Working for a living

I have spent the past two days getting to learn more about harvesting coffee, the hard way. The beneficios or coffee buyers are just starting to receive this year’s crop and since I live in a low altitude area, our coffee is mature faster than in other places. So, yesterday I dove into to work as a peon, or day laborer on a cafetal. After working yesterday and today picking red coffee berries, I would like to now survey all social science researchers who write about coffee to learn if they ever actually worked in it. I bet it would be about 50/50. Who knows. I started work today at 6, lunched at 9, got off at 12, and then rode to sell the coffee with my boss at 1. I worked 6 hours in the midst of tall, unruly coffee plants and earned a whopping $4.16 US dollars. This is not a fabrication. It’s what we all earned. And that’s the going rate. Of course, I am not working to earn money to live on, but one can see where it might be tough to live on such a salary. For this reason, most of the folks working were women. They get up at about 330 or 400 in order to get their housework done, then walk to the finca and pick coffee for six hours, and then I suppose they pass out or cook dinner, whatever comes first. I asked and apparently their husbands are off picking beans or working construction. But just in case you think that Juan Valdez is out there picking your beans, you might also start to envision the possibility of Juanita working her butt off as well.

My boss and I drove about 15 kilometers away to sell the coffee. He was very happy with his prices and looking forward to the next four pickings of his plants (we will be giving his crop four more passes, the next one in 15 days). It was a long day of work, but overall the past two days have taught me a whole heck of a lot. Learning by doing of course is probably the best way to learn.

An unanticipated but welcome consequence of my new peon status is that people are surprised and then delighted to hear that I am learning to pick coffee. When I told Flor and Gabriel that I was going to pick coffee the following day they got so excited that I felt like I was going to my first day of kindergarten. Gabriel lent be a basket to use for picking and fashioned a belt to keep the basket around my waist. Flor packed me a lunch both days and then fed me extra for dinner after my labor.

I have to admit it, I am tired. Picking coffee is not as physically difficult as some things, say hauling hod or roofing, but it does take its toll.

At the end of today when my boss gave me my 2,000 colones, I felt like I sure as hell had earned it. And to celebrate, I bought a pair of rubber work boots for 2500 colones at the local cooperativa. Now I am ready for more picking. My next destination I think will either be to learn how to chop cane or to learn how to pick oranges. Working in the economies that I am studying adds a whole new layer to my understanding.

My thoughts go out to all those on the Gulf Coast. I just started reading the news. It looks terrible. I hope that’s the last of the hurricanes for the season, but I think the season lasts until November, if I am not mistaken. Let’s hope it’s a short season. And let’s hope that New Orleans and other devastated communities are pieced back together as quickly as humanly possible.

Much love from afar,
Lefty