More stuff from last week. On Friday I went on a Coffee Tour of the San Juan Coffe Cooperative, which is right by Centro Maya, where I volunteer. They have like 120 people that jointly own the coffee grown there, collectively operate it, and share in the profits. Everything is done organically and they export exclusively to California. Our friend Benedicto, who operates a Spanish school in San Juan had some extra spots for a tour for some of his students so I got to go for free. It was good to already know about the coffee making process because I wouldn´t have understood everything the guy said as well if I didn´t already have some prior knowledge. It was really cool and I had a very good cup of coffee after the tour. I stayed around and made photos of some of the guys working and they were all cool about me hanging out and shooting. Seeing everything that goes into making coffee and going through the process myself has definitely made me appreciate coffee more. When I get back home, I´m definitely going to make an effort to buy coffee from places that I know the local people benefit from the sale. It´d definitely possible with these locally owned organic cooperatives. During the tour there was a documentary film crew following our group for a promotional video about Guatemala´s Coffee industry. The San Juan cooperative was one of only two featured in the video as a model for the country.
As always, more photos to come soon. Cheers,
Pat
1 comment:
yay. more coffee beans. cool. i like the feet one (3rd photo). they just let you in? sweet.
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