And most of all, I learned a lot about coffee, the harvesting and the cultivation, the processing
that goes along.
And it's hard.
It's a lot harder than I thought and it's very time consuming and it's beautiful where
we're doing it.
And I love helping out a local indigenous family and learning from them such a wonderful,
beautiful experience.
I couldn't ask for more, especially as a coffee consumer myself.
It's great to know where your coffee comes from and it's great to know that I'm helping
the farmers and that when I buy, purchase this coffee, I'm giving money directly to
them for their hard work of carrying a bunch of pounds, like 80 pounds, up a mountain.
It's just awesome.
It's really neat.
The beans on the roofs.
I asked Tomás one day, he said, almost everybody here harvests coffee and sure enough you can
look over the town and everybody has it spread out on their rooftops and there's just children
playing and laughing and helping.
Things that I'll be taking back with me in addition to the green coffee in my bag will
be just a much more clear understanding of how that coffee came to be.
Not only that sort of a very physical aspect of it and just understanding the incredible
process behind those small little beans that make a cup of coffee on a daily basis for
people.
And I think to understand as I have a face and a community and a village and an entire
process attached to that is a very powerful thing to bring back and embedded in all of
that is an understanding of how Tomás and Elvira live off of this land and how they
live off of this product that is so, it's a very intensive process to harvest it and
to grow it over such a long period of time and the way that they do it especially with
why they are so conscientious about how they grow it in an organic way in the shaded lomas
or the slopes of the Norte Sillera and just the incredible, the beautiful valley that
they live in and the memories that come from this and the relationships of one of the last
dinners that we had with Tomás before he had to go to the market he explained that
we are now a part of his family and that we are always welcome and that he has shared
his food with us and his house and the whole experience that their entire life is about.
We've seen a snippet of it in ten days and we are going to walk away from this but they'll
be here and this is what they do all the time and I think that's a very humbling thought
to come away within a very powerful memory and I think Elvira will put together these
beautiful dinners and there was one night when we were all sorting the coffee so it
was already green and a lot of us were out sorting it and then Tomás and Elvira were
cooking dinner and they made this beautiful zucchini and cheese and mushroom dish and
then there is another meat that they've made and it was so good they just they create everything
that they do they have so much intention and so much compassion for what they do and at
the dinner table we all just were laughing about all sorts of stuff and there was such
a strong sense of connection during that dinner I went I mean it was almost overwhelming
sitting there I just felt so comfortable and I felt like I was in such the right place
and with incredible people and I felt I was very humble to be a part of something like
this.
I went to bed that night and I asked Cody and Hannah and Jenny the other students that
are here if they had felt it too and we had all had had this really strong feeling of
just immense compassion and for what we're doing and it's a it's a very good feeling
to have.
Thank you.
