A date with William

It was like something out of a movie on Telenova. The farmer, William, riding his horse on a steep muddy hill, gazing into the distance. Actually, gazing at us, a bunch of Americans working at his coffee farm on a mountain in Costa Rica. This could have been one of the many times Chris, one of our Starbucks compadres, says: How many times are you going to see something like that? The answer since we arrived in Costa Rica on Monday has always been the same: once. It´s a rhetorical question, Chris helpfully explained.

Besides the friendly farmer on the horse, who later hosted us at his house for, surprise, coffee, today was a big day because we worked on a farm in the morning and another farm in the afternoon. Take it from a lazy American--working on a farm is real work. It wasn´t clear that we would get there, though, first thing in the morning, as the cars that shepherded us up the mountain had to contend with mud roads with not much room to spare. Journey played on the radio as the car slid up the mountain: Don´t stop believing, mes amigos!

We saw a lot of coffee fruit today, and I saw a lot of dirt, taking dozens of soil samples from near coffee plants. We even had lunch in the field. We power counted and measured through six transects. Even though that doesn´t mean anything to most people, believe me, it´s a feat of epic proportions.

I was going to get through this without mentioning the rain. It rained.

Lewis
The steep incline... what a ride.
William NaranjoTrudging up to the farm.Chris, left to right, Kimball, and Lewis at the Naranjo house.Carmen Naranjo, William's daughter.