The world of Mundo Verde
Trip Start
Jul 20, 2004
1
4
156
Trip End
Jul 20, 2012
Loma Linda,
Guatemala
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
Sociedad Civil de Mujeres Campesinas de El Palmar y Colomba which produces the organic coffee of "Mundo Verde". The coffee is cultivated by using shade and natural fertilizer to improve production. The coffee grows in regions at an altitude of between 1000 and 1500 meters.
Let me share my observations of the community of Loma Linda with you. Loma Linda means beautiful hill. The community is in the middle of a beautiful, lush, rainforest-like mountains with coffee plants, banana trees, guiskil (a potato like plant) and lemon trees. From the village, one have a great view of the volcanoes Santa Maria and Santiaguito. Santiaguito erupts about every hour or so and sprouts a great grey cloud of rocks and dust hundreds o meters into the air
Mundo Verde Coffee
. During the day, ash rains come down like rain. It sounds like rain but it is grey ash.Besides the volcano ashes is also rains every day in the afternoon and electricity outages due to thunderstorms are pretty common. The village is small featuring a main street, a church, and the coffee production areas (3 different installations for peeling, drying and toasting/packaging of coffee). The community is poor, with families living i rather dismal conditions. Many families have between 8 and 11 children. Though poverty reigns the village, every household has clean running water and electricity. However, the households themselves are rather neglected. There is dirt and trash everywhere as trash collection does not exist. The houses are dirty, the kids are dirty, the animals are dirty, etc. The family I stayed with had about 7 kids running around, all of them wearing the same clothes for 3 days, at day and at night. Washing themselves, brushing teeth and changing clothes is just something that does not exist for them. And I am not sure why it is that way. Being poor does not mean having to neglect the household and the kids. I visited about 6 or 7 homes and the conditions were the same in all except for one. Itīs just amazing that wit all the unhealthy living condition, the kids donīt have any major health issues (besides constant coughing due to wood burning stoves, skin diseases and lice). I saw 2 tarantulas in other houses, not in our house. I did have my own bed whereas the rest of the family slept in the remaining 5 beds (with 2-3 people in one bed). There were no fleas, though at night heard strange noises coming from under my pillow but i didnīt dare finding out what it is. It sounded like ants marching but louder. I am not even going to elaborate on the conditions of the toilets - there have been couple of books written about conditions of toilets in different countries and the experience of using them
Mundo Verde Cooperative
. ;-)The people are very nice and the president of the company arranged for me to have breakfast and dinner every time with another family so I got to meet some of the families in town. On Sunday, we toasted and packed the 1st class coffee called Dorado. Five woman and me got down to business by hand sorting the beans to fish out dead bugs, tree pieces, rocks and any other material that doesn't belong there. Then, the sorted coffee was run through a peeling machine that spit out the peels at one side and the peeled bean o the other. Then quality control again and after that the beans went into the roaster. Dorado is a medium roast coffee and it is roasted for about 30 minutes. After the roasted beans had cooled off, the went into the grinder. Then we filled up every package with 460g, every package was weighted and then sealed and packed into boxes ready to be taken to Guatemala city for exportation. The coffee is certified by Mayacert with co-certification by the German BSC-Oeko, fulfilling standards of the European Union and the United States. So, to support the woman of Loma Linda, GO BUY MUNDO VERDE COFFEE AND SPREAD THE WORD.
After heading back to Xela, the first thing was visiting a spa and spending some time in the sauna getting cleaned up. My clothes are washed i am staying one more night with my family in Xela and head to Chicicastenango and Lake Atitlan tomorrow for about a week.
