hotel was only a side note to the journey—after all I was there to see hat weavers.  For the first time since arriving in Ecuador no one was late.  I arrived precisely at 8:55, my guide, Victoria, the daughter of Bertha the hat shop owner met me at 9:00, and we left in the car mere minutes later.  The car, a blue Hundai was obviously the pride and joy of our driver, a 24 year old law school student.  Though other cars may have sped over pot holes three times the size of those we met, he would slow down to a crawl to swerve past them.  Though the mud is an inevitable byproduct of the rain and dirt covering most any car in town, our driver slowed to a snails pace to avoid the splatter.  Well I had nothing better to do, so we chatted as we moseyed along for about an hour to reach Pile, a town no more than 40km from Montechristi.  It was rural though.  Squeezed between stands of almost grotesque Ceibo tree, many armed cacti and muddy forests is the quaint town of Pile.  Some of the roads were paved, and it obviously seen some development.  In fact, the newly built petroleum refinery in the same province had funded the building of a large school for the training of hat weavers in the art of the all famous Paja Torquilla “Panama” hats.  Unfortunately it was not open when I visited.  Nevertheless I did find my way to suitably ancient hat weaver named Manuel Alarcon. 

Almost eighty, Manuel has been weaving since he was ten years old.  To watch him stitch each of the millimeter thin pieces of straw together I grew almost jealous, understanding that only with years of practice could hands move like that.  And that only having seen the labor of months could he have faith that his tireless work would actually result in a hat—one worth the effort—one worth at least 300 dollars.  Though he sometimes works or worked in his own family garden a few days per week, hat weaving amounts to Manuel's only source of money.  A rough calculation puts his income at 3 dollars a day, not much in a country where a beer is $1.5. According to him, he only weaves the finest hats which take one to three months each, and there are about thirty people in Pile who are doing it.  Even with the renewed interest in the art of hat weaving it is not clear that the lifestyle Manuel has led will be replicated by future generations, after all there are only so many people willing to buy a thousand dollar hat.  Though I suppose only fools underestimate what the well off are willing to spend on fashion. 

Manglaralto, Ecuador and Hats

Well, as I expected in this generally unplanned adventure of mine, everything is taking longer than I had hoped and yet still somehow coming together. For instance, Friday I went to the school here in town (Maglaralto) to meet Ramiro, who is the Agriculture coordinator for the high school. And on Monday I'll be returning to shadow a class of his. Why am I in a small town on the coast of Ecuador in the opposite direction of my planned trajectory to the mountains you might wonder? Well, I feel very comfortable with this Yale group here, and they are having on a daily basis the very conversations about development projects as I hoped they would be having. Today (Sunday) for instance we spent all of dinner talking about using data and a good understanding of the community to create realistic and worthwhile goals for their time here. There is such an interesting breadth of experience and idealism in the group that the conversation takes on a mix of advice, experienced conversation, and radical rethinking of the project. The angst about what they are doing is well placed and I think they are taking all the steps necessary to address it. Still this is not my project, and as much as I like it here, I am not getting to pursue what I came to South America for. So it is definitely time to move onward and outward.

Weaving a hat's border in Montechristi

Saturday, while the Yale team was doing productive things I went to Montechristi to find some hats. Montechristi “Panama Hats” are known throughout the world for being the finest straw hats in the world, made from a palm-like plant and woven by hands taught from one generation to the next. I sat on a bus for almost 4 hours to go no farther than 100 miles (126km). The bus stopped at every single little town along the way. Arriving around 10:30 or so, and then went about looking for hats. I wandered up the hill, passed the steep incline of shops each filled with hats, various woven chairs, wooden sculptures and chachkes. But none of them screamed, “I am a Panama Hat shop” or perhaps more appropriately “Yo soy una tienda de Sombreros Paja de Torquillos.” So I continued up until a very random person asked if I was looking for hats. I was looking, and he knew where to bring me. We visited three different stores selling real hand made straw hats. They are very beautiful closely woven things--floppy, malleable but definitely sturdy. 

And perhaps as such, it is not surprising that each one takes between one and three months to make. Indeed, though these stores have people working on the hats, they are only doing the last 3 or 4 days of work, which is simply finishing the border and then ironing it out. In the countryside someone else spends the better part of the month or even up until 3 months weaving the majority of the hat, and someone else altogether goes into the forest to find, harvest, and dry the palm leaves. Needless to say, it is an involved process, which brings together many members of the community. I bought two hats, a male and female model. The female one may end up being a present, but with the view of potentially selling these masterpieces of weaving I have determined to examine first hand this whole process. To that end I will be returning there on Tuesday to visit the countryside with Victoria, one of the shop owner's daughters.

Tuesday being my first steps away from the comfort of this beachside, I will then continue on hopefully to a Dole banana plantation, or at least its health center where a Peace Corps volunteer has been working for the past year. From there I will be passing through Cuenca on my way to Loja where I will work on a coffee farm for a week before leaving the lovely country of Ecuador for a life of bus rides and adventure, but mostly bus rides until I reach Bolivia