Please Support my Community’s Agriculture

Greetings. Today I write to you all with a request.

I would like your support for an agro-business seminar for farmers from my and fellow Peace Corps Volunteers’ communities. Farmers in our communities are mostly subsistence farmers, and when crop yields surpass household needs, the farmers try to sell their surpluses and are lucky to receive market value. Despite the challenges stemming from terrain, transport, and lack of fair markets, some of my farmers routinely makes sales outside of the community. Erik and his mother Gelda specialize in growing sweet peppers. Yaneth crafts artisan work form her farm's products. My host family harvests oranges and floats them closer to market on rafts constructed from bamboo. Although these farmers are experiencing successes, they are still struggling to purchase school supplies and uniforms and send their sick family members to the medical clinic. They are living in poverty.

The goal of our proposed seminar is train farmers in basic agro-business skills so that they can earn more income from their small family farms, allowing them to climb out of poverty. To achieve this the seminar will address: setting achievable goals, how to interact with government agencies and other organizations, understanding contracts, crop insurance and loans, keeping track of personal finance and savings, land use planning, making a work calendar, and learning the basics of marketing.

Please help us cover the costs of materials and logistics for the seminar. Donate now to the Agro-Business Seminar. Happy Holidays and thank you!

Chocolate and Mud Making

My last entry featured several very handsome cacao pods. This photo-heavy entry is about what comes next. Some details are left out, but the basic steps are all included.

First the pod is cut open to reveal the white slime covered seeds inside. The goopy seeds are removed from the pod and piled up to ferment for 6-7 days to improve the flavor of the chocolate. From there the seeds are spread out in the sun to dry for another week.

Then comes toasting. The beans are toasted over a low fire (or gas flame in my home) for about 20 minutes. The house will fill with a chocolatey aroma and the beans will sound like popping corn when they are toasted.

Here is a pile of toasted beans ready for shelling. The beans have a thin shell covering the true cocoa goodness that lies within. I squish the bean between my thumb and fingers to crumble the shell off. It's pretty time consuming by hand, so industrially they use rollers and fans to blow the shells away. Recently I saw a news article about a coal power plant that will also burn cacao bean shells from a near by chocolate processing plant in New Hampshire.

Shelled cocoa beans

Grinding the cocoa beans requires a bit of elbow grease when no motor is involved. I use a corn grinder. My host mom uses a large smooth rounded stone that she rocs back and forth over the beans until they are a paste.

My corn grinder, which has yet to grind corn.

Once the paste is fine and runny, it is ready for shaping. I prefer disk form, so I pat them out with my hands and let them harden. And that's the skinny on chcolate making.

Forming chocolate patties is oldly similar to forming salmon patties

The following pictures are from my first experience in mud oven building. With the help of fellow area volunteers and my neighbor kids, we built a 4ft outside diameter, 2 foot inside diameter oven under my house. It was a pretty messing ordeal, which means it was a lot of fun. And finally, a good use for all the mud in my community!

Mixing sand and clay for the inside lining of the oven, where it will act as a heat sink

Preparing the insulation layer, saturated clay slip with sawdust

The dome is a sand form to hold the space and shape of the hollow where I will bake

My semi-finished oven

Cocoa Pods as Big as Your Head

I know it has been a long time since my last post. To hold you all over until I have time to write something worth reading, here are some pretty pictures.

A new cacao variety bred in Costa Rica (photo taken by me at the facility!)
I hope to be grafting with it in Druy before I depart

Grafted plants at Costa Rica's CATIE
(Center for Tropical Agriculture Research and Study)

Kate posing with one of the largest cacao pods I have ever seen.
The CATIE gardens are a mystical place

Me, after a very unpleasant trip to my latrine, which was home to a very unruly family of wasps
My farmers teased me with name calling of "la chinita" (the chinese girl)

Ernesto, helping rid my latrine of wasps. His technique involved burning gasoline soaked synthetic rags. My latrine has still preserved the smell. I miss the smell of composting poo. I think the wasps do too. They buzz no more.

Making a fool of myself for laughs. I can't explain.

Rebecca, Kate, and I give a rediculously messy demonstration on brownie preparation

A fresh "patch" graft on a cacao seedling

The truly rainy season has returned

A baby peanut plant!

what was left of the peanut plant after the adorable baby goat got through my fence

A watermelon (this pic is for you, Mom)

knitting class has been a huge hit. I never would have thought it would be in the tropics

Glorified babysitting

Andi and Kate model some hot duds at Kate's leadership seminar

Jose showing off lateral grafting on cacao tree by the school

Playing games to see who can avoid Janell's questions... looks like Ernesto
was the big winner