Just as I remembered it.

Dylan and Meghan the two other volunteers on the farm from Middlebury College picked me up at the airport on Thursday. To my suprise I was up on the farm by that afternoon. Funny I never thought about it, but this was my first time returning to a foreign country. Undoubtedly the same smells of 2 cycle engine smoke spewing from motorcycles, the same sounds of children playing loudly and roosters crowing, and the same feelings of a place far different from home abound. The high mountain country is peaceful. My new home is beautiful, an open cabana with a kitchen and a view of the mtns, although not without its fair share of unidentifiable insects. The neighbors below are three Haitian boys who work on the farm, music flows up from their room into mine throughout the day and we´ve worked out a deal for two Creole words for two Spanish or English words a day.

Today I´m down in La Vega gathering information from the agricultural extension service, IDIAF. The past four days I´ve been pouring over the Dominican literature on coffee communities and today hope to connect with its authors. It will be important for me to first understand the macroeconomic political history, structures and processes that drive this system before working with the local communities of the Pico Duarte over the next few months.