pa Iximulew

miércoles, 23 de julio de 2008

Coffee



On Saturday we visited San Juan la Laguna, which is one town over from San Pedro, on the other side of the lake. San Juan has undergone some community projects, mostly of a public service nature. They bought land to make their own landfill and have a trash service, they built public recreation spaces included a covered amphitheater/soccer field, they got funding from the Riecken Foundation to build a public library, and they have a whole slew of weaving cooperatives, most of which use a natural dying process. It is a Tz'utujil-speaking town, which is a close relative to Kaqchikel.



Although my search for Maya documentaries at the library came up empty-handed, in the afternoon we took a tour of a coffee cooperative called La Voz que Clama en el Desierto, which is comprised of around 175 families. The farm is certified organic every year by a US company, and the majority of the coffee is exported to San Diego, USA, where it is toasted and packaged for further export, under a fair trade label.

To be certified organic, they made their own natural fertilizers out of cow and horse manure and the pulp from the coffee beans that is naturally shed in the process of cleaning and drying the beans. The coffee is shade-grown so that it doesn't need expensive irrigation. The types of trees that can give shade and compliment the coffee plants are specific, and include avocado trees, banana trees, and another kind of tree that is mentioned in the Popol Vuh (the Mayan sacred text). Here you can see the coffee growing below the trees.



At one point in the tour, you could see the difference between their organic coffee plants, and the non-organic plants of a neighbor. The difference was huge! The organic plants were gorgeous and lush and a deep green, while the plants that used chemical fertilizer were light green and stringy.

In 2005 shortly after Katrina hit the US, there were huge mudslides on that side of Lake Atitlan which destroyed many houses and killed many people. Our guide showed us where you could see the difference between the old level of top soil and the new one, after the mudslides. Ironically, while the mudslides also destroyed many plants, it also rejuvenated the soil, making way for better crops in the future. The old level is where the small fence is, and you can see the dirt that now covers the plant:



After the tour, they gave a very small weaving demonstration and offered to let us try weaving. I jumped on that bandwagon! So the woman strapped me in and struggled with my weaving incompetence. Eventually I got the hang of it, even if it was short-lived:

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