The Coffee Harvest

After a three month absence from blogging, Stephanie is back writing at The Plantation Diaries. She is in the middle of the coffee and corn harvest at Finca de Angeles, and her recent posts share stories and pictures of the work. Here's an excerpt:

After breakfast, the women strapped their baskets to their waists held by a sling around their neck. Beto called the women in the order they showed up. I was surprised to find out how well planned the work is. I was always under the impression that the pickers just worked an area, harvesting which ever tree suited them. The coffee trees like most crops are planted in evenly spaced rows. Beto assigned one women at the beginning of every row. That would be their work line for the day. Meanwhile the children ran around delighted to have such open spaces to play. Their only task in helping their mothers, was to carry spare empty sacks and water bottles. We do not employ child labor here!

Before walking away from the field this morning, I turned around to see the tops of coffee trees dancing and shaking while the women invisibly picked the beans. It made me think of a harvest dance and even the trees could join in. I'm sure if I was a tree, I would dance a little myself at the thought of being free of all those beans. I could look forward to a period of rest. After all, this was a hard year with the early rains and hurricane Ida. (Read more).

You are now able to order coffee grown Finca de Angeles online. Get it here. I ordered mine and I can't wait to try it.