Quinindé and Puerto Rico

I went out to Quinindé (pronounced Kee-neen-day) early Saturday morning with the professor who has been mentoring me with my thesis. He and a friend were heading out there to discuss recent indigenous protests that includes requests for fairer land reforms, and because many of the people out there grow cocoa, he thought that I might be interested in meeting them. We left at 4am, and when we got in to Quinindé around 8am, we stopped for breakfast.

Breakfast along the coast is white rice, a small portion of salad-y things (usually wilted lettuce or sad looking tomato slices), and a meat dish- in this case, my professor and his friend Javier got seco de pollo which is chicken in a soup-y sauce (recipe courtesy of Laylita's Recipes, my go-to site for Ecuadorian food). I just ordered a juice and cursed myself for the umpteenth time for having to be vegetarian out in the campo. Luckily for me, and unfortunately for my profe and Javier, when we arrived to the church/school complex where we were going to be giving the presentations, they were serving up breakfast and it's considered rude to refuse. Also considered rude? Not finishing your plate. So Javi and my profe had to eat an entire second breakfast, which this time was white rice, verde (green plantain) that was mashed and cut up and probably stir-fried, and some delicious salty cheese. I was happy- no meat there!

Meeting with the cocoa growers went well, and I learned lots about their frustrations of selling cocoa to intermediaries who don't pay them fair prices, and mostly I listened to them complain, which was fine. I got good contacts to return as well. Immediately after the meeting, we had almuerzos- lunches- forced upon us, and I ended up eating more verde chunks with rice, with some of the chicken's sauce poured over it (they were more than happy to not serve me the meat).

I got a ride partially back to Quito, but I jumped out in the small recinto- precinct- of Puerto Rico, which is really just a gravel road pa'dentro- towards the interior, away from the main road. There, I met up with my contact who works as a local chocolate maker, and we went to visit a cocoa co-op called Nueva Esperanza. The people at Nueva Esperanza were really nice- they explained the co-op, talked eloquently about their views of certification in general (mostly Rainforest Alliance and FLO Fair Trade). Later, we headed over to Don Macas's house as a group to eat humitas (kind of like tamales) that his wife had prepared and to drink supersweet coffee made with their beans.

Cafe Robusta- Robust coffee beans

Entrance to Don Macas's home area

It downpoured while we were waiting around

The living room/eating area

The chocolate guy that I was travelling with, José, offered to buy all of Don Macas's coconuts, and another guy volunteered (he was later paid) to scale the tree and throw down all of the coconuts.

This is the coconut tree that one farmer scaled

Climbing up

Nearing the top

"Unscrewing" the coconuts to toss them down

Watching a 35 year old cocoa farmer climb a tree was pretty impressive, and drinking the fresh coconut water and eating the flesh was even better! Before we left, José bought a lot of sugar cane, as well as 50 ears of corn.

Beautiful view!

Corn fields

This is a coffee tree

Pineapples

This is African Palm, mostly used for oil

I forgot to take out my camera in Quinindé so I don't have any photos from the earlier part of the trip. You'll notice that Don Macas's wife served us humitas and café, and you'll also notice that they have both coffee and corn on their finca. Next post: a discussion about "local" food in Ecuador!