Vertical Gardens in Sao Carlos

An integral component of urban agriculture is to make cultivatable land where there isn't any.

Much like cities grew vertically to allow more people to live there, urban agriculture tries to take advantage of growing vertically to grow more plants in the same amount of space.

Here are some of the things that my host was doing in Sao Carlos to grow plants where one normally wouldn't be able to. They're not the most complex systems ever, but they are effective and take advantage of reusable materials.

Art and gardens

One of the guiding principles at the farm that I stayed at in Sao Carlos was the relationship between art and the garden.

Rare is the wall without a mural on it. And if you see a wall without a mural on it, you are encouraged to cover it up with some art.

Although this site is in the middle of the city, the combination of plants and art give the impression of it being in a totally different reality. 

I didn't contribute to any of the murals around the property, but I did put another coat of white paint on the chipped wall in the kitchen.

Contact juggling

So these guys stayed at the house in Sao Carlos while was there.



I believe they will do birthday parties and bar mitzvahs.

Street performers are a great crowd. And one of the best activities to do with them is to watch YouTube videos. I believe we started by watching Hurricane surfing. Then we watched Parkour. Then we watched Kyrie Irving's Pepsi commercial. Then one of them said his friend put together a compilation of videos that shows the limits of the human body.

A Rosh Hashanah to remember

I would have liked to put this blog post up after Rosh Hashanah, when it was much more relevant. But I wasn't in the blogging mood then.

Now that I'm on the blogging wagon again, I will continue to blog about my adventures in chronological order.

I was staying at an urban permaculture site in the city of Sao Carlos during Rosh Hashanah. I had been there for a week and was planning on staying there for another week. I didn't want to leave town for a couple of days to go to services. Plus, I was certain that I would be able to find a Jewish community in the metropolis of 500,000 people that boasts two large universities and some large industry.

I googled a bit and found several references to a small Jewish community in Sao Carlos. After some more in-depth searching, I found the contact info for the "Comunidad Israelita de Sao Carlos."

Everywhere I had gone in South America until that point, "Comunidad Israelita" is another way of saying "Jewish." Jackpot.

I called the phone number and asked about Rosh Hashanah services. They said that they were going to convene on the first night of the holiday and that I was more than welcome to join.

After spending a half hour searching for the synagogue (the address, Google Maps, and everybody who we asked for directions disagreed on where the place was actually located), my host dropped me off in what looked like a squatter settlement on the outskirts of town. The guy at the door greeted me with a "shanah tovah" and a giant kippah.

As I stepped into the sanctuary, there was a CD playing some prayers on repeat. The walls were covered in posters with pictures of Jerusalem and Israel. It looked more like a Hebrew school classroom than a sanctuary. 

And as soon as the prayer leader made the first reference to Jesus, I realized what kind of congregation I was visiting.

I stayed for the rest of the service, which didn't really follow the structure of any service I had ever been to. It was a fascinating experience, nonetheless. The ambience sounded much more like the evangelical churches I have seen in South America than a synagogue. The prayer leader had the highest Hebrew level of anyone of the members, but even he was struggling through basic blessings.

They frequently chose to play a CD of the prayers, instead of singing them. At the end of the service, they went with the special Rosh Hashanah mix, which included shofar sounds. 

Once the abbreviated service ended, there was a festive meal that included apples and honey, fish, lots of fruit, and shmoozing.

From what I understand of the holiday, the mitzvot of rosh hashanah are to hear the shofar and eat apples and honey, which is exactly what I did. I also got a great story out of it. 

The next day I made some of my favorite Rosh Hashanah foods for my hosts. They loved the kugel, apple cake, challah, carrots, etc.

Traveling

As I learn more about the culture and get a better understanding of the Portuguese language, I get a better sense of the slang and idioms.

A couple months ago, my friend asked me "traveling mayonnaise" meant anything in English.

For a second, I thought he was pulling my leg and telling me some sort of joke. Then he explained that in Portuguese, "to travel in mayonnaise" is a slang for crazy or absurd.

If someone does something that seems a bit odd or is just rambling, you ask them "are you traveling in mayonnaise?"

I have asked some people, including a linguist, if they knew the roots of this phrase. He told me that it emerged in the 1990s and is much more common among young people. It's obviously not a formal study into the phrases history, but it's enough for me.

The phrase can even been shorted to just "traveling."

For example, yesterday I was rambling about something. My host asked me if I was traveling. Because I understood the context and the word's double meaning, I told her that I was. She very much enjoyed the joke.

We, the people

In Portuguese, "gente" means people.

But it doesn't only mean people.

It is commonly used to refer to multiple people in the first, second or third person.

Let me try to explain.

"A gente" should mean "the people" in the third person. But in Portuguese, "a gente" is another way to refer to "we."

One would think that "A gente vai" would translate to "the people are going." But in context, it would mean "we are going."

It can also be used in the second person, especially if you are trying to get the attention of a large group of people.

You can yell "oh, gente," and everyone would ideally turn and listen to what you are saying. This would be the equivalent of saying "Hey folks."

Then you can also have the standard third person meaning of "people."

I had some trouble the first few times I heard these constructions, but eventually I picked up on it enough to start using it myself.

I have tried to think of examples of English words that can refer to the first, second, or third person, but my English is really weak these days. None came to mind.

The finest piece of art I've ever seen

Coincidentally, my visit to Sao Paulo happened at the same time as the city's biennial modern art exhibition. 

For three months, the show fills a giant expo center at the city's largest park. It is so full of stuff that one would need three or four days to get a good sense of it. My friend and I opted for one of the tours that starts every thirty minutes.

Between an exhibit of a guy who took a picture of himself every hour for an entire year, a display of mattresses and sounds from one of Sao Paulo's orphanages, and an exhibit where a guy took a Polaroid of his own bowel movement was the single greatest piece of art I have ever seen.

A photographer stood on a street corner in Shanghai on Oct. 1, 2005 between 10:50 and 12:30 and took pictures of people walking down the street with their shirts rolled up. He then put those pictures in a frame and produced magic. 

You could walk down any street on the Ecuadorian coast between 4:00 and 4:15 and do the same thing. The challenge would actually be to find enough guys who still have their shirts on. 

He included that frame in a display of hundreds of frames and submitted it to the Bienal Art Show. Each one of the frames says where the photographer was and what time of day. There is a common theme in each frame. 

 This was shot in New York in the span of an hour and half.

This was shot in Amsterdam in the span of two hours.

This was shot in New York in the span of two hours.

Maybe I exaggerated a bit on the greatness of the rolled-up shirt photo. It's difficult for me to think of all the art I've ever seen. So I'll be cautious on this one and place the photo in the top ten.

Quit blaming the men

I was riding around town with farmer the other week, and we drove past some pretty girls who were walking down the street.

As soon as we got close to the them, the car's horn sounded. I didn't think anything of it.

We continued driving down the road and came upon some more pretty girls. The horn sounded again.

I looked over at the farmer and he said, "There is a problem with this car's horn. Every time it sees an attractive woman it makes a noise. I can't control it."

In more than three years in Latin America, I have been trying to find an answer to why men catcall so often if it never works to pick up girls.

Now I understand. It's not the guys' fault.

Portuguese Language Museum

Languages evolve and are shaped by a culture's interaction with the natural world and other societies.

Brazilian Portuguese is a fascinating examples of this. From its Portuguese origins, the language has been shaped by its interaction with native tribes, African slaves, Spanish neighbors, French and British traders, Japanese and European immigrants, American popular culture, the digital age, among others, the language continues to change. 

Each of these interactions brings new words to the Brazilian form of the Portuguese language, which can be traced at the Portuguese language Museum in Sao Paulo. 

Within the museum there is a timeline, from the 16th century to the present, that tracks when words were introduced into the language and the historical events that brought them them.

There is also a section that traces the origins of Portuguese words back to their original language. It was impressive to see how much the indigenous languages of the Brazilian coast continue to be reflected in the language today. 

If you are near Sao Paulo, the museum is definitely worth checking out. Located in the Estação da Luz, it is easy to get to from anywhere in the Metro system. There´s also a piano in the train station´s entrance that anyone can play.

Or just use the piano bench as a bench

The whole time that I was in the museum I kept thinking to myself how cool an American English museum would be to trace the language's development and explore how the digital age has impacted it.

Back at the vegetable stand

After my stint in coffee country, I decided to spend a weekend in Belo Horizonte before continuing onward to Sao Paulo.

The morning after I got back to Belo Horizonte, I went directly to the vegetable stand.

I arrived there at 6:30 a.m., so Marcio greeted me with a "good afternoon" since he had been awake since 1:00 a.m.

It was fun to kibbutz and shmooze with Marcio. I was also able to capture a photo of Marcio and myself at the vegetable stand, which he was very reticent about. I explained that if I didn't have a picture of this people in the U.S. wouldn't believe that I went to Brazil to volunteer at a vegetable stand.

He got a good laugh out of it and agreed to the photo.

When I arrived in Sao Paulo the following week, I went to a street market to buy some fruits. I asked the vendor how much his clementines cost, and he told me that hey were R$7 per dozen, which was twice as much as Marcio charges to his clients. So I explained to the vendor that I was working in a street booth the week before in Belo Horizonte, and there is no way that the price of clementines doubled in a week.

He probably didn't understand a word I was saying because of my accent, but it felt nice to be able to know and explain that his price was ridiculous.

I walked down the street after that and found reasonably priced clementines.

Pregnant pause

On my last day in Simonesia, the entire staff of REDE had a meeting with a community about setting up a fruit processing business.

This blog isn't about the details of the community meeting because this meeting was much like any community meeting I have ever attended. 

For the first fifteen minutes, the REDE representatives explained their ideas for how the business might work, asked the community members to offer their suggestions, and did a nice job of facilitating the discussion.

Everyone was on board with the project. Let's be honest, who is going to say "no" to the idea of making more money and having a more stable income. 

Everyone decided that, in addition everyone's active participation, the project would also require a president, treasurer, and secretary. The facilitator explained what she thought would be some of the responsibilities of the each person and then came the best part of the formation of any group or club — deciding who would assume actual responsibilities.

The facilitator asked who they think would be a good president. 

Five seconds passed. No one spoke. No one made eye contact with any else.

Ten seconds passed. The silence continued. Everyone was looking at the floor. The tension is starting to build.

Fifteen seconds passed. The tension is really coming to a fore.

The facilitator asks again.

The silence continues. The tension continues to build.

Then, someone suddenly breaks the silence. In a rather meek, barely audible voice, someone says "I can't be the president because I live a little far from here, but I think that XXX would be a good president."

The rest of the group, relieved that they weren't nominated, starts explaining why XXX would be a good candidate while also explaining why he or she can't do it. 

By the time the dust settles, everyone has recused themselves from consideration except for the nominee. Then XXX, startled by the nomination, responds "I can't do it because I don't have the time." But it's too late. 

The facilitator, glad to have an option, tries to quell fears about the time commitment and explain why XXX has the ideal skills for the position. The more she explains the more everyone else is convinced that XXX is the perfect fit, even if XXX never expressed any interest in the position.

Then there is an election. By this point, XXX capitulates and accepts the responsibility. They move on to the next position where the same ritual is repeated. 

My favorite part of any community meeting is the time between when the facilitator asks for nominees and the first person speaks. The tension is palpable. The eye contact is non existent. And once someone speaks, the sighs of relief of everyone in the group, except the nominee, are audible.

I have often thought about why people in the United States often nominate themselves for these positions and express more interest in assuming the responsibilities, while people in communities that I have worked with might be just as ambitious but are not as apt to express it to the rest of the group.

Either way, I love the pregnant pauses that this reservation provides.

Homemade soap

Soap is one of those items that I never really thought about making. Because my hygiene and cleanliness depended on it, I didn't trust myself to make it.

 I always thought that buying from the folks who had been making soap for years was a better option. And it probably is.

 In fact the idea of making soap never crossed my mind. I always thought it would be to technical or complex for me to do on my own.

Then I met Da Assis and his family. They have been making their own soap for years. Luckily, it was time for them to make a new batch while I was there, giving me the opportunity get a first-hand look at how to make homemade soap.

 I'm not sure of the environmental impacts of homemade soap production versus commercial production. I would imagine that they differences are negligible, and De Assis says they save a bunch of money.

Ingredients for soap:

3 liters of vegetable oil
500 g of soda (Sodium Hydroxide)
20 L of water
1 liter of alcohol

Mix the oil and alcohol in one container

 In another container, mix the soda with one liter of water.

 Then mix together with the rest of the water and the oil and alcohol mixture.

 Let sit overnight to allow it to harden.

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 Ingredients for avocado soap:

18 kg of avocado
1 kg of soda (NaOH)

Put the avocado is a rice sack for three days to allow the water to drain out.

Then pass the remaining avocado through a sieve.

Mix the avocado with the the soda for 15-20 minutes .

Let it sit for a couple of weeks to harden.

This recipe is much more feasible if you have an avocado tree or live in an area that produces avocado. Otherwise, it probably won't make financial sense to produce your own avocado soap.

Odds and ends

Alan Jackson is really popular in Brazil. He doesn't quite reach the level of his brother, Michael, but he is definitely a sensation. When I was working in the coffee fields, the other guys were talking about how Alan Jackson was going to perform in Sao Paulo and how they wanted to attend.

Brazil has a very strong local country music scene. All the rural kids listen to sertanejo music. It employs liberal use of the accordion and seems like it is always in a hoedown. The "Ai Se Te Pego" song that became a global phenomenon is related to this genre of music.

I consider myself very up to date on the sertanejo scene because I spent a week with twenty twelve-year olds at the rural high school. In addition to playing Michel Telo on repeat, they are big fans of Gustavo Lima and Luan Santana. They made a point of passing me all the sertanejo music they had on to my iTunes.

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I was watching the Brazilian national spelling bee when the word "Yiddish" came up.

In Portuguese, there apparently are two acceptable ways to spell Yiddish.

The one that that student used, and was correct, was "iideche." I explained to the person that I was watching with that you could also start spelling the word Yiddish with a "Y."

I don't think he believed me, but I would bet that he will never come across the word "iideche" for the rest of his life unless he enjoys watching spelling bee reruns.

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I did the P90X ab routine with some of the kids at the rural school. They were complaining about the burning for the next three days.

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Many people have offered to buy me flip-flops. Apparently there is a feeling in Brazil that you can't leave the country without buying a pair of Brazilian flip flops. My host family in Brumadinho bought me flip-flops for my birthday. Several other people have offered to buy them for me, even though I explain that I already have a pair.  What am I going to do with another pair of flip-flops? And I already have Chacos so I don't really need the pair I have. I just like keeping them for their sentimental value. 

Moving on up

Ivan and his wife are great people.

I only spent a few days with them, but it was a really enjoyable time. They were so appreciative of what they had.

They said that three years ago, they didn't even have a TV in the house. Ten years ago, they could barely get any credit.

They couldn't even support themselves working their own land and would have to spend some time working as day laborers for large landowners to make ends meet.

Now, they have a TV, a motorcycle, and a washing machine. They are really thankful to Brazil's ex-president, Lula, for finally reaching out to the rural populations that they say were forgotten under previous politicians. Whether or not that's true, it's great to see these hardworking folks have access to services and technologies that can change their lives.

The washing machine saves Ivan's wife at least an hour of work every day.

The motorcycle allows Ivan to transport his harvest directly to the market in the nearby town without having to pay a middleman to do so. When I was staying with his, we harvested cabbage and clementines. He delivered them to the market and makes about $20. He makes that delivery about three times a week. (Having me harvest clementines for sale is a poor business decision. I have no trouble picking the fruits. The problem is they often find my stomach before they have a chance to reach the market.)

The TV allows them to be more connected to world, watch soccer on Sunday afternoons, and soap operas every night. 

I´m not the only one

One morning while staying at Ivan's house, I was the first one out of bed. I went outside to see if the laundry I had put on the line the previous day had dried.

I noticed there was a guy waiting there for Ivan, which I thought was strange because I could still hear Ivan snoring. They guy started talking to me. I didn't say anything to initiate the conversation and didn't respond to anything he said, but he still managed to speak to me for 20 minutes before Ivan came outside.

I had no idea what that guy was saying. His strange accent was made even more difficult by the fact that he hadn't completely sobered up from the previous day's drinking.

I asked Ivan's wife, whose name I never learned, if she understands what that guy says. She reassured me that she has no clue, either. 

Harvesting coffee, part two

In my previous post on harvesting coffee, I explained how farmers traditionally harvest coffee.

Or so I thought.

After farmers pass through their fields the first time, they return a few weeks or months later to pick up any beans that fell off on to the ground and missed the first time they harvested.

Here's how they do it.

They go through their field with a rake and make piles of dry leaves and beans every few meters. After they have made piles in all the rows in their field, they will go through with a sieve to separate the beans from the leaves and dirt in a process known as "blowing coffee."

I believe that it gets this name because they throw the beans and leaves into the air during the process. The leaves are lighter, less aerodynamic, and don't fall as quickly, whereas the beans come right back down.

Ivan, my host dad at this farm

Ivan, pictured above, and I were working on his uncle's property this day. All of his neighbors are his relatives, so they just rotate between each other's properties, helping their family member's get the most out of their coffee harvest as possible.

Peeling oranges

In the United States, I always peeled my oranges with my hands. The idea of using a knife to do so never really crossed my mind until I got to Ecuador.

There, the people laughed when I tried to peel an orange with my hands - mostly because they accomplished the same task in about four seconds. It is honestly one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. Sometimes they do it so quickly you don't even see it. It just happens.

Whenever the gringo tries to peel the orange with the knife, he or she invariable cuts off about an eighth of the orange and/or one of his or her digits.

I didn't realize how much of a knife-only society I was in until I met Ivan.

We were taking a break from blowing coffee and eating the oranges we had brought with us for snack. I looked around for a knife but couldn't find one. I started to peel the orange with my hand when Ivan stopped me.

He picked up to sticks from the ground, using one to fashion a knife out of the other. Then he proceeded to peel the orange.

I have greatly improved at peeling oranges with a knife but I still take much longer and do a much worse job than any campesino would blindfolded. I have learned a technique that uses both hands and knifes that I find works best for me. I will feature it in an upcoming blog post.

And that's how you make brown sugar

I had always heard about how natural the brown sugar production process was, but I never knew the details. 

I knew what the sugar cane plant looked like, and I knew what brown sugar looked like. But I didn't understand how they turned the juice-filled plant into the stuff that is in the pantry.

On my last day at the school, the local community asked the students to help them with an experiment. The community has been producing brown sugar for over a hundred years. They are in the process of applying for a grant to explore other markets, but they needed to know exactly how much sugar cane they could grow in the 10 meter by 10 meter space. 

So they asked the students, and I tagged along.

Harvest sugar cane and cut off the leaves.

Transport the cut sugar cane to where it is going to be processed. 

Weigh your harvest. Obviously this isn't always necessary but it was good for the experiment. The students harvested 364 kg of sugar cane. They also managed to eat a lot of sugar cane in the process of harvesting. So if you want a more accurate number, I would conservatively add 5-10 kg of sugar to account for "loss."

Run the sugar cane through this press to extract the juice.

The juice runs from the press through those tubes in this picture. That white box is a filter that will take out some of the chunks before the liquid is then stored in the giant blue barrel.

Then you are going to place the juice in a giant cauldron and let it boil down for half and hour.

You are going to need to get a fire going below the cauldron. This guy's job is to chop wood and make sure the fire keeps going.  He gets there at 5:00 every day to start the fire. 

It's a sugary shvitz. You are going to need to use that giant paddle above to continually stir the juice as it boils down.

Once the juice has been cooking for a half hour, you pass it down the ramp into the awaiting tray to be stirred around with a hoe.

At first, you will be stirring around a liquid.

As it cools, it starts to harden, making it more of an effort.  As you move it around with the hoe, the individual granules  become more evident, but there are still some chunks.

So you sift it to make sure only the finest pieces fall through. Then you continue to work the remaining chunks until they have a similar consistency.

And then you've got a pile of brown sugar.

The student's harvest yielded 30 kg of brown sugar for the community. 

This was the process in a very traditional processing system. I imagine that there are more mechanized systems for larger-scale production, and I would think that white sugar requires a similar process with a bleaching step added along the way.

Women's group greenhouse

The Brazilian government has some programs and laws that promote local, small-scale agriculture.  One of the most interesting is a law that requires at least 30% of the food for school-feeding programs to be bought from local producers.

For small-scale producers, this provides a market for their goods and can also act as an incentive for farmers to diversify from export-oriented agriculture to include local, consumption-based products.

One of the women's groups that REDE works with was doing just that. Although they all work in their families' coffee plantations, they saw this program as another revenue stream for their families.

A community member set aside a piece of land on her property to be used as the women's group's garden.

They meet once a week for workdays, and all members are required to attend. Because many of the women also have small children, they designate one member of the group each week to be responsible for taking care of the children. Another member of the group is responsible to make lunch.

Every day of the week, a different member of the group is responsible for making sure the plants get watered.

They started selling vegetables to the local school. Then other members of the community heard about the women's vegetable production and asked how they could get their hands on the veggies. So the women started selling to other people in the community.

On the day that I visited them, REDE was helping them build a greenhouse to protect their seedlings during the rainy season. The women prepared a few more beds for the garden as their husbands worked together to build the greenhouse (can't escape those gender roles).

The workday had the same atmosphere as your standard minga in Ecuador.

Everyone shows up a little late, shmoozes for a while, and then drinks some coffee. Then someone questions the rational behind the whole endeavor, proposing they should change the entire plan, before being convinced that everything will be fine with the original one. Then they notice there is a tool missing that they think they need, but then realize they can do without.

Once at the worksite, there was a lot of standing around. All the men did their best civil engineer impression when trying to measure the dimensions for the proposed project. A few people took the lead in the project as the rest of them looked on. Little by little they all joined in the fun, dividing themselves among the necessary tasks. Before you know it, lunchtime arrives.

After lunch, the group takes some time to reassemble. There are typically fewer people working in the afternoon. Extended breaks always bring a few casualties to group projects. At this point, everyone just wants to finish the project and go home. So they get really motivated and pull it together.

On a funny note, I didn't really know what we were building until I saw all the materials. I had asked the technician from REDE what we were going to be building, and she said "estufa." I thought I knew what this word meant in Portuguese. When I saw the materials we were going to use, it was clear that I had no idea what "estufa" was, but it was too late to ask the technician again.

Now I know: estufa = greenhouse. 

The four-use stove

Many families in this region of Brazil still cook with wood stoves. They take dead wood from the forest outside and use it to cook their food. But they don't simply use their wood stoves for the fire. Instead, they get four uses out of the fire.

1. Stove
2. Oven, which is located behind the stove.
3. Hot water heater - Either there is a tank of water or the water pipes for the shower run through the chimney area.
4. After the fire is out, they take the wood ash and sprinkle it on their garden beds because it is a great soil additive.

Machete 2.0?

Many people believe that the only thing you need to clear a field is a machete.

They are missing a key component of the process.

Can you guess what it is from the photos below?

Photos are screen shots from "Yo Me Quedo Aqui."
If you understand Spanish and like agroecology, you should watch it here.

In addition to the blade to slice through the grass, the farmer uses a stick, hoes, or his or her hand to hold up whatever weeds he will be cutting to create tension. Otherwise, you need many more strokes to cover the same area.

My eyes were opened to a new tool last week.

We needed to go get some fuel for the wood-burning stove, check out his bee boxes, and do some general maintenance around the property. In Ecuador, the only tool that I would think of using for this work is a machete. In fact, if you tried to do this work with anything other than a machete, you would probably be laughed at and ridiculed.

The farmer walked out of his house with something that looked like a hooked machete at the end of a walking stick.

The first thought in my mind was "what is he going to do with that thing?"

After sharpening the blade, we went to check out his beehives. He sliced through the weeds that grew onto the trail with such ease. He barely had to bend over. Notice how the farmer in the first image is bending in the back, you don't have to do that with the bill hook.

Then we walked up to check out the progress on his orchard of native fruit trees. On the way, he saw some dead branches that could be used in the wood stove. With a few quick swipes, he had enough wood for a few days.

This tool, or billhook, was first used in agriculture in the middle east. According to a farmer I was working with, it is currently made out of recycled automotive transmissions. You are supposed to the sharpen the entire hooked, blade section of tool for maximum effect - which is exactly what this farmer, Ze Antonio, achieved.

Maybe it was how sharp he made the blade. Maybe it was the amount of experience he has with the billhook. But he performed every task with such ease that I came away very impressed with the tool and its potential in any garden or farm or costume of the Grim Reaper from "Scream."

I would consider brining one of these back to the States, but I don't want to shlep it around South America for the next six months. I already have one all-purpose tool. 

Harvesting coffee

I arrived in Simonesia at the tail end of the coffee harvest. My timing couldn't have been better.

During the middle of the harvest season, farmers are known to start working as early as 4:00 a.m. and work all day into the night plucking beans off the plant. They spend all day maneuvering on the steep, often slippery, slopes that the coffee is planted on, which can be made even more harrowing by the early morning or late-evening darkness.

Luckily, the family that I was staying with did not start working at such hours. In fact, I was typically the first one out of bed in the morning. After a good breakfast of their own coffee and corn bread, we headed out to the fields.

The equipment used to harvest the beans will vary, depending on the area's climate.  One area that I visited uses a gas-powered coffee harvester that is fashioned out of a weed-whacker. Instead of a spinning blade, they use a rake attachment. They place the tool in the branches and rake out the beans. This tool is great for harvesting all the beans on a plant at once.

The first farm I stayed at to harvest coffee is in a slightly colder and more humid climate. The beans took longer to ripen and did not do so uniformly. You might find that half of the beans on the plant are red or yellow (ready to harvest), while the rest of them were still green. These kinds of plants must be harvested manually. Luckily there have been some technological breakthroughs in manual coffee harvesting in the last few years that make it a much more pleasant experience. (Always pick the beans pulling away from the plant so the same bud will be able to produce next year)

To harvest the beans, you place tarp on the grown below the trees you are going to harvest. Then you pluck the beans, and they fall onto the tarp. Once you have finished harvesting the plants under the tarp, you move the tarp along the row of coffee plants to the next ones you are going to harvest.

At the end of the row, you separate out the sticks and leaves that also fell onto the tarp and put the fresh beans into a sack. If dry, the beans can stay in the sack in the field for three or four hours before they begin to lose quality.  (This is probably why they have a coffee break every few hours)

When you have accumulated enough sacks, you will carry them over to a drying area, where they will sit in the sun for about 11 days. There are also machines that dry coffee beans in less than two days, if you are in a rush.

At that point, the beans leave the farm. They are put into sacks to be taken to a de-pulping place and/or sold.