Anatomy of a Project (Vol. 3.3) - The Community

Another extremely important player in any community development project is, obviously, the community itself.  For the economical stove project we’re working with two smaller communities (commonly called comarcas) located in the municipality of Santa Lucía just outside the municipal head.  One is the community of Los Álvarez and the other is the community of El Llanito.

Location inside Nicaragua

The demographic that will be most directly impacted by the project is the women of the two communities.  The women do the cooking.  They are the ones who use the firewood and very often they are the ones who have to go up into the mountains to search for it.  They are the ones breathing in the noxious wood smoke every day, sometimes all day long.  Due to the fact that their mothers and older sisters often times have to take care of them while tending to the cooking fire, babies and small children are also very much affected by the wood smoke.

Since this is a community project and we’re working with whole families through the entire process, we will be affecting men as well, albeit less directly.  While men do not cook, the task of searching for firewood often falls on them.  And obviously men are worried about the health of their wives and children.

The whole municipality

I want to take a closer look then, at these two communities, Los Álvarez and El Llanito, with the ultimate goal being to understand some basic things about the kinds of forces at work there.  We will also explore the richness of resources, both human and natural, that exist in any given community and that can influence the design of a project if you just take the time to identify them.

Community Los Álvarez

Los Álvarez is one of the most overlooked comarcas in Santa Lucía when it comes to municipal and government-sponsored projects.  There is very little infrastructure development in the community and large sections don’t have access to clean drinking water.  There is not even a church or a common area for community members to meet in, so they are forced to sit around outside or impose on fellow community members’ homes if they want to get together.

134 families live in Los Álvarez, split between two sectors.  Some families live in the fifty houses that were built by a housing project in the nineties, and others live in more traditionally built houses clustered around the many streams and paths that run through the community.

Many families work in raising cattle or farming beans, corn, and coffee, but a common story among families in Los Álvarez and really all of Nicaragua, is that one parent, usually the father, leaves the country to find work in Costa Rica (this work usually takes the form of a series of disparate construction jobs) and sends money back home to the wife and kids.  This splitting up of families often times puts quite a strain on all parties involved, especially the kids.

We currently have three economical stoves built and functioning in Los Álvarez, split between the two sectors, and after visiting the houses where these stoves are, many families are super excited to participate in our larger community-based project.

Community Leader

One of the most important members of Los Álvarez is Pedro Urbina, a community leader and role model, and above all, a pretty awesome person.  Pedro, or Pedrito as he is most commonly referred to, has been closely involved with us in every step of this project to date.

He was with us when we investigated the stove model for the first time and he offered up his house, his time, and his expertise for the construction of our first economical stove model in December.  Don Pedrito (Ricardo is wont to call him chavalón or “big kid”) is always ready to help, offer his opinion, and donate his valuable time to helping make this project a reality.  He is the kind of human resource that can really make the difference in a community development project.

Community El Llanito

The comarca El Llanito is bigger than Los Álvarez, but the 262 or more families who live there deal with the same economic and social realities.  The families in El Llanito produce the same crops as in Los Álvarez and see just as many relatives head to Costa Rica each year to look for work.

El Llanito does, however, have more consistent access to water and is lucky enough to have community spaces like a church and a comedor infantil.  The comedor is a building that in previous years provided free meals for children, but has since lost that funding and now serves as a space primarily for meetings and other community gatherings.

We currently have one stove model built in El Llanito, and it’s in Doña Dominga’s house, which is located right next to the comedor infantil.  Por casualidad, Dominga is the mother of one of my sixth grade students and also is one of the most friendly people I’ve ever met.  I bet she’s shown her stove to over a hundred people by now!

Working on a latrine (Los Álvarez, Jan 2011)

Alcance Nicaragua has been working in both Los Álvarez and El Llanito for many years now, and has great relationships with many families living there (see Vol. 3.2 The Designers/Facilitators for more info on Alcance).  When I first started working in Santa Lucía in January 2011, I had the opportunity to help Alcance with a composting latrine construction project in Los Álvarez, in which they and the community built ten composting latrines in coordination with Engineers Without Borders out of San Francisco.

That was a formative experience for me as a Peace Corps volunteer because it showed me the importance of having strong relationships with the members of the community.  I saw that without those relationships, the flexibility and positivity and collaborative atmosphere needed to carry out a complicated project could never exist.  The experience with the latrines also allowed me to get to know the families of Los Álvarez and begin to form my own personal relationships with them, something that is helping immensely now, over a year later, in the economical stove project.

The Cooperatives

One of Alcance’s greatest achievements to date in its work in Santa Lucía is the formation of cooperatives within the two communities.  A couple years back the people of both Los Álvarez and El Llanito, with the support of Alcance, each formed a community-run cooperative.  Why is this important?  Well, before the formation of the cooperatives, if the people wanted to solicit funds or apply for outside organizations to come and work in their community, they basically couldn’t do it.  They were completely dependent on the whims and agendas of the existing NGOs and the municipal government.

The formation of the cooperatives made it possible for the people to be proactive and directly involved in a legal entity that, under Nicaraguan law, can apply for funding and manage projects, especially those coming from the central and municipal governments.  This was a huge step for the people of Los Álvarez and El Llanito.  Without these cooperatives, I very much doubt that a community development project such as the economical stoves would even be possible.  The formation of the cooperatives was such an important step for the infrastructure of Los Álvarez and El Llanito because it began to identify and involve the leaders as well as foster organizational structures and schemata within the community.

Today, the members of the cooperatives, by virtue of their leadership experience, are taking the responsibility for running the economical stove project.  We (the designers/facilitators along with interested members of the cooperatives) have formed administration committees within the two communities, and are currently discussing the specific policies, regulations, and selection criteria.  This will be the first true acid test of the cooperatives’ ability to manage a project and I can’t wait to see it in action!

Hopefully now it’s a bit clearer who the community is—that is, what kind of forces exist, both socio-economic and environmental, in Los Álvarez and El Llanito, and who the leaders are.  These are the kinds of considerations that should always be kept in mind during any community development project, and will without a doubt be influential in all stages of the process.

    • (Vol. 1) – Intro to Economical Stoves
    • (Vol. 2) – Community Development…The Goal
    • (Vol. 3.1) – The Key Players
           (Vol. 3.2) - The Designers/Facilitators
           (Vol. 3.3) - The Community ***
    • (Vol. 4) – The Problemática
    • (Vol. 5.1) – The Stove Design
           (Vol. 5.2) - Materials and Design Elements

           (Vol. 5.3) - The Stovetops

           (Vol. 5.4) - The Table

           (Vol. 5.5) - The Stove Itself

           (Vol. 5.6) - The Chimney

    • (Vol. 6) – Community Workshops
    • (Vol. 7) – The Budget and Funding
    • (Vol. 8) – Designing for Sustainability

Stay tuned for the next installment of Anatomy of a Project!

Coffee Break

I drink A LOT of coffee on a regular basis here in Nicaragua.  I have an average of at least three cups a day, and that’s a conservative estimate.  Nicaraguans drink a lot of coffee as well, and can even boast that their country produces some of the highest quality coffee beans in the world.

Unfortunately, the majority of Nicaraguans have never tasted the gourmet coffee that’s enjoyed by foodies and Starbucks patrons of the rich places the world over.  Instead, the average Nicaraguan drinks cheap, low quality instant coffee with brand names like “Presto,” “Toro,” and “1820.”  This stuff can barely be called coffee.  It’s no wonder a cup of café Presto is generally mixed with a cup of sugar.

My friend Xavier makes a paleta to stir the coffee while it's toasting

It gives me great pleasure to say though, that in certain towns like Santa Lucía, one’s coffee prospects are much sunnier.  Many families grow their own coffee and drink café de palo exclusively.  (Café de palo means “coffee from the plant.)  Although the coffee that is produced is not industrialized and not available outside of the Santa Lucian caldera, there is real know-how and tradition in the small-scale production that exists here.

A rare photo of The Pollo Brujo in his natural habitat

While I've been in Nicaragua I’ve learned a lot about the processing of coffee, and I’ve even turned coffee fruits taken directly from the fields of Santa Lucía into the steaming beverage we know and love.  This way of processing coffee has been the way Nicas have done it for hundreds of years, and I feel privileged to have been able to learn it!

These photos come from the day of my "final exam." My friend Xavier came up with the idea and basically it involved me having to do every step of the process completely by myself in order to pass.  I passed...but barely, he says.

Xavier taught me everything I know, but we also enlisted the help of an old-timer who lives across the street.  This neighbor supplied us with the pilador (read on to see what that is) and goes by the charming moniker El Pollo Brujo, or “The Witch Chicken.”  Nobody seems to be able to remember why.

Read on as we look step-by-step at the processing of coffee 

from fruit to cup, the way the Nicas do it.

Step 1: Pilar – getting to the grains 

The coffee comes from the mountain packed in sacos.  The fruits, which when fresh are a bright red color, have been left to dry out in the sun, and have turned a dark brown.  In order to get to the coffee grain inside, you have to take off the outer skin layer and an inner papery layer called pergamino, or “parchment.”  The technique for doing this is not exactly subtle, but it is certainly effective.

Basically you use an oversized mortar and pestle situation called a pilador and you beat the crap out of the coffee until the rind and the papery layer separate from the grain.  The mortar part is made from a hollowed out tree stump and the pestle part is a length of strong heavy wood with battering rams on each end.  It is tiring work and gives you nasty blisters pretty quick.  The Pollo Brujo can pilar all day in the sweltering sun, he says.

The mortar-and-pestle-like pilador with partially pilar-ed coffee inside

 Here I am pilando

And checking out my gnarly blisters

Step 2: Soplar – separating the good from the bad

Next you have to separate the unwanted bits from the grains.  To do this, you fill a small plastic pan with the coffee grains and the pulverized bits of rind and pour it from as high as you dare back into the pilador or another container.  The idea is to wait for the wind so that the lighter bits of rind and pergamino are blown away and the heavier grains of coffee fall back into the pan.  The act of pouring the coffee in order separate it from the stuff you don’t want is called soplar or “blowing”.


The Pollo Brujo says that if the wind isn’t blowing you have to whistle for it.  If you whistle, he says, the wind will come.  And sure enough, after he whistled the wind came.  But would the wind have come if he hadn’t whistled?  We will never know.

Most Nicas will use an electric fan on especially un-windy days to do their soplar-ing.  You can also use a zaranda or “strainer” to get rid of unwanted rind bits.  In order to get your coffee perfectly clean though, you have to put the finishing touches on by hand and manually take out deformed grains and heavier undesirables.

Here I am zarandeando a few grains

Step 3: Tostar – toasting!

             

Now that you have all your grains nice and separated and clean, you’re ready to toast them.  You’ll need to make a fire first and let it burn down a bit so it has a nice consistent heat from the coals.  You can toast coffee for anywhere from an hour to three hours, depending on how you like it.  The length of time needed for toasting is affected by the heat level of the fire and the humidity level in the grains.

Giving the right arm a turn

According to Xavier, the slower you toast the coffee, the more complex and subtle the flavor becomes, because more of the sugars and stuff inside the grains are released.  Unlike the Pollo Brujo, Xavier makes a lot of sense!

The grains are put in a big pot and put over the fire.  You have to stir the grains constantly so they are all toasted evenly.  This task can really help with your ambidexterity because one arm gets really tired really fast and you’re forced to switch.

Once the grains start crackling and popping and turn a dark brown, almost black color, you know they’re just about done!  I like to leave the grains so that some of them are slightly burnt or completely black.  This gives the coffee a stronger bitterness.  The smell that comes off of toasting coffee grains is absolutely unreal.  I recommend it.

This coffee is almost done toasting

Step 4: Moler – grinding!

After you’re done toasting, it’s customary to soplar the coffee again for the double purpose of cleaning out any remaining bits of rind and cooling the super-hot grains.  When the grains are sufficiently cool to the touch, you’re ready to moler or “grind” it!  This is also a physically exhausting task that works all kinds of crazy muscles in the arms, chest and back.


Xavier says that when he was a kid, his grandmother would make him grind entire sacos of coffee without a break.  He would turn the crank and she would keep throwing handfuls of coffee into the molino (the grinder), and he’d have to aguantar or “be able to stand it,” until it was done.  Imagine a suburban 8-year-old in the States doing that kind of manual labor...

The coffee, once ground, finally comes out looking like the familiar brown powder we’re used to buying in the store, with the additional perk that this coffee is still warm from the fire it's just been toasted it on, and smells better than probably anything else in the world.

The freshly toasted grains are still warm

The coffe comes out of the molino smelling absolutely delicious

Step 5: Disfrutar – enjoying the results

You are finally ready to brew up your coffee and enjoy it!  The traditional way to make coffee in Nicaragua is not with a CoffeeMate or a french press, but boiled in a pot.

There are various opinions on how one should go about doing things but I'm just going to talk about how I do it.  I usually put two spoonfuls of coffee for each cup I want to make in a small amount of water, and put the pot on to boil.  Once it’s boiling, I turn down the flame and add water until the strength is just right (you have to taste it).  Then with another cup you ladle out the coffee into the mugs and strain it through a fine-mesh strainer to avoid the free floating grounds (called chingaste).

Then you can add sugar if you want, or better yet, enjoy it plain and pure and take note of the rich subtle flavors of the coffee you just transformed from fruit to beverage.




The next post should be back on track with the next volume of the Anatomy of a Project series, but I hoped you enjoyed the coffee break in the meantime!