The Human Farm

For the past few days I have been in Minas de Oro under the care of the Diaz family. I am staying at the house of Guillermo. Minas de Oro is an old mining town surrounded by a circle of pine covered mountains. The elevation is high, so it is cool here. I sleep really well at night. I am reading the book "The Human Farm" by Katie Smith because I have more free time here in Minas. The book tells the story of Elías Sánchez, a Honduran man who started a model farm called Loma Linda to teach campesinos improved farming methods. I am amazed to find myself interacting with people who played a part in that story. Guillermo was Elías' boss at the ministry of natural resources here in Honduras, and he played a part in bringing the ideas of "The Human Farm" here to Minas de Oro, eventually resulting in the organization I am working for: Tierra Nueva. The main point of the book is that Elías focused on changing peoples hearts and minds before trying to change their farming practices. The book tells how this style of people-centered development work spread around Honduras and the world. I am soaking up all this experience and history each day as I interact with the people here, and I love it. It is humbling to see each day how God is taking care of me here, and preparing me for each next step.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

This is a question I have been asking my self a lot lately. Almost every family in the countryside has a few chickens roaming around the yard. When I approach on motorcycle, chickens on the side of the road almost always feel the need to frantically cross just in front of me at the last second. ¡Que barbaridad!
Lately I have been getting around via motorcycle, on foot, on mule, or in the back of pickups. The roads are pretty rough, so everyone goes fairly slowly. Since good quality coffee grows at high elevation, many coffee producers live in little villages high in the mountains. I have been visiting these small scale coffee producers to give them information about a certification they could get for their coffee (Rainforest Alliance). My goal is that they understand in detail what the certification is all about so they can make a good decision based on their present situation. Getting certified will take some work and cost some money, but it would likely get them a better price for their coffee, and it would benefit the community near the farm as well. We had a meeting this week with all the producers and the organization that does the certification. It was really good to connect the farmers with the resources of this organization, but I don´t think the producers are ready to start the process of certification yet.
Today I have some downtime here in San Luis. So, I went to find the other gringo in town. Charles works with Peace Corps and has been here for about a year. He is from the Twin Cities too. He led me here to the library where I can use the internet for free!