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Bringing In The Coffee Harvest
Coffee farming in the Bolivian lowlands is backbreaking labor. Gregorio Huiza can testify to this. His Aymara ancestors lived on the high, cold altiplano until intense poverty forced them to migrate. They came here in the hopes that the land would provide at least a subsistence level of production, and perhaps, with luck, a little bit more.
What Gregorio and his family found was that coffee, which grows naturally along the jagged mountainsides of this area, might be the crop that could provide them that little bit more.
"I have lived in this house for 11 years. We have seen other groups come here and then leave. We wanted help with coffee production, but before CARE, the help never lasted long. Our technical assistants or extensionists would leave us. So we stopped trusting outsiders."
We were visiting Gregorio on the tail end of the coffee harvest. "This is the hardest time of the year for us. We work 14 hours a day, every day of the week for four months. We take 30 minutes to eat."
This was not the coffee plantation you might imagine. The jungle floor was covered in thick brush. It was dense forest, without neat rows or irrigation systems or mechanized harvesters. There were only men, women and children with sacks on their backs, pulling coffee tree limbs down to them with hooked sticks. Their nimble hands swiftly picked bulging red beans, leaving the hard green nubs to ripen.
Gregorio continued working as he spoke. "CARE helped us change our management of coffee. We learned how to manage the soil, to terrace. Before CARE came, we only imagined how we might improve our harvest. We didn't know how to really do it."
 Ana Apaza -- 'A Woman?' They Said.
The CARE jeep kicked up clouds of dust as we continued toward the Virgen de Copacabana settlement. Everyone in the car covered their mouths with handkerchiefs or scarves to keep from coughing. Our next destination was another 30 minutes away, up more of the same narrow unpaved roads, marred with potholes. It was our last stop of the day, to meet with Ana Apaza, an agricultural extensionist working in this village of 55 families.
As we drove past occasional homes made of wooden planks and mud brick, Johnny leaned from his window, asking if anyone had seen Ana. The mention of her name brought easy smiles. Keep driving they all said, "arriba," and pointed upward.
Ana is one of the few female agricultural extensionists that was able to withstand the tough physical demands of working for CARE's MIRNA project. Johnny Reyes, MIRNA's director explained. "This area is extremely remote and lacks many basic resources. To work among these very poor people, in their communities, requires a dedication and strength that is uncommon among any person, man or woman.
 "However, being a woman working under these circumstances, and given so much sexism, requires perhaps even greater determination."
We found Ana with the Perez family, high atop a terraced plot carved into the rugged terrain. Tiny seedlings lined up in rows awaited transplantation into the terraced plot. The conversation picked up easily. "When I first came to the communities," Ana explained, "they did not want to work with me. 'A woman?' they said. 'Let us see your credentials! Where did you study? How do you know what you are doing?"
Ana holds a degree in Agronomy from the University of La Paz. She said that at the beginning, there were times when their distrust deeply discouraged her. "They told me that a woman was too delicate for this kind of hard labor. They didn't think that I would want to get dirt on my hands."
But, she felt free in the country, among the villagers. She knew she didn't want an office job in La Paz. She wanted to play a part in the revitalization of her country. She made it her goal that these people, whether they liked it or not, would come to accept her. Despite their prejudice, and despite how difficult it might be, she would earn their trust and get on with the work.
Nonetheless, it was tough. "At first, there was not only prejudice, but difficult physical conditions. I, like all the others, live out in the field among the people. The house that I lived in was overrun with bats. And I had no water. I had to go the river and haul water for bathing, drinking and washing my clothes."
Ana pressed on in her work, knowing that with time and hard work, she would accomplish her goal.
The Perez family has worked with Ana the full two years that she's been assigned to their village. Demetrio Perez, a coffee farmer, has seen his small farm increase its productivity and diversify its range of crops. "CARE gave us strength to  persevere, to work. They help us with lessons and advice and sometimes other things. Recently we got seeds that we otherwise could not get in this area, but that grow well here. We diversify and prosper by trying something new that costs very little."
Ana smiles. "The Perez family, like many of the families I work with here, is so eager to learn new agricultural techniques. They always say, 'More! Tell us more, Ana.' Their success brings them not only a little bit more to eat and to sell, but also a sense of pride. Their land becomes a model for other families in the community."
"So, though there are sacrifices and hardships that come as part of my job, there are also rewards. Though I cannot always see my family, I am able to pay for my little brother's secondary education. Even though I have to drive down dangerous roads, the road ends with families that show me love. They invite me into their homes, we eat together, we learn from each other."
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