Learning Tour 2010: Peru and Colombia

This photo was taken at Joaquim’s coffee farm at Minca in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia by Hugo Ciro. (and yes, he’s in the picture too!)

Today we saw what happens to the coffee after it leaves the farm and before it gets put into a container and shipped  to Level Ground. We visited Cooperativa Cafetera de la Costa, the co-op that acts as a facilitator to find buyers for individuals or groups of coffee farmers;  RED,  the association of organic coffee farmers, responsible for internal audits to insure that coffee farmers comply with organic certification standards and Alma Cafe, the milling plant and finally the shipping port of Santa Marta.

It was extremely hot today so we were all quite relieved to have a couple of hours free at the end of the day to take advantage of being in the beautiful location of Santa Marta by taking time to go for a swim.

Tomorrow morning we catch an early flight back to Bogota where  will be spending our day there before flying back to Canada.  Our suitcases might be full of some dirty laundry and purchases of the places we travelled, but our hearts will be forever full of the memories we had on this trip.

Our mode of transportation for the day!

This morning we loaded ourselves into three four wheel drive vehicles and headed towards the mountains where our coffee farmers live.  I’m sure for many of us this trip was the first time four wheel drive was REALLY needed. It also  gave us an even greater understanding of the meaning of high altitude shade grown organic coffee.

Juan

After about a 2 hour drive up the mountain we stopped at the farm of Juan.  Juan was 77 years old and had been farming his 10 hectares of land for many years.  He had several homes on his farm where his two daughters lived with their husbands and his son lived in the city.  Since the coffee cherry harvest had recently finished, Juan was able to show us some seeds he was germinating for next year’s harvest.  It will take about 18months, once these germinate before Juan can harvest the cherries from them.

We left Juan’s farm and met two other wonderful coffee growers and learned what is involved in organic coffee growing, how to prune the coffee trees,  the benefit of mixing your your crop with other produce and much more.

Jaouquim & Paulino

Arrived safely in Bogota last night.

This morning we toured the largest wholesale fruit market in Bogota – 42sq hectares! 10 million dollars in sales per day happens at this market and 200,000 people per day are involved in the transactions. By the time we arrived mid morning most of the day’s business was over  but it was an interesting point of reference before we went on to visit Fruandes.

Fruandes was started by a group of of like minded friends who wanted to create a sustainable business model helping disadvantaged women in downtown Bogota. Fruandes dries fruit grown in different regions of Colombia such as mango, physalis, banana and papaya. Their  model breaks the middle-man chain where the farmer is the last to get paid.

We met with all the support staff and production people at Fruandes, witnessed pineapple being prepared for dehydration and heard so many stories of how being part of Fruandes had changed poeples lives. Fabio is a perfect example.  Fabio grew up in the lowest strata of Bogota where expectations of breaking the cycle of poverty were slim. Under the mentorship and guidance of Giovanni, the manager at Fruandes, Fabio is now quality control and logistics manager improving productivity and making Fruandes more successful.  He now is able to support his own young family.

Giovanni & Fabio

Our last day in Peru was spent with our good friends Yannina and Mario from Manos Amigas. We toured their new office, warehouse and hotel facility across the street from the current location. Completion of the construction and occupancy is on hold awaiting the necessary permits from the local municipality.

Tito Mandino an artisan from Huancayo  joined us for the morning to demonstrate his gourd carving skills. Tito comes from many generations of gourd carvers. Using his own handmade tools he showed us three styles of carving. The first was an owl, where the design is burnt onto the gourd using heated wooden sticks creating the basic lines of pattern. The gourd is then carved to give definition to the design. Tito also demonstrated a more traditional carving done free hand and which would take up to two weeks to complete. The final design Tito showed us was again free hand and was of a Peruvian couple.

Yannina and Mario along with their daughter Dieuwerte, graciously hosted a lunch for us all in their beautiful home before we headed off to the airport once again this time destination Bogota Colombia.

Monday May 3rd

As the sun was slowly rising over Cuzco everyone was fast asleep catching some well needed rest.  Little did we all know our wake up calls would come early and from the residence of Cuzco — in the form of fire crackers.  This 6am wake up call was the start of their Festival of Crosses and we found numerous parades and celebrations around the town once we were out and about.

Our first stop of the day was at Remigio Gutierrez’s house up on the mountain side over looking Cuzco.  Remigio has been working with Manos Amigas for 18 years and was very happy to welcome us into his workshop and home.  At the age of 15 and 17 Remigio and his wife Marjua were pregnant with their first child and neither parents were willing to support them anymore.  Marjua took jobs wherever she could find work just to put food on the table, including selling terracotta whistles to tourists at the local archaeological site.  One day she was looking at the whistle and wondered if she could make one herself and avoid the middleman she was currently working for.  She and Remigo went to the hills to gather some clay and then came home to create some whistles.  Using a make shift kiln and teaspoon to mix the clay they had created their first piece for firing, unfortunately it was not successful.  After firing the first batch of pieces came out broken and so they tried again.  The second batch was more successful with the pieces in tact but burnt black.  Marjua cleaned off the pieces and went off to sell them returning home with none left, “they were selling like hot bread” she told us.  They were very happy with their success and continued to perfect their work.  Manos Amigos came across the two and quickly helped them receive their first order from Ten Thousand Villages USA and Canada a few years later.   Now with consistent orders from Ten Thousand Villages and product development from Manos Amigos, they are successful in their work.  They have been able to build a new two floor home with workshop and all their four children attend school, two of which are in University.

Their story was truly wonderful and lifted all our spirits as we made our way to catch the plane back to Lima.

After a good night sleep to adjust to the high altitude we were off to visit Florintino in Pisac, located in the Sacred Valley.  Florintino lived his whole life in Pisac and was orphaned as a child.  By the age of 6 he had shown an interest in ceramics and by the age of 10 he was entering exhibitions with his pottery work.  Today he showed us around his workshop where he and his family, including wife and five of his eight children, live and work.

Florentino

Florentino & family

We visited other breath taking sites in the Sacred Valley throughout our day, including Ollantaytambo.   In the evening we visited Qollque Wasi, the workshop of Juan Cardenes Flores.  His wife and son met us and showed us how to make some silver earrings.  Unfortunately, this family has been severly effected by the decrease in tourism due to the mudslides at Machu Picchu.  Juan has been doing silver jewellery work for 24 years and was excited to share his craft with us.

Today we took a 6am flight to Cuzco the capital city of the Inca Empire.  This city sits 3,625m above sea level which meant that we all had to have a quick cup of Coca tea and rest at the hotel for a few hours.  After a light lunch we had brief overview of the archaelogical history in the area, visiting 5 major Inca ruins.  This was a wonderful start to our time in Cuzco and gave us a taste of what was to come.

We started the day with a visit to Julian Garcia- a musical instrument producer. When Manos Amigas met Julian he was being cared for by his uncle who had taught him the art of crafting instruments . Manos Amigas had been working with the uncle but discovered during a surprise visit that he was exploiting Julian and the other workers. They immediately stopped working with the uncle and gave Julian an order to get him started on his own.

With that order Julian was able to move to a small room where he lived and worked for 6 years. Now he owns his own land where he lives with his wife and 8 year old daughter.  He purchased the land for $8,000 US dollars. He has built his house and workshop with plywood and the next step will be building with bricks.

Four people work with Julian. We met  Ishmael and Israel, both are studying to be electricians. We also met Carlos who demonstrated how they craft a pan flute out of bamboo sticks.

Julie from our Lethbridge store showed Julian a photo of a customer purchasing one of his instruments and he was thrilled. At the end of the visit, Julian thanked us for coming

and hoped we liked his workshop.

Daily life