Classroom Costa Rica

    What I first noticed about Gilberto, a Costa Rican coffee farmer at Finca La Bella, was his pride.  He stood before our tired faces and slouched figures speaking exuberantly of his life on his family’s abundant coffee farm.  Finca La Bella is a cooperative of a bunch of different farmers, he explained.  It’s helpful to work with other people and easier money wise.  He pointed to the small bowls, arranged lovingly on a stout table, filled with beans at different stages of life.  One held the round, crimson cherries that each cradled two small beans, tucked away among the fruit.  Another held the beans after the pulp had been peeled away, two more papery layers that sheltered them.  He blushed as he announced that he had a tendency to over talk, and to cut him short if it seemed like he was doing so.
With a wave of his hand, Gilberto started down a path to his house and we proceeded to scoop up our bags and follow.  After a tour of his small yet comfortable home and his running medals, displayed elegantly on a wall, we started through the woods toward the farm.  We ventured toward the rows of bush like plants and halted when he began speaking.  He bent down, stroking a shiny, dark green leaf between his thumb and forefinger, making gestures with his other to go along with his fast Spanish.  Pedro, our Spanish teacher and translator for the tour, explained what he was speaking of.  He told us how Finca La Bella’s coffee was grown without harsh chemicals in the blaze of the sun.  He explained how because of this, different coffee plants on Gilberto’s piece of land sprouted flowers and cherries at different times, depending on how much sun, shade and water each plant gets.  This makes it easier to pick because the harvesting times are scattered.  On sun grown farms, all the picking has to be done at once, and often they don’t get all of the cherries in time.
As we walked through the farm, we noticed this was true.  Some of the chest high plants were barely sprouting buds while others had bloomed wonderful smelling, white flowers that fall off when it’s time to make room for the cherries.  Since it was not the harvesting season, there were few plants with cherries, usually just a branch or two with bunches of fruits crowded together.
He beckoned us back into the woods and toward a large boulder.  We all scrambled up as he began to speak again.  He told us that when he was smaller, his grandfather used to take him to this exact place and spoke to him many wise words that Gilberto still remembers.  His grandfather told him how if you treated the land with care, it would give back to you.  The land was not just a farm.  It was the family’s way of life and it must be passed down.
After these words, we were all intent on turning stalks of sugarcane into juice by cranking the simple machine.  We jumped down from the boulder, eager and ready to do the job.  He told us to stand two people, one on either side of the machine, and turn the handles.  We listened to the stalks twist and crunch, strained of their juice, which flowed in an even stream down to a bucket.  He poured the juice into plastic cups and handed them out to the class.  My first sip stung me with sweetness; nothing could get more pure and fresh than this juice, literally straight from the farm.  I looked over and noticed Gilberto stripping a stalk of its outer skin and cutting the inside into small pieces.  He grinned as he handed me a handful.  I gave out the little sticks to other classmates and began to chew.  As I munched, the taste of sugar flooding my mouth and throat, I thought of Gilberto’s words throughout the tour.  How they were filled with so much knowledge and love for what he did.  The passionate words of a true farmer.

-Charlotte

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