Harvests

New Year's Eve is as good a time as any to look back on the harvests of last year (in Suchitoto, a great year for corn and beans) and forward to the harvests of next year.  The coffee harvest has begun - and on our way back from a trip to Lago Atitlán we saw coffee trees loaded with ripening berries.  Cutting the berries is just the first step in a very long process that ends in my morning cup of strong coffee, but it's the part of that process that brings a welcome bit of money to highlands communities.  Here's a tree ready for cutting:

Further down the road we saw a man who'd been collecting the berries and paying the workers:

I imagine that some of those earnings turned into the firecrackers and fireworks that are about to brighten the skies here and terrify all the dogs, but surely some also will become tortillas and beans and rice, food for the new year.

Just for the joy of it, here's another kind of 2012 harvest, Sheila McShane with a 3-month old baby.  She helped this little girl's disabled mother through her pregnancy and now gets to cuddle this small charmer - part of the rhythm of life in the Clinica Maxeña, Santo Tomas la Union.

Sitting in Starbucks and remembering Steve Jobs

I'm sitting in Starbucks in Santa Elena, and I've got mixed feelings about this. Starbucks is such a familiar sight for a Seattleite, and everything here looks just right, the cups, the Starbucks mermaid, the comfy couches, the internet access and (sigh) the prices. So I'm pleased to find this comforting combination. (Here's a photo of Kathy Garcia in front of the Starbucks in the Galeria - another northwestern tickled to find this familiar place.) But - on the other hand - I do wonder if Starbucks is chasing out some of the local coffee places - Viva Espresso, the Coffee Cup, Ben's - where you can get great espresso and buy a variety of Salvadoran coffees, among the best in the world.

I remember what a great hangout Starbucks was for the women who lived in Rose of Lima House, transitional living in Seattle, when I worked there. They'd go around the block to 1st, buy a cup of the coffee of the day, and sit and talk for two hours. It was the closest thing they could afford to being in a nice restaurant, and I always loved Starbucks for being a place where you could just be, even if you were homeless. It doesn't feel at all like that here, of course - clearly the folk who go to any coffee house in El Salvador are doing pretty well. They tend to be the folk who dress up in suits, if just so everyone will know that they work in air-conditioned splendor.

So my feelings on Starbucks here are mixed. But it's a good place to remember and give thanks for Steve Jobs, who's put such liveliness and fun into people's hands. I bought the first Macintosh in the spring after it was introduced; it cost an outrageous amount, you had to swap disks to go from the operating system to the writing and drawing programs, and I loved it. I remember those great fonts - imagine, being able to have fonts on a computer - New York, Chicago and quirky San Francisco - it was such fun for someone who'd been using a very dull word processor. And that, of course, was only the begionning, and now I sit here typing on my iPad on a the wireless keyboard, still having lots and lots of fun (and getting a bit of work done too) thanks to Steve's singular genius and vision. Gracias.

Harvest and Celebrations

There's been a lot going on in Suchitoto today. This morning Monseñor Rafael Urrutia came to town as the Archbishop's representative to confirm 270 young people from the town and the countryside. Since each of them had at least one sponsor and most had family looking on, the church was packed - but I had a great seat up front at the side of the altar, since Padre Carlos asked me to be a communion minister. I had an eye out for Crisseyda, Martha's niece and my one-time computer student, and she was shining as she received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Later, I joined the family for a lunch celebration.

This afternoon it was the turn of the schools, with 9th grade graduations followed by a special dinner for 400. And in the evening a big dance was advertised outside the Alcaldia (Mayor's Office). Our neighbor with the disco has been going strong all evening, and I've been enjoying the alternative of listening to Carmina Burana on headphones - there may be a quiet place in Suchitoto tonight, but I don't know where it would be.

Meanwhile it's the harvest season here - not for corn or beans, those are harvested in July and August, but for the big cash crops, coffee and sugar cane. Lots of campesinos get most of their cash income for the year - not much - by working the coffee and cane harvests. Here's a photo of a coffee shrub with ripe berries waiting for harvest. Around here, there's more cane than coffee, because coffee is grown at higher altitudes - I'll try to get a photo of the cane fields, which are absolutely beautiful at this time of year, with the tall white blossoms swaying at the head of the stalks.

Coffee blossoms

No, I don't mean cherry blossoms, which are glorious now in Seattle, my home town. Here in El Salvador, it's coffee blossom time. Yesterday, as I was driving to the mountain village of Comasagua, a glorious drive along the ridge of the Cordillera del Balsamo, I saw the white flowers everywhere, a cheerful sight at this hottest and driest time of the tropical year.

This photo was taken on my way back from Comasagua to Santa Tecla. On the way back to Comasagua from El Rosario, the colonia where we left the wheelchair, I gave a ride to a woman and boy and a sack full of banana leaves. I assumed they were family, but the woman asked to be set down along the way to the main road, and the boy (and sack) stayed with us until we got to the main road. I took Rosa and the two men with us back into Comasagua, then headed down the road again. There was the boy, just where I'd left him, and the sack. He was delighted to have a ride to Santa Tecla, where he was going to sell his banana leaves in the market (they're used for wrapping tamales).

Along the way, we got to know each other a bit. His name is Daniel, he's 13 years old and just finishing the first grade. He's one of 12 children, and goes down to Santa Tecla once or twice a week to sell the banana leaves - I'm sure to make his contribution to the family. He wanted to know about all the things I had the use of - the car, the car's radio, the iPod. Were they mine? What did they cost? Had I ever been on a plane? Couldn't I drive the car instead? (I said it would take a long time to drive through Mexico and then the United States. He said, two days? I said, more like six days - but in truth, I have no idea.) What did a plane ticket cost? I told him, and he was stunned.

When I saw some blossoming coffee ahead, I told Daniel I wanted to take a photo and asked him if he would hold the coffee blossom for me. He wasn't altogether sure about this, but he cooperated, and here he is. Our conversation brought home for me, once again, the outrageous richness that I can make use of, and the depth of poverty and limitation that is still the overwhelming experience of most people in El Salvador. I wonder if Daniel will ever be able to drive a car or get on a plane. I hope he will, but only if he can have those possibilities without losing what's precious in his world - family and community closeness, shared responsibility, trust.

Beautiful Antigua

It would be hard to find a place more blessed in setting, climate, and sheer beauty than Antigua, Guatemala. Doorways like the one this this photo open into patios full of flowers and perhaps a fountain - there's even a small fountain with koi at the center of Doña Thelma's patio, where I'm living for the month. The straight streets and houses that start at the sidewalk are interrupted by frequent ruins of historic churches and monasteries. They're set against the stunning background of volcanoes and steep green hills.

In many ways this city reminds me of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Like Santa Fe, it's supported by tourism and is self-protective of its looks (there are four permitted colors for houses, which is about three more than in Santa Fe, but the same requirement to get approvals for any exterior changes). And Antigua, like Santa Fe, offers the artesania of its indigenous culture - Mayan here, Pueblo there. Yesterday I went on a school excursion to a coffee beneficio complete with a coffee museum and museum of Mayan muscial instruments. It's very close to Antigua, but as we drove the 2 kilometers the houses and little stores suddenly began to look like the rest of Centroamerica - and I have to say that was refreshing!

Speaking of coffee, you'd think a place famous for its coffee would have coffee presses and coffee cones in the stores. No. You can get a 12-cup electric drip or a pot to boil the coffee in, and mostly Antigueños seem to drink instant coffee, as does Doña Thelma. I came without my little Melitta cone, because it's the one treasured thing that seems to have disappeared in the moving process (or is lurking in the bottom of some box). Today I bought a funnel and some Melitta filters (those are available) and I hope to have real coffee with breakfast tomorrow morning.