El Corte
The cutting. The harvest of coffee, in Spanish, is referred to as ‘cutting’, el corte. An odd word to describe the action, which consists of plucking the red coffee grapes off of the tree branches, pulling them down, snapping or knocking them off into one’s basket, depending on their ripeness. There is really no cutting involved. Despite that, the ‘corte’ has now begun, as has my experience with it. It should shape at least the next four months of my year, for the duration of the harvest season, I will hopefully become an ecpert, and semi-speedy, agricultural worker.
Friday morning, I had the opportunity to climb up the hillsides of Volcan Madera, one of Ometepe’s two active volcanoes, to the coffee fields of the cooperative that runs Finca Magdalena, the organic farm where I am staying. On the way, I walked with Don Cesar, a toothless, smily, slight man, to the beneficio húmedo, where the first step off of the coffee processing takes place. Walking through the open air structure that houses the depulping machines, we entered a brick room full of canvas sacks and baskets, where I was given a large, round wooden basket with a cord wrapped around it. I slid this cord over my head, bringing the basket to rest at my hips, balanced and ready to be filled with ripe, red, coffee beans when we got up the hill. I was also given a sack, large enough to hold about a hundreds pounds of coffee. I laughed, and said that I imagined I would be able to fill it maybe a tenth in the five hours of picking we were planning to do.
Hiking up the mountainside at 7 am, we were already behind. Since the harvest is just beginning, there were only twelve people already in the fields, but they had begun their work earlier, standing, ready to go, under the coffee trees and their shade canopy, by 6 am. I arrived, and joined the group of largely women by 7:30.
Yelling to each other, we all began to exchange names. I was referred to as “la turista”, the tourist, shown a turtle found among the plants, and instructed to pick only the red coffee beans, which meant climbing all over the hill, skipping some trees or sometimes entire rows of trees of green beans, looking for the few coffee grapes or cherries that would be indicated by the bright different color.
The basket at my waist, about two feet in diameter and a foot deep, began to fill very slowly, the beans accompanied by sticks and leaves, making me look like I had cut more, even though I hadn’t. I smiled and laughed when I came upon the other women, whose baskets where at least two times as full of my own, but who giggled and reassured that for my first day, the ‘miseria’ (misery) that I called my little pile, was not a miseria, but was greatly appreciated. Very good of them.
The work is hard, arms overhead, stepping over stinging nettles and trying not to slip down the steep hillsides, basket and all. The harvest day begins at 6 am and finishes between two and four, depending on one’s determination and tenacity. In that time, good cutters may harvest six to eight medias, they may fill their basket six to eight times. In the five hours that we harvested, I filled my basket two thirds full once! (I will also give myself the benefit of the doubt about the fact that not all of the trees are ripe, and I had to go looking for the beans, though others cut two medias in the same period as me). The culture of the harvest is interesting, as people are distanced, but shouting and laughing with each other, telling jokes, or singing, to pass the hours. The baskets, as they fill, put more and more pressure on one’s back, and become more and more awkward. When full, they are dumped out into the sacks, and placed at the end of a row of coffee trees to be picked up and lugged down the hill at the end of the day. It seems that it is never ending work, there are thousands of plants and hundreds of thousands of cherries, all needing to be ‘cut’, to be carried, to be processed, so that they can arrive straight to us, in the form of a drip coffee or a latte, thousands of miles from the women standing on the hillside, laughing and complaining, plucking them from the tree and carrying them down the hill, on burros or on backs. I love seeing the connection.
Friday morning, I had the opportunity to climb up the hillsides of Volcan Madera, one of Ometepe’s two active volcanoes, to the coffee fields of the cooperative that runs Finca Magdalena, the organic farm where I am staying. On the way, I walked with Don Cesar, a toothless, smily, slight man, to the beneficio húmedo, where the first step off of the coffee processing takes place. Walking through the open air structure that houses the depulping machines, we entered a brick room full of canvas sacks and baskets, where I was given a large, round wooden basket with a cord wrapped around it. I slid this cord over my head, bringing the basket to rest at my hips, balanced and ready to be filled with ripe, red, coffee beans when we got up the hill. I was also given a sack, large enough to hold about a hundreds pounds of coffee. I laughed, and said that I imagined I would be able to fill it maybe a tenth in the five hours of picking we were planning to do.
Hiking up the mountainside at 7 am, we were already behind. Since the harvest is just beginning, there were only twelve people already in the fields, but they had begun their work earlier, standing, ready to go, under the coffee trees and their shade canopy, by 6 am. I arrived, and joined the group of largely women by 7:30.
Yelling to each other, we all began to exchange names. I was referred to as “la turista”, the tourist, shown a turtle found among the plants, and instructed to pick only the red coffee beans, which meant climbing all over the hill, skipping some trees or sometimes entire rows of trees of green beans, looking for the few coffee grapes or cherries that would be indicated by the bright different color.
The basket at my waist, about two feet in diameter and a foot deep, began to fill very slowly, the beans accompanied by sticks and leaves, making me look like I had cut more, even though I hadn’t. I smiled and laughed when I came upon the other women, whose baskets where at least two times as full of my own, but who giggled and reassured that for my first day, the ‘miseria’ (misery) that I called my little pile, was not a miseria, but was greatly appreciated. Very good of them.
The work is hard, arms overhead, stepping over stinging nettles and trying not to slip down the steep hillsides, basket and all. The harvest day begins at 6 am and finishes between two and four, depending on one’s determination and tenacity. In that time, good cutters may harvest six to eight medias, they may fill their basket six to eight times. In the five hours that we harvested, I filled my basket two thirds full once! (I will also give myself the benefit of the doubt about the fact that not all of the trees are ripe, and I had to go looking for the beans, though others cut two medias in the same period as me). The culture of the harvest is interesting, as people are distanced, but shouting and laughing with each other, telling jokes, or singing, to pass the hours. The baskets, as they fill, put more and more pressure on one’s back, and become more and more awkward. When full, they are dumped out into the sacks, and placed at the end of a row of coffee trees to be picked up and lugged down the hill at the end of the day. It seems that it is never ending work, there are thousands of plants and hundreds of thousands of cherries, all needing to be ‘cut’, to be carried, to be processed, so that they can arrive straight to us, in the form of a drip coffee or a latte, thousands of miles from the women standing on the hillside, laughing and complaining, plucking them from the tree and carrying them down the hill, on burros or on backs. I love seeing the connection.
posted by Hilary King at
12:40 PM
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