Un Viaje a una Finca y el Campo

Yesterday, one of the directors took us on a trip to one of the many fincas, or plantations, in Guatemala. Guatemala is filled with fincas growing cotton, sugarcane, and coffee among other things. The fincas often provide much needed income for the indigenous people in the mountains, who usually work for six months in their villages tending to their crops and the rest of the year working in the fincas. Unfortunately, the situation is not always a positive one and many families leave the finca owing more money than they earned, as once the already low per-pound earnings are tallied, the owners deduct payments for rent, food, any medicine purchased as well as the cost of beer from the finca´s cantina, if any. The recent increases in competition in the coffee market has hit Guatemala especially hard and has eliminated even many of these opportunities, leaving former workers to find work elsewhere or go without. According to our director, most of the fincas do not allow visitors because of the working conditions and their fear of outside intervention, but the finca we were visiting was one of a few exceptions that paid their workers a "salario justicio" and provided health care and other needed services. Children were also not made to work on the finca, but were only allowed to help their parents for a few hours each day.

Despite the sad reality of the fincas, the trip was interesting. We were shown the process of coffee bean production from the plant, to the separation of the quality beans from the poor, to the drying and shelling in preparation for distribution. It was very really interesting. My favorite part was the final separation process where the beans are sent through a series of channels where they separate themselves by weight, the heaviest sinking to the bottom and being caught by a strategically placed board, with the lightest, of lowest quality, flowing along with the water to be made into compost. There is a specific bug that bores into coffee beans and eats out the middle of the beans making them lighter and these beans are among those that float out to the end. We were told that these bugs could destroy an entire crop in a short amount of time, requiring the use of pesticides, but that some farmers use bees as a natural solution, as the bees fill the holes in the beans with honey, blocking the airway and killing the bugs inside.

From the finca, we could clearly see the intermittent eruptions of one of Guatemalas most active volcanos, Santiaguito.

After visiting the finca, we drove out to an area in the countryside for a short hike in a area that had once housed a village that had since been destroyed by a volcano. soon after leaving our van, we came to a steep ravine, connected to the other side by an old rope bridge (a concrete bridge further up the ravine apparently destroyed by the volocano). I have never been afraid of heights, but this bridge definitely tested me. It also further strengthened my resolve never to engage in any sport that involves jumping off similar bridges!

After crossing the bridge, we walked through scenic grass lands covered with trees that I recognized from South Africa, giving the landscape the feel of an African safari. We reached a wide river and crossed another bridge made of plywood and logs, much more stable than the first. We continued along a curving path of soil and rocks until we came to a curve in the the path, where our director told us to "cerrar sus ojos." Opening our eyes, we were greeted with the sight of the a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains and enveloped in peaceful serenity, interrupted only by the tropical sounds of the calls of the resident birds.

We spent the next hour or so swimming in the lake before returning to Xela, where we split up and went to our respective homes for lunch and a nap.