Just Coffee Cooperative

This year, with Mauricio Funes in office, the government promised to provide school supplies, uniforms, and shoes for each public school student.  In doing so, the goal was make school more accessible for students, since uniforms, shoes, and school supplies are necessary, yet unaffordable for many Salvadorans. At the same time, it has provided work for many small businesses within the country.  During the first week of school, I got to help out at a couple of different schools distributing tickets and supplies to parents and kids.  So far, it seems like this is having a really positive affect on kids and is achieving what it set out to do.

Gang violence in El Salvador is a major issue for many people here. There are several reasons as to why it has spiraled out of control in many major cities and towns throughout the country, so much so that nobody really knows how to stop them. Overall poverty, immigration, and lack of recreational activites for kids are just a few of those reasons.  Prevention, police and military control, and even intercepting phone calls are some ideas the government has for dealing with this issue and its clear that it is not going to be easy to stop them.

Each day the news reports on murders of bus drivers and cobradores by gang members as a result of their failure to pay the expensive "rents" that the gangs demand for simply passing through their territories.  Bus owners and other professionals are constantly being extorted by the gangs, threatening death if they fail to come up with hundreds if not thousands of dollars by a certain date.  These threats are very real and are used to frighten others into paying the money they are demanding.

Here is a picture of a bus that was parked in the small town of El Paisnal just outside the police station.  Three bullet holes can be seen in the drivers side window, just above a decal stating "This unity is protected by God our lord". Gang members boarded the bus and killed the driver since the owner of the bus was unable come up with the funds to pay the rent they were demanding.

Yesterday I went to visit Antonio and the family I had been staying with in the community. We dont have a phone anymore, he told me. Extorsiones. As an owner of three buses, and someone with extra cash, he received a phone call from the gangs wanting to "reach an agreement".  He knew what they were looking for and quickly hung up the phone and had his number disconnected before anything was negotiated.  Im not sure what this means, but hes worried about his family's safety.  Just when I thought the countryside was free of all that nonsense...

Since returning from Nicaragua, I dove head first into this garden project and it hasn't left me with much time to stop and think.  For now, I'm treating myself to an afternoon in my new hammock in my new country home. Ive decided to move into the empty guest house in the community, to take a break from my 7 month stint of staying with other people and living out of a suitcase .  Baby chickens run around in my new backyard chirping and scrounging for food.  Who knows who they belong to.  The sun is shining bright, but my shaded back porch provides a comfortable spot for the gentle breeze to cool me down.  Delmis next door washes her clothes by hand and soon I will hear the patting of tortillas between her hands.  Its dry and dusty, summertime here is in full affect.  My farmers tan is thickening and I just cant seem to keep the dirt out from underneath my fingernails.  Pura campesina la Julita, they tell me after I show them the blister that has developed on the palm of my hand from workin’ the land.

Bags of coffee were thoughtfully placed in a basket on the floor in front of us, alternating between black and red labels.  The black ones were stamped with Just Coffee's logo and the red ones with Las Diosas logo.  The labels were different colors, read in different languages, but were filled with the same contents; organic coffee grown by women in northern Nicaragua.  Next to the coffee were candles and incense.  Nine of us women had come from near and far to attend this meeting, among them small scale coffee producers, directors of La FEM, and me consumer and representative of Just Coffee. Three of us were named Julia. I came armed with a long list of questions and them a world of answers, and from the beginning it was clear that this meeting was about much more than Just Coffee.