Coffee tasting


Drying coffee at the factory, some of which was grown on the volcano in the background.


Murals for development project in the next town over, Ataco.

2/9/11
Hallelujah! The stove project has been financed in full. A generous local donation finally came through; effectively subsidizing the 45 orders I have for stoves. (In case you forgot, these are concrete cooking stoves that use wood and are superior to traditional open fires because they use less wood and produce less smoke. Google Stove Team International for more info) This alleviated much of my worries about having to use a huge chunk of my own savings and/or sending out an embarrassing mass email to friends and family. Thanks to those who offered to donate, your support means a lot. On Saturday we are going to collect the stove from the factory and bring them to the community, and I will try to track down everyone who ordered a stove. Hopefully the ten dollar down payment they paid will bring them to me. Peace Corps project number one nearly complete!
Next? I’m thinking of trying to talk to the mayor about a regular trash pick-up service. This may not be hard, the hard part is to get people to bag up their garbage and bring it to the street at the appointed time. This will probably involve me going door to door with pamphlets and explaining why it’s bad to burn plastic and throw trash down the mountain. Could be a smashing success or a hilarious failure, but there is only one way to find out.
Also, the school environmental club. I can’t decide if I should start it now or wait until I can spend more time in the classroom with the kids to build trust. I’ve been helping out with small tasks in the school (the custodial arts) to build my relationship with the teachers and students. I also taught an improvised math lesson, which went fairly well. Actually making kids learn and knowing for sure that everyone understands is a lot harder than it looks.
Skateboarding did not last long around here. The kids loved it and I was having fun teaching them, but some people got worried about the kids getting hurt. I personally think the soccer kids play here is more dangerous, but people fear the unknown. The boards are now enjoying retirement in my room.
I got to visit two coffee factories recently to see how coffee is washed, shelled, fermented, dried, ground and roasted. One of the tours ended with a coffee tasting, which was fun. It´s amazing how many different tastes coffee can have.