Peace Corps always made sense to me at least on a selfish level: living abroad while learning a new language and culture are good things. During college on a herpetology study abroad course in Nicaragua, I saw poverty for the first time. The mantra “this is why Peace Corps exists” ran though my head. I decided to apply for Peace Corps right then in Ometepe, Nicaragua. I returned to Belmont Abbey College a new person; I had identified a world problem and thought I could make a difference.
After my three month Peace Corps training in the Dominican Republic, Demetrio and Fello picked me up in Santo Domingo and we took a four hour bus ride to Guanito. Then we jumped on the back of a flat bed truck. Fello made me sit on a sack of rice, which was a much better “seat” than their half standing/sitting stance. Over two hours later we arrived in Los Frios. I must have swaggered like a cowboy when I dismounted from the truck, I sure felt like one. It was love at first sight.
Two years later in May 2005 after weeks of manual labor proving myself with farm tools (machetes and picks) and months of long community meetings, I left Los Frios as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
But I never really left.
Cuban/Haitian Refugee Resettlement Case Manager was my title for the first year after my return. It was amazing work, social work to be precise. But I didn’t want to spend my career dealing with refugees: innocent bystanders to political, social and economic miscalculations. I thought, “What product can underdeveloped nations bring to the world market with sustainable business practices?” COFFEE!
Quality coffee by virtue of its growing conditions must be grown under shade, high on mountainous slopes, and picked by hand. I realized that I knew many coffee farmers by name. I lived in a coffee producing community for two years and therefore knew coffee issues and processing intimately well. All the sudden my life made sense. I chose coffee as a career.
In July 2007, I became a coffee farmer when an old friend Olivo sold me his 15 acre plot. Olivo wanted to move back to his hometown Monte Bonito, and his wife had medical bills to pay. We traded: an honest price for good soil.
Now coffee is my life, my pastime, my vice, my passion and my career. I hope to reintroduce Dominican Coffee to the world as quality coffee. I hope my friends plant more coffee because of better prices I find them. I hope coffee drinkers demand more transparency and quality. I hope the children of my Dominican friends receive better education. I hope that the sustainable ecology of coffee farms raises the water table and secures clean drinking water for the families lower down the mountains. Coffee is my hope to make a difference.
