And.....scene

This week I said my goodbyes, which was harder than I thought it would be. And now I am in the city wrapping things up, with just the weekend left. I have been longing for this coming weekend--homesickness in this case wins out over scholarly pursuits in my emotional tug-of-war.

It is difficult to leave, and difficult to explain whether I will be able to return--it's all based on funding. There will be a number of changes in the co-op between now and the end of summer. With the coffee harvest at a close things are quieting down. Workers will return to their communities, to plant and pick corn, beans and squash and to perform maintenance in the cafetal. The cooperative will meet to elect new leaders, and a new generation of farmers will take on new roles in their communities and within the fair trade network. The timing of my trip was aligned quite nicely with the coffee harvest and the activities related to it. I hope that I will be able to return to see the other side of the coin--what does coffee farming look like between harvests? I expect it looks like corn farming. We tend to discuss coffee producers as though coffee is their sole purview--but in reality, for small producers coffee is cash, corn is life.

I spent my last day with the co-op observing the shipment of their coffee destined for the U.S. There is a truck now at the port in Veracruz with 200 or so costales of Chiapan coffee, waiting to ship out. They will repeat this process 3 more times before the end of May. Each truckload represents a shipping container destined for the US, Switzerland or Japan where the coffee will be roasted for the 'local' market.

And I am now packing up my things, also, in a way, waiting to ship out.