Coffee Cutting and the Kindness of Stranger

I never really listened, nor believed, the veteran PCVs when they told me during Pre-Service Training that my two years of service would fly by quicker than I would realize. I was excited and too busy worry about so many things-- my site assignment, counting down the days until swearing-in, meeting my counterparts and host community-- I never gave their words much weight. But, now over three months in site and nearly a half year in country, their words hold such truths. Where has the time gone?

Well, I can tell you the time has gone into many challenges, many firsts, many new friends, and many once-in-a-lifetime experiences that will continue until my completion of service and return to the States.

Speaking of returning to the States, a mere six days from today I will be en route back to Buffalo for the holidays, with stops in Houston and Cleveland along the way, for my first vacation from El Salvador. The weather change is sure to bring a big shock seeing as it’s still 80 degrees and sunny nearly every day, but don’t worry, my Mom has been briefed with a list of necessities for my airport pickup including wool socks and my boots (with the fur).

Though it is true I have been counting down the days until Christmas, with the help of a chocolate filled advent calendar with love from Rosie, of course, I have been keeping very busy working. No matter how filled or wide open my calendar appears, there is never a dull moment in ES.

Coffee Cutting
As most people do when I ask if I can tagalong and help in their daily labors, my host mother, Lilian, and particularly my thirteen year old host sister, Leslie, found it hilarious that I wanted to learn how to and go cut coffee with them. Behind a few chuckles and smiles, they said of course I could join them in their labors later that week. On the morning of December 4th, I was up well before the roosters (a feat in and of itself) to head out to my host family’s finca (land where coffee is grown) to participate in the first of two rounds of coffee harvesting.

A one hour ride in the back of a very full pick-up with nine others later, we finally arrived at the finca, just as the sun was coming up. Before we could get started, though, we needed a hearty breakfast of beans, chicken, tortilla and coffee.

With a full belly and full of energy, Lilian helped me get outfitted with a basket where all the beans I would soon pick were to go. The basket was a little larger than a half bushel apple basket that you can easily find at a farmers’ market and was also finely hand woven. The basket then had a belt attached to it that went around my waist and rested on the small of my back to affix the basket securely against my panza (tummy, stomach area). Leslie then gave me an old fifty pound fertilizer bag to put my coffee beans in when my basket got filled. We all then ventured over to the coffee trees, filled with the red fruits that house what we know as coffee beans. Leslie quickly demonstrated the most efficient cutting technique of encircling the top of a bean-filled branch with your forefinger and thumb, then stripping the beans off. Easy enough.

An hour later when all the trees in this particular parcel will stripped of their fruits, we returned to the clearing where we ate breakfast to clean the beans of any excess leaves and fruit that hadn’t yet ripened and to weigh our labors. For my first time out, I thought I did pretty well having filled my basket nearly one and a half times, I figured I had to have picked at least thirty pounds of coffee. Not so much. My morning labors yielded a staggeringly small twelve pounds of coffee. I couldn’t believe it. I had worked so quickly and efficiently, or so I thought. The best picker of the morning in our party harvest seventy pounds of coffee. SEVENTY POUNDS! I swear this guy had to have three sets of arms.

The afternoon proved to be a little more fruitful (pun intended) and luck was definitely on my side. I escaped disturbing the nest of a species of very large, very dangerous wasps by mere inches. As I was cutting the coffee off of a neighboring branch, I saw one of these monster bees fly casually to his home where over 100 others awaited his arrival. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain that would have accompanied angering those bees. Needless to say, I left that coffee tree alone and continued picking from a neighboring tree.

While cleaning my afternoon beans, my host sister pulled out the source of my luck that afternoon, two coffee beans fused together, sort of like the Siamese twins of the finca. Leslie explained to me how rare it is to find the double bean (Cait, I am sure you can mathematically figure out the incidence of this genetic mutation) and how I needed to keep it. So, without thinking much about it I popped it into my backpack.

At around 3:30PM we finished our day’s labors and settled in for the final weigh in. After the morning’s performance, I wasn’t expecting to tip the scale at more than thirty pounds for the day, but much to my pleasant surprise, I weighed in at a whopping 45 pounds. The previous night I had spoken with my friend Dylan who lives in the most remote and impoverished site in all of Peace Corps El Slavador, making him by default the toughest PCV in El Slavador. He managed to pick 39 pounds of coffee on his first excursion out. At least I could go home with the satisfaction and bragging rights of picking more coffee than Dylan.

In addition to learning the physical aspect of one of the main sources of income for people who live in the campo, like community members in my site, I learned about the economics behind it as well. The land owners, such as my host family, hire people to pick the coffee which they then sell to an intermediary, know here as a coyote. The coyotes then sell the product to another intermediary with processing facilities and domestic and foreign contacts for sale. As you can imagine, the price land owners, such as my host family, receive for coffee is extremely low compared to what the coyotes and intermediaries receive. The most striking quantity of money received, however, is that of the coffee harvester. Because prices to the land owners are so low, what they pay their harvesters is even lower. Personally, for picking 45 pounds of coffee I would have earned $1.35, that’s roughly 75 cents for every 25 pounds harvested, had I been working for pay. Just imagine trying to support a family by harvesting coffee at a rate of 75 cents per 25 pounds. I think this experience puts the economic situations of Salvadorans into excellent perspective.

The Kindness of Strangers
After I returned back to my site from my amazing Thanksgiving at Lago Coatepeque, I discovered that my iPod Touch was no longer in my possession. Whether lost, stolen or taken mysteriously by a 150 pound black lab, it, along with all my whiny girl songs and Christmas music, was gone and I was sad.

Being the risk averse daughter of my father, I had smartly purchased property insurance before coming to this lovely country, and after three days without finding my beloved music machine, I decided it was time to file an insurance claim. Only three days of back and forth communication with the insurance company later (thanks, Dad, for tackling that beast), I had the necessary forms to fill out and fax to receive my reimbursement. Literally as I was sitting in my host father’s office, filling out the insurance forms, I received a Facebook message from a Miguel I had never met. Figuring it was just a random message, I opened it up regardless, and in English, the message read, “Did you lose an iPod Touch at Lago Coatepeque?” The luck of the coffee bean, still neatly tucked away in my backpack, was clearly powerful. Ecstatic, I messaged my new best friend, Miguel, back confirming I had lost my beloved iPod and making plans for how I could get it back in my possession. Two more Facebook messages and a phone call later, Miguel and I had plans to meet up the next day in San Salvador where I would be for a series of meetings.

The next day, I was on my way to lunch with a group of PCVs when I received a phone call from Miguel, asking where I was headed so he could come drop off my iPod. I was extremely surprised at Miguel’s willingness to drive out of his way to deliver my iPod. He ended up joining my group of friends and me for lunch, and told us how he came to have my iPod. Miguel is an engineer working on a construction project on the island in Lago Coatepeque where I spent Thanksgiving. One of the workers at the house where I stayed happened to find my iPod, which at this point had a dead battery. The worker didn’t know what to do with the dead iPod, so she passed it along to Miguel, figuring because he is educated, he would know what to do with it. So, he took my iPod home, charged it on his iPod charger, discovered it worked and searched to see if there was any identifying information on it. There wasn’t. (I seriously under-utilize the features of the iPod Touch). As a last resort, he plugged the iPod into his computer to see if information appeared, and lucky for me, some did. When my iPod is plugged into a computer it shows up as “Rosellen Marohn’s iPod”. With that information, Miguel went on Facebook and searched me. I am the only Rosellen Marohn on Facebook and I am in the Rochester network. Recognizing that Rochester is nowhere near El Salvador, Miguel checked the cities I had on my weather widget on my iPod to make sure the Rosellen on Facebook was the same Rosellen of the iPod. I don’t know about you, but I thought that was pretty smart; your average person wouldn’t have thought to cross-check weather locations. With confirmation that my iPod matched with the person he found on Facebook, he messaged me.

Later, my friend Tim asked him why he had bothered to go to so much trouble to return an iPod. Miguel, who we found out is a wealthy and educated guy, said that if he lost an iPod Touch, he would be very upset and would hope whoever found it would return it to him. His genuine kindness struck me, especially being in a country known for its petty crime and extortion.

This whole experience just goes to show you that goodness in people still exists, and when you least expect it, it’ll pop up to remind you.


As for the next six days until I return to the States, I will be preparing for a charla I will be giving on latrines and the different types available, will attend another quinecanera, hold a women’s group meeting and pack up for home. I simply can’t wait! The 13 hours I am going to spend traveling on the 23rd are sure to be the most agonizingly slow hours I will have ever spent.

Oh! If anyone has any suggestions as to where my first meal back in Buffalo should be, pass them along. There are so many things on my list that I want to eat, I don’t know where to start.
One last thing! If anyone has an old AT&T cell phone that they no longer use and uses a SIM card chip, I’d love to buy it off of you. My cell phone here is really poor quality and doesn’t get a signal very well in my site except in certain spots outside. To buy a quality phone here is rather pricey, so if you have one available, let me know! Thanks so much!

Happy Holidays!!!