Day 4 & 5

I was just too tired last night so I am going to combine yesterday and today to give you an idea of our days here in beautiful, friendly San Lucas!!
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 We began the day by separating into two groups.  One group went and picked coffee and the other group worked on the cistern for a new building.  This second group moved buckets of dirt from a 14 foot hole which will still need to chiseled through boulders for at least another 2 feet.  The Guatemalans have very basic and simple tools.  These boulders are cut out using machetes only.  It can take weeks to remove one boulder.

The coffee picking group had a long drive in an open bed truck referred to as a chicken bus here.  Up a winding road to the mountainside.  We were dropped off the side of the road and followed our guide through the woods until he suddenly stopped and motioned around him.  I didn't see anything at first but a bunch of dying trees but upon closer inspection, the sparsely leafed branches had berries covering both sides of the skinny branches.  The ripe coffee is the color of a cranberry but just a bit larger.  Each bean needs to be individually picked as not all berries on the stem are ripe.  This is a very arduous process as it took 20 of us 2.5 hours to fill 1 100 pound sack.  Each 100 pound sack of ripe beans will yield 9 ponds of roasted beans!!!  My appreciation for coffee has now taken a whole new meaning!

The afternoon had us going to the reforestation project run by the mission. Most Guatemalans use wood daily for cooking in open pits so firewood is a necessary life commodity.  Consequently, many, many people have breathing problems and their homes are coated in creosote.  We split up again and some sanded wooded spoons for sale to local people and some are available for sale through the New Ulm website.  The spoons are carved using machetes by young men who apprentice with a skilled carver.  This is to teach the young men a skill.  75% of the sales profits are returned to the boys and the remaining is used for supplies (bags, string, knives).  Mayans believe strongly in Mother Earth being a source of all things so nothing goes to waste.  The carved wood is leftover scraps from other projects and the paper bags are also recycled.  The school children draw art on the bags for decoration, usually depicting pictures of trees, the earth and plants.