“What’s up C-man?!?”, this is Mike’s morning call. “Wakening
up man…great day for some coffee picking eh?” I was referring to the coolness
of the morning, even if it was going to be 85 by 10am, I wasn’t going to remind
my brain about it.
“Yeah it is. Did you grab the buckets from your house?” “Ah
shoot, I forgot all about them! You want me to run back and get them?” My words
were true but my body wasn’t as willing to walk the 10 minutes to and from the
house, not this early anyway.
“Nah, I think we’ll be alright with these” Mike said,
lifting up a white 5 gallon pale with two smaller buckets inside of it, “I
think the guy we are helping has some, and the girls are bringing some
too…we’ll be alright.”.
The team had been waiting for this day a week from the day
Mike announced that we were going to help one of his friends pick coffee beans.
Some were excited, us farm kids to be exact, about this chance for some manual
labor that had been lacking from daily activities. All of us were excited for
the chance to see coffee at its beginnings.
After a 45 minute drive through the mountains and over a
crystal clear river to our meeting place with Mike’s friend. The thirteen of us
were relieved to get out of the mini van that brought us there, a few of the
girls were car sick from the ride and were even more excited to stop. As I
stepped out onto the gravel road were we parked, I looked around on some of the
most tropical looking hills and mountain I have ever seen. All green, flying
insects everywhere, palm trees, varied fruit trees, and the skin boiling
temperature that the sun gives. “To think some people call this paradise”, my
thoughts echoed my attitude towards the climate I have been living in for a
good part of the last two years. “Oh well, the river waits”, my follow up
thought to the promised trip to the Yaca rio we passed over on the way.
We picked up our buckets and followed our new friend Jonselo
(Jone-sa-low) into the bush. The land sloped slowly, at first, through a
clearing for 30yds where it ended with a lined of coffee, avocado, banana, papaya,
and mango trees. The trees stretched for about 60yds and went about 10 to 20
yards deep (thats a stinkin lot of coffee beans!).
Half way through the jungle of 4 ft. coffee trees the land suddenly sloped more
until it reached the then dried river bed.
“Alright guys lets split into pairs and get to it!” Mike was
as excited as a kid in a candy store and didn’t wait for the others to get
ahead of him. The rest of us where still hoofing from the small walk in the
heat. Sarah and I decided to be a team and get the most beans out of any other
team for the day.
Everyone did well for the first hour or so (when everything
was still new and exciting) but as the minutes wore on and the sun got closer
to our skin…atleast that’s what we thought was happening, we all started to
wear down. Long sleeved (repellent against mosquitoes) shirts were laying
around our little campsite after the first round of buckets went into the
50gallon gunnysack. Jonselo said that on a good harvest 8 of these sacks will
be filled in a days work, once picked a tree takes a few months to bear fruit
again.
To make this semi-spiritual I will throw in that I was
thinking about spiritual and the purposes of it most of the time I was
mindlessly picking (not much brain power is required to pull beans off a tree).
My prayers went towards fruit to be continually born in me for the enjoyment of
others and for the Dominican church to bear spiritual fruit instead of the
fruit of self-righteousness and competition.
After a few hours we were called back to our little campsite
in the shade to have something to drink and bring and end to the picking of the
coffee beans. Before we left Jonselo taught us how they take the means and
prepares them for selling.
We all enjoyed our time and had fun helping a new friend but
we all had another situation to take care of. There was that river that needed
to be swam in….and without elaboration I’ll say that it was taken care of. And as I ate lunch on a slim rocky shore I was thankful to have shade and a view of the mountains, after being in the mountains, under shade grown trees the whole day I thought I wouldn’t want it anymore. I love coffee.
dude, you tell a good story. Just sitting here talking about how rad you are (with myself). JK…hanging out with some people, wish you were around even though the DR is better with you there. Take care!