Visit to a coffee plantation

On Saturday I went with 22 other ICA students to visit a coffee plantation. I wanted to be sure to tell you how many student there were because we all rode in one 15-passenger van! It was a little cramped for us, yet it was very normal for a bus ride in Guatemala. Luckily the ride was only about an hour down the mountain. We didn't have to worry about getting tossed around by the curves because we couldn't move!

The plantation is a real, working plantation, however, we arrived during the month of rest, so there wasn't anyone working the fields while we were there. We were able to walk through the fields, view the machinery, and view the living quarters of the families. I supported fair-trade products before this excursion, but I will support them even more now. (Fair trade products are those where the worker is paid a fair wage, not taken advantage of, and usually produced in more environmentally friendly ways. They are usually more expensive than regular products.)

This presentation was also all in Spanish, but I felt like I understood most of it. One of the maestros at ICA led the presentation. His sobrenombre (nickname) is Gato (cat). I'm not sure what the story is behind that, but I bet it's a good one! Here are some of the things I learned:

- Many organizations in Guatemala (not just plantations) prefer to hire temporary workers so that they don't have to pay any benefits for the worker. This obviously is a great disadvantage to the workers who don't have health insurance or other benefits.
- Plantantion workers are often paid by the weight of what the pick. Sometimes the plantation owners adjust the scales so that the weight is not accurate (and therefore, so that they pay the worker less).
- Women are paid a lesser wage than men for no reason except that they are female
- Because of the growing/harvest season and the school year, children with parents who work on coffee plantations will begin the school year, but never finish. They are either needed to work the fields or their family will move to find more work after the harvest. This lack of education makes them unprepared for any other type of work and creates and endless cycle of temporary plantation workers.
- 30 families live in one small building and share one small faucet for running water. Gato said that this particular building that we were able to see was one of the nicest ones around. Usually the buildings don't even have four walls.
- The plantation owners often run a small store where they sell necessities, like food and other consumable products. It's convenient for the families to shop here, and they often spend all of their wages here. They also sell alcohol, which many of the men will consume after a long day of work. This means that the money paid to the families still ends up in the hands of the plantation owner.
- All the good coffee is exported to other countries (like the US), which means that Guatemalans drink pretty crappy coffee even though they grow really good coffee.

Overall, it was an eye-opening experience. It's one thing to read about something, but it's completely different when you can actually witness it. Here are some photos...

These turkeys were running wild, along with some chickens. They followed us around most of the morning.

Gato showing us the scale for weighing the coffee that has been picked.
Photos of the plantation and the coffee plants
Gato sitting on the one sink that 30 families will share.
The small building that 30 families share as a home
The pool that we could swim in after the presentation. (I didn't. It wasn't very warm that day.)
The palm trees close to the pool (sideways)
Yet another cool plant (also sideways)