As my peers and I were enjoying a wonderful meal prepped by our host family, Ersi (the wife of Oledemar who are the owners of the coffee farm where we volunteered) walked in to say hello. She was so cheerful to see a full house of volunteers, she sat down and started making conversation with us. There was a language barrier for some people in the house, but I would happily translate along with a couple other people in our group. As she noticed that she was able to communicate better through a translator she wanted to share with us the story of her and her family’s coffee farm.
She began the story by saying that most of the land in Costa Rica was owned by one powerful rich man until some Quakers and other religious groups decided to change the scales. These groups wanted to give some of the agricultural land to different families in the area. In order to do so, they raised money to buy a huge amount of land from the rich and powerful man. Once they did, they held a raffle in order to choose which families would receive a certain terrain. The lot that we volunteered in was number 7. I believed that there were about 20 different acres, each and every one beautiful and rich with colors. Once the land was divided up the families were able to grow crops and sell them to different companies. They would work very hard, but after so many years felt that their work was not being fairly compensated. During this time, volunteers would stay at the farm to help them harvest coffee, grind it, and package it. One day, a caring volunteer discussed with Oldemar’s family, what holds them back from creating their own coffee business instead of not being compensated fairly? This caring volunteer ignited a motivation in this family to build their own coffee business from the ground up. The first thing that the family did was invest in a coffee roaster. One that they have had now for more than 20 years. Since then their business has been booming more and more throughout the years. Volunteers have came and helped this family and just this past year they built a whole cabin and extra bathrooms just for their wonderful people that come and assist them with their coffee production. The place we stayed was so beautiful it is amazing that they built it within under a year with their own means and skills. They really do care for their volunteers and try to make it as homey as possible, but with Ersi amazing cooking that is easily achieved, it is so delicious!
The resilience and determination of this wonderful family inspired me, along with their generosity to share their home and unique coffee process with us. I feel like I have a loving Tico family to visit anytime I want to return to Costa Rica, and that is a very exciting factor for me because I do plan to go again in the near future.
Brenda Torres Barraza
Senior Global Studies and Spanish Major