Children: the other side of the "coffee tour" - Brief Article

Whole Earth, Summer, 2002 by Emily Polk

Two years ago, while backpacking through Central America, I stopped in Guatemala for a few months to study Spanish. People from all over the world study in this colorful, mountainous country, long renowned for its inexpensive schools.

Our school, a progressive institution run by two brothers who also taught Spanish to Peace Corps volunteers, sponsored many field trips, including a "coffee tour." About a dozen fellow students and I borrowed some old bikes from a local bike store and rode with our teacher to a large coffee estate just outside of town.

The tour took less than an hour. We saw women sitting silently at long tables, separating good beans from the bad. We saw beans roasted and blended and packaged in a pretty and efficient process. We sampled the coffee and marveled at the taste.

At the end of the tour, after we bid farewell to our guide, our teacher gathered us together. "Your tour is not over," he whispered to us. "I am going to take you out a different way." Our usually jolly teacher looked solemn as he ordered us, "Get on your bikes and stay in a straight line. We will leave the way we came in and take a different turn before the road. Do not get off your bikes until we leave the grounds."

The only thing on my mind as I followed the others in a thin train was not filling off my rickety bike. We veered around and headed down a dirt path right into the heart of coffee fields that stretched as far as the eye could see. Then I looked up.

The first thing I saw was the dirt on the sunburned skin of dozens of children picking coffee. They all looked between the ages of three and sixteen. Brown earth smudged in the wrinkles of their foreheads, around their eyes, and under their fingernails. Dirty beads of sweat sprouted like greasy pearls on the tops of their lips. They lined the long rows, picking from coffee bushes in a steady rhythm that betrayed the years they'd spent working there. Barefoot toddlers with swollen bellies waddled between the bushes. Not even a soft breeze offered relief from the heavy heat.

The children and older workers stopped picking as we made our way slowly down the lanes. My skin and eyes were the same color as theirs, but they stared at me as though I was an alien descended from the skies. They could not understand my language, nor I theirs. Many were Indians who came down from the Highlands for the harvest. Others had been there for years. Many of the children had never left the plantation.

Later, back at the school, we learned what the coffee-tour guide had not taught us: Guatemala is one of the poorest countries in Central America. High unemployment and illiteracy make it easy to recruit low-wage laborers to work in the coffee fields.

There are around 60,000 coffee plantations in Guatemala, which provide work for over one million people. Although there are child labor laws, they are rarely observed by plantation owners or enforced by authorities.

These children work an average of twelve hours a day, six days a week. They do not get paid individually for their work. They are helping their families to meet quotas. During the harvest the quota is the number of coffee bins that need to be filled. At other times it is a certain number of trees to be pruned or areas to weed. Families earn between $1.50 and $2.50 a day. By Guatemalan living standards, this is barely enough to buy food and dothing.

Just before we left the fields, our teacher pointed to wooden barracks on the outskirts. That is where the families live, he told us. My heart began to pound and I stumbled off my bike. One family to a room, with no access to electricity, running water, or any kind of medical facilities. The workers were uneducated. Most were illiterate and malnourished.

Our teacher told us the stories of workers who tried to organize a union on the estate, which had been owned for years by a Spanish family. The workers were dismissed immediately and blacklisted from working on other farms. Since they did not have money to afford a legal battle, many of them had to find income elsewhere.

"There are always other sides to a story," he told us as soon as it was safe to stop. "These children have nothing and nobody to speak for them. If I speak out, I will not be allowed to bring my students here. Please go back to your countries and speak for them."

I stood in the glaring Guatemala sunlight, sweat soaking my back as I listened to my teacher. The smell of coffee beans hung in the air. My breath, my clothes, everything smelled like coffee.

I knew then, as I do now, that it is an impossible smell to wash off.

RELATED ARTICLE: ACCESS TO CAMPAIGNS, PROJECTS, AND ORGANIZATIONS WORKING TO END CHILD LABOR.

COFFEE KIDS
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1305 Luisa Street, Suite C
Santa Fe, NM 87505
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www.coffeekids.com

An international nonprofit working with local organizations to improve the lives of families in coffee-growing communities. Programs range from economic development to health care to providing scholarships for schooling. The website has links to project profiles, coffee facts, and community solutions.