one final graduación

well, back in november i attended my final salvadoran graduation. it was a really busy day. in the morning we had the graduation for my school and later antonio and i were invited to attend papa chepe´s daughter´s graduation in ataco. it was a bittersweet experience! although i was glad to see all the kids graduating, it was sad to think i wouldn´t be there with them again next year...especially those 6th graders. this year´s group of sixth graders were really great and i had been with them since they were in 4th grade. they are all supposedly going on to 7th grade which is a big change from the previous sixth grade classes i had worked with. so i was really proud of them, especially the girls. anyway, here´s some photos from our school´s graduation.

me and the 6th grade girls.....they are on their way to seventh grade! as for me, i´m on my way back home.....

luz de maria

the graduating kindergartners



don jorge´s son abel (don jorge was one of the witnesses for my wedding)

me with two really great 5th graders, ruth and selena

all in the family.....deysi, the oldest, with her two sisters reina and heydi

6th grader rafael antonio

me and jenifer (and her little sister in front)

the 6th graders with the teachers

me with chus, ever and luisito - maria laura´s son




next it was on to papa chepe´s daughter´s graduation. she goes to a catholic school in ataco that has a really large number of students. i thought that was really nice that they invited us to the graduation because it wasn´t just the church ceremony and then the ceremony at the colegio. it was dinner and dessert as well! that´s what i love about salvadorans....even if you are not a physical member of their family they will treat you like you are. they invite you to eat with them, invite you to all kinds of family-oriented celebrations and are really happy to have you. that´s what makes peace corps so rewarding....you get to make all these new ¨families¨ even when you´re missing your family back home. anyway, here are some photos from that event.


me with papa chepe´s family

papa chepe´s whole family (and antonio) and the graduating girls

me and papa chepe after dinner at the colegio

papa chepe´s daughter (right) and her cousin with their medals for excellent marks


so that´s the last graduation i´ll be attending here in el sal and i hope everyone who i taught and saw leave my school in san jorge continues to study until they graduate from university!! buena suerte!

all in a day´s work

i finally learned what it was like to go out and pick coffee all day. well, i say ¨all day¨ like i was out there at the crack of dawn and worked ´til sundown or something. not exactly. mirna invited me to go with her and her sisters and their kids to her family´s finca after christmas. back in the day, mirna´s grandparents built a hacienda-style house in the forests around ahuachapán and the surrounding land is filled with coffee trees. for a starter coffee lesson, i wrote about the coffee process in this previous blog entry. today´s entry covers more about how the coffee gets cut, who does it and how the coffee is prepared before it´s processed.

my preparation for cutting coffee started with finding a canasta, or basket. on christmas day antonio and i went over to visit papa chepe at his house in san jorge. i told him i was going out to ¨work¨ the next day and so he lent me his basket.



before i go on, i had to post this picture.



when antonio and i went over to papa chepe´s house, it was pandemonium. all these kids were there, papa chepe was drinking guaro (it was 9:00 a.m.!) and this duck was wandering around their house. then it hopped on the couch and papa chepe came over to drunkenly talk to us about politics and sat down on the couch on top of the duck! but the duck didn´t even care, it just moved over.

anyway, enough of the quacks. so the day after christmas antonio and i met mirna at her house and her three sisters came over with all their kids. i think there were 10 of us in all. we packed up and got a pickup ride out to the campo. when we were on the dirt road up to the hacienda, this woman comes running out on the road and says we need to help her. apparently her 2-year old daughter was in the car waiting for her mom to come out and while she was waiting, she locked the doors with the keys still inside. this happened like 45 minutes before we showed up. so we all got out and went over to where her car was and this little girl was screaming inside. the mom didn´t want to break the window, but we were all like ¨you have to break it.¨ i tried jimmying the lock with a wire hanger because god knows how many times i´ve had to do that in the past with my car. but then the girl started vomiting and this guy immediately broke the back window and got her out. it was really a weird event.



so after we all got over that, we hopped back into the truck and continued on deeper into the forest. finally we arrived at the hacienda and hung out for a bit and ate some food. then mirna and her sister took me down to the part of the forest where all the workers were. it was time to start picking coffee.



first we talked to the mandador and he showed mirna where they had been cutting coffee that day. antonio had to show me how to pick the coffee off the branch. my instinct was to just pick each semilla off like you would a cherry or something. but he showed me how you hold the top of the branch, bring your hand down the whole branch and let the semillas just fall into the basket.





so then it was my turn. let´s just say i´m not that advanced of a coffee picker. i did my best. you know, though, i think i had mentioned before in a previous blog entry how coffee cutting is boring, dirty work. well, it is dirty, but boring it´s not. i really liked it, fijate. granted, i didn´t pick that much - compared to what a normal day´s collection is. you´ll see the fruits of my pathetic pickings a little further down when the guys weighed it.











after i kind of filled my basket, it was off to watch the pros do it. here are some photos of some of the people who were out that day.





















mirna and her sister waiting around for me to pick my coffee

this guy was too funny. when i was going through the forest taking pictures of everyone, he was eating his tortilla for lunch. i didn´t want to take a picture of him eating, because, well, he was eating! so i said hi to him and then continued on through the forest. then when we were leaving, he came and chased me down and i came back and he asked me really politely if i would take his picture. so i did and he was super happy.



so back at the hacienda, everyone kind of made it back in their own time with their daily product. as i talked about before in the previous blog entry about coffee, everyone then sits out on the grass and separates the green semillas from the red and yellow ones.




everything is then re-bagged and then weighed with a roman scale, like the one in the photo below. each person gets their coffee weighed individually because they will be paid for what they picked.








ok, this is the funny part. this is MY bag of coffee. 12 pounds! that´s it! so pathetic. most people had one sack - which is equal to 150 pounds, or 6 arrobas. mine? 12 friggin´pounds!



once the sacks are all weighed and re-bagged together, the entire lot is weighed again and compared with numbers from the individual weigh-in. these are the final numbers that are given to the beneficio when the finca owners take the coffee there.




it was quite a day! in-between picking the coffee and weighing it, mirna took us down to this waterfall that didn´t have any water because it´s the dry season. but it was a fun hike.




women carrying water from the chorro down by the waterfall back up to their homes.

a view from the top


anyway, so if any of you are wondering what it is like to cut coffee, that´s how it is! hope you enjoyed seeing it!