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.
                 

After feeling the earth move under my feet in San Salvador (a 6.0 on the Richter scale) I was reunited again with Jitzy, a small scale coffee producer and now friend. We met almost two years ago at a producer party at Just Coffee in Madison where Jitzy was representing her all women's coffee cooperative in Nicaragua. My friend Anna and I were blown away by her story after experiencing the strong influence of machismo in central America and understood the need for such projects. We made friends with Jitzy during her stay in Madison and then went to visit her in her community that following summer. It has been a year and a half since our last visit and because its harvesting season, this time I have had the opportunity to experience the whole production process: planting, compost/organic fertilizer production, harvesting, separating, pulping, cleaning, drying, transporting, drying again, shelling, cleaning, separating, exporting, roasting, grinding, packaging, selling, and most importantly consuming it after the long journey to my cup. Whoa. This process is extremely complex and overwhelming and this visit has helped me to appreciate the many hands that are involved in bringing a good cup of coffee to us as consumers each day. Here goes my lengthy attempt at describing the journey of these traveling coffee beans and the rad women that produce them...

Timor-Leste's highest peak.

Last August Just Coffee raised a whopping $1660.00usd at the Producer2Producer (P2P) Fundraiser. Combined with money raised at a previous presentation held at Java Cat, Just Coffee has now managed to save a total of $1835.00usd for the P2P fund!

The P2P fund will go to send someone from LaFEM cooperative on a Just Coffee Delegation to meet another group of Central American or Caribbean coffee growers that Just Coffee also purchases coffee from. The trip will serve as an educational and skills exchange and is something that LaFEM has been wanting to do since the initiation of their relationship with Just Coffee. You should know by now, but in case you don't, LaFEM is an all-womens coffee growing cooperative and women’s advocacy group, located in and near Estell, Nicaragua. Just Coffee is very happy to soon be able to finally make this dream a reality.

Because of the great success of the P2P Fundraisers, and the support of Just Coffee's customers and friends, Just Coffee raised enough money to be able to not only send someone from LaFEM to visit another group of coffee producers, but also to send someone from the cooperative that LaFEM visits on a Just Coffee Delegation to visit LaFEM. A real exchange indeed! The lives of coffee growers are not easy and an exchange such as this, or travel of any kind at all for that matter, is not common in their lives. Just Coffee hopes foster a great educational opportunity for these growers as well as continue to build and strengthen our relationships with these growers and their relationships with each other.

  (Just Coffee friends Ambra & Corey Hart who helped with organization, advertising, and execution of the P2P Fundraiser. Ambra was an excellent mc and Corey Hart played a sample of his fantastic music. Corey is local to Madison so definitely check out his music!)

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