Quarterly Report Number 2
Hi All, I know that I have been terrible about updating this recently. (For two months!) I have been writing some things, but nothing was finsihed, but I have decided I have to put stuff up, even if that means some things will be backlogged. The last two months, in short, have been wonderful, I had many visitors, (Thank you my family, Steph, Sara and Sarah!) and sillily allowed their presences to dissuade me from writing as much as I ws used to. Now however, after spending four adventure packed days in Cairo with Kris and Jackie, I am back on my own to explore a new continent, leaving tomorrow for Dar Es Salaam Tanzania and the East African Fine Coffee Association Conference (could i get any more specific?). More information to follow... But for the timebeing, here is some sort of synthesis of my last three months as sent to my sponsors at TJW, see what you think...
Quarterly Report Number 2
Xela, Panimaquip, Atitlan, Panajachel, Santa Anita, La Florida, Chuvل, Antigua. The varied names of Guatemalan cities, regions and communities underscore their varied histories and heritage. I spent the last three months in these places attempting to understand a little bit of that diversity sifted through the particular culture of coffee production. During that time, I had the opportunity to hike into communities all around Lake Atitlan that were gravely affected by Hurricane Stan. In these communities, I was able to do interviews in addition to helping an organization of coffee farmers with a diagnostic survey on damage caused by the hurricane. I was able to meet with the owners of both medium and large scale coffee plantations, to see how their processes differed, and observe the situation of workers under these circumstances. I also spent various weeks in two cooperative communities of small-scale farmers, clearing brush, doing interviews, building trails, attending meetings, playing with children and trying various new kinds of fruit. Each of these experiences has enriched my understanding of coffee, cooperatives, international trade, Fair Trade, political theory, history, and human relations, while unearthing countless new questions and aspects of a project that seems to get bigger and more complicated as I dig deeper.
Rather than entering directly into a community for an extended period, as I begun my time in Nicaragua, my first adventures in Guatemala brought me a new kind of interaction. Accompanying an engineer from APOCS, an organization of coffee producers, I clambered through fields and over cobbled and muddy roads into various rural communities around Lake Atitlan, one of Guatemala's best known tourist attractions. These villages, far out of view of most tourists, were hit hardest by Hurricane Stan. I was there to assess the damage. This consisted primarily of my coming into communities for a morning, or a day, talking to a few people, taking a few photos, and hiking out again. The experience was educational in the variety of places and people with which I had contact, but less enriching from the perspective of really getting to spend more time, talk, and learn about the inner-workings of each locality.
One of the most revealing experiences of these three months has been, paradoxically, getting out of the cooperatives. I contacted some of Guatemala's coffee producing elite, and thereby was able to visit various medium as well as huge coffee estates and plantations. While this aspect of coffee production was not what I set out to study, getting to see it more closely has greatly enriched the project. These plantations, more than the cooperatives, are the history of coffee production. This model has dominated, and is a foundation of the industry. Getting better acquainted with it shows its strengths and weaknesses, and helps me to better understand the internal power structure of this international business. I met with international coffee brokers (I didn't even know what a broker was before!) and plantation owners, learning that in Guatemala, even Fair Trade producers and importers run their crop through these market mechanisms. I better understand the situation of small-scale farmers, both as newly landed peasants and as workers with a history. It has let me see why many judged a need to develop Fair Trade as an alternative model to plantation coffee farming. There are many ways to do business, and the ones that are not based on workers' rights or small-scale production are not wrong. They are something that I need to know about. It is in this way that I will better understand where the cooperative model fits into the larger picture of global coffee production. I can identify with more precision both who is behind the push for cooperative organization and the push against it. I am better able to see what is at stake on both sides, what works well on each, and therefore hopefully construct a well-rounded picture of this microcosm.
This experience has challenged me to examine my own preconceptions about wealth and its relationship to social inequity, as well as my prejudices against those at the other end of the economic spectrum I am examining. It has shown me new heights of social inequity, while introducing me to charming, well-educated people. It provides an illustration of Guatemala's power structure that has allowed me to better understand the nation's violent and war-torn past, as well as the multiple existing visions for its future. Here I see Guatemala's many facets, all of which will shape her path.
The other extreme of these large-scale, big business ventures is the two communities in which I spent various weeks. Santa Anita La Union and La Florida are two communities of well-organized small-scale producers. One is a group of indigenous, ex-guerilla fighters; the other, a newly founded community that just received access to land after two years of occupation and litigation. Both communities were operating largely on their own; they were not affiliated directly with an umbrella cooperative as were the communities I visited in Nicaragua. I was faced with innumerable questions: How were they organized? What was their history? Their aspirations for the future? From where did they receive support? How did they find their markets? Who provides them with technical assistance? What projects have they invested in? What are their priorities for change?
In Guatemala, the horrors of military violence, social inequity, repression and poverty are unnervingly apparent. Histories of oppression, dependency, and subsistence living pervade agricultural communities. The nation's history seems to vacillate between the ideals expressed by the plantation model and a more campesino-oriented paradigm. Considering this history, it is enlightening, uplifting, and heartbreaking to witness firsthand the determination with which Guatemalan farmers devote themselves to making their land produce once it is theirs. To see how hard they work to give their children an education and a roof with no leaks. To hear again and again that all they do, they do so their children will have a better future. It is wonderful to see how organizing –how coming together—they have aided themselves in this process.
Daily life in these communities is a perpetual lesson in political theory. Individual or collective land titles? Communal work plans or private management? Mandatory organizations and meetings or to each his own? Most of the answers lie somewhere in the middle, but it is fascinating to observe how the people answer them for themselves. Whether or not they work land collectively, when, where, how much, is decided through democratic dialogue. Fortunately for me, almost all members of these communities had opinions they were willing to share on these issues.
In each community, the members also showed me a new level of commitment to their lives and farms. I asked one of the ex-guerillas, is this life what you spent eighteen years in the mountains and ten years in exile for? He said yes without hesitation. In Guatemala as in Nicaragua, I was welcomed with open arms into communities, homes, and lives. People were willing to teach me to cook as well as de-weed coffee fields and harvest the cherries. At a patron saints celebration, I was swept first onto the dance floor to the shrieking excitement of everyone present. The Chela was learning to dance marimba with one of their own. I was impressed by new levels of contentment, of excitement about the prospects that lay ahead even in the face of great difficulty. One woman with whom I ate, Francisca, was living with her four children in a converted horse stable. The wooden walls went up about four feet, the space between there and the tin roof was covered over with cardboard and pieces of tin. Yet somehow, her excitement at being there erased the holes in the walls, the wind blowing through, filling the space with love and family amidst the few pots, pans and mattresses occupying the various corners. Francisca could hardly contain her excitement at the proximity of running water, which would save her two hours walk during the dry season to wash clothes and fetch cooking water.
In Guatemala, I had more access to nuts and bolts information than in some of the larger cooperatives. I actually had all the finances of Santa Anita explained to me, and was privileged to hear a critique of the Fair Trade system from the cooperative's past president. He explained to me the costs of certifications, of shipping, of harvests, illustrating that even making Fair Trade prices the community barely breaks even. This leads me to other questions: Why is this? How important are international certifiers? Should there be a limit on their size and income? What is a fair share for those that are regulating and ensuring Fair Trade conditions? How do you create direct trade and make it legitimate for consumers without falling into traps of bureaucracy that decrease its efficiency? To these questions, I do not yet have answers.
One of the most important things that I am realizing this section of the trip is just how big this project really is. Each day I feel like I have new questions, other aspects of organization, of the coffee trade, of Fair Trade, of human nature, that I want to explore and that are related to the underlying inquiries of the project. I realize more and more that even at the end of this year, with a rounded understanding of many of the issues, I will still only have a perspective on a small piece of this many faceted puzzle. I am hoping to be able to return to Guatemala as I feel there are so many things that I didn't get to do, so many people I didn't get to talk to. I am excited to travel to Africa, but also sad to leave this part of the world, to which I have grown very attached. I am already planning new ways to get back, to learn more, question more, and get deeper into all of the amazing places this time has allowed me to discover.
Quarterly Report Number 2
Xela, Panimaquip, Atitlan, Panajachel, Santa Anita, La Florida, Chuvل, Antigua. The varied names of Guatemalan cities, regions and communities underscore their varied histories and heritage. I spent the last three months in these places attempting to understand a little bit of that diversity sifted through the particular culture of coffee production. During that time, I had the opportunity to hike into communities all around Lake Atitlan that were gravely affected by Hurricane Stan. In these communities, I was able to do interviews in addition to helping an organization of coffee farmers with a diagnostic survey on damage caused by the hurricane. I was able to meet with the owners of both medium and large scale coffee plantations, to see how their processes differed, and observe the situation of workers under these circumstances. I also spent various weeks in two cooperative communities of small-scale farmers, clearing brush, doing interviews, building trails, attending meetings, playing with children and trying various new kinds of fruit. Each of these experiences has enriched my understanding of coffee, cooperatives, international trade, Fair Trade, political theory, history, and human relations, while unearthing countless new questions and aspects of a project that seems to get bigger and more complicated as I dig deeper.
Rather than entering directly into a community for an extended period, as I begun my time in Nicaragua, my first adventures in Guatemala brought me a new kind of interaction. Accompanying an engineer from APOCS, an organization of coffee producers, I clambered through fields and over cobbled and muddy roads into various rural communities around Lake Atitlan, one of Guatemala's best known tourist attractions. These villages, far out of view of most tourists, were hit hardest by Hurricane Stan. I was there to assess the damage. This consisted primarily of my coming into communities for a morning, or a day, talking to a few people, taking a few photos, and hiking out again. The experience was educational in the variety of places and people with which I had contact, but less enriching from the perspective of really getting to spend more time, talk, and learn about the inner-workings of each locality.
One of the most revealing experiences of these three months has been, paradoxically, getting out of the cooperatives. I contacted some of Guatemala's coffee producing elite, and thereby was able to visit various medium as well as huge coffee estates and plantations. While this aspect of coffee production was not what I set out to study, getting to see it more closely has greatly enriched the project. These plantations, more than the cooperatives, are the history of coffee production. This model has dominated, and is a foundation of the industry. Getting better acquainted with it shows its strengths and weaknesses, and helps me to better understand the internal power structure of this international business. I met with international coffee brokers (I didn't even know what a broker was before!) and plantation owners, learning that in Guatemala, even Fair Trade producers and importers run their crop through these market mechanisms. I better understand the situation of small-scale farmers, both as newly landed peasants and as workers with a history. It has let me see why many judged a need to develop Fair Trade as an alternative model to plantation coffee farming. There are many ways to do business, and the ones that are not based on workers' rights or small-scale production are not wrong. They are something that I need to know about. It is in this way that I will better understand where the cooperative model fits into the larger picture of global coffee production. I can identify with more precision both who is behind the push for cooperative organization and the push against it. I am better able to see what is at stake on both sides, what works well on each, and therefore hopefully construct a well-rounded picture of this microcosm.
This experience has challenged me to examine my own preconceptions about wealth and its relationship to social inequity, as well as my prejudices against those at the other end of the economic spectrum I am examining. It has shown me new heights of social inequity, while introducing me to charming, well-educated people. It provides an illustration of Guatemala's power structure that has allowed me to better understand the nation's violent and war-torn past, as well as the multiple existing visions for its future. Here I see Guatemala's many facets, all of which will shape her path.
The other extreme of these large-scale, big business ventures is the two communities in which I spent various weeks. Santa Anita La Union and La Florida are two communities of well-organized small-scale producers. One is a group of indigenous, ex-guerilla fighters; the other, a newly founded community that just received access to land after two years of occupation and litigation. Both communities were operating largely on their own; they were not affiliated directly with an umbrella cooperative as were the communities I visited in Nicaragua. I was faced with innumerable questions: How were they organized? What was their history? Their aspirations for the future? From where did they receive support? How did they find their markets? Who provides them with technical assistance? What projects have they invested in? What are their priorities for change?
In Guatemala, the horrors of military violence, social inequity, repression and poverty are unnervingly apparent. Histories of oppression, dependency, and subsistence living pervade agricultural communities. The nation's history seems to vacillate between the ideals expressed by the plantation model and a more campesino-oriented paradigm. Considering this history, it is enlightening, uplifting, and heartbreaking to witness firsthand the determination with which Guatemalan farmers devote themselves to making their land produce once it is theirs. To see how hard they work to give their children an education and a roof with no leaks. To hear again and again that all they do, they do so their children will have a better future. It is wonderful to see how organizing –how coming together—they have aided themselves in this process.
Daily life in these communities is a perpetual lesson in political theory. Individual or collective land titles? Communal work plans or private management? Mandatory organizations and meetings or to each his own? Most of the answers lie somewhere in the middle, but it is fascinating to observe how the people answer them for themselves. Whether or not they work land collectively, when, where, how much, is decided through democratic dialogue. Fortunately for me, almost all members of these communities had opinions they were willing to share on these issues.
In each community, the members also showed me a new level of commitment to their lives and farms. I asked one of the ex-guerillas, is this life what you spent eighteen years in the mountains and ten years in exile for? He said yes without hesitation. In Guatemala as in Nicaragua, I was welcomed with open arms into communities, homes, and lives. People were willing to teach me to cook as well as de-weed coffee fields and harvest the cherries. At a patron saints celebration, I was swept first onto the dance floor to the shrieking excitement of everyone present. The Chela was learning to dance marimba with one of their own. I was impressed by new levels of contentment, of excitement about the prospects that lay ahead even in the face of great difficulty. One woman with whom I ate, Francisca, was living with her four children in a converted horse stable. The wooden walls went up about four feet, the space between there and the tin roof was covered over with cardboard and pieces of tin. Yet somehow, her excitement at being there erased the holes in the walls, the wind blowing through, filling the space with love and family amidst the few pots, pans and mattresses occupying the various corners. Francisca could hardly contain her excitement at the proximity of running water, which would save her two hours walk during the dry season to wash clothes and fetch cooking water.
In Guatemala, I had more access to nuts and bolts information than in some of the larger cooperatives. I actually had all the finances of Santa Anita explained to me, and was privileged to hear a critique of the Fair Trade system from the cooperative's past president. He explained to me the costs of certifications, of shipping, of harvests, illustrating that even making Fair Trade prices the community barely breaks even. This leads me to other questions: Why is this? How important are international certifiers? Should there be a limit on their size and income? What is a fair share for those that are regulating and ensuring Fair Trade conditions? How do you create direct trade and make it legitimate for consumers without falling into traps of bureaucracy that decrease its efficiency? To these questions, I do not yet have answers.
One of the most important things that I am realizing this section of the trip is just how big this project really is. Each day I feel like I have new questions, other aspects of organization, of the coffee trade, of Fair Trade, of human nature, that I want to explore and that are related to the underlying inquiries of the project. I realize more and more that even at the end of this year, with a rounded understanding of many of the issues, I will still only have a perspective on a small piece of this many faceted puzzle. I am hoping to be able to return to Guatemala as I feel there are so many things that I didn't get to do, so many people I didn't get to talk to. I am excited to travel to Africa, but also sad to leave this part of the world, to which I have grown very attached. I am already planning new ways to get back, to learn more, question more, and get deeper into all of the amazing places this time has allowed me to discover.
posted by Hilary King at
8:20 AM
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