Goin Goan Vol. I

From time to time it is a fun thought experiment to consider how small decisions we make end up shaping our fate and future; for me and my trip in India, it was mustering up the courage to jump on stage and wail out ‘Red House’ as performed  by Jimi Hendrix with a local band that would shape the next 6 months of my life.

My friends had left, and I had just gotten a new editing assignment, so I figured I would stay in my cheap and clean guest room for another few days, paying my landlord on a day to day basis as to avoid paperwork (he told me that booking for 3 days or more would warrant paper work, with a dreadful tone of voice. Between my desire to feel off the grid and his lack of desire to fill out forms, we settled on me giving him cash roughly every morning). I also met some lovely Australian girls with a fondness for partying, so my days consisted of posting up at a beach shack and editing a journal on the provincial economies of China and then drinking heavily with a posse of ladies from the land down under.

They told me of an all you can eat seafood buffet with live music that was the cat’s pajamas at one of the original beach shacks at Anjuna beach (a party destination known throughout the subcontinent). I personally feel a bit guilty gorging on food when surrounded by poverty—or any time for that matter—but the live music caught my attention.

Anjuna beach is a long stretch of beach lined with shacks that fulfill most all beach going needs: shade, music, alcohol, people, hash, food, drinking water etc. There are hippy markets on both the North and South side of the town where you can score any last minute beach needs or tapestries.

In the stead of dinner, I drank Kingfisher© strong beer—the  thicker, more filling, sibling of the ubiquitous Indian beer. Despite the more than ample energy the band was giving off, no one was dancing, so I took it upon myself to be the crowd I always wish I had; I let my hair down and rocked the F out. Before too long, a dance party had commenced.

The guitar player/vocalist was wailing, shredding, jumping up and down, screaming, yelling, and all the other –ing verbs you would want a guitar hero to be doing. I felt a certain connection with him; his licks were not unlike mine, albeit better executed. His choice of songs was eclectic and at times ironic and humorous, at least by my standards (you know, like Bob Marley at Starbucks or something). His in between song banter was dry and funny. I liked this guy; he was good people.

The always necessary blues number began—‘Red House’ as performed by Jimi Hendrix. The music was tight, but the vocals were seriously lacking; I figured I could do better. I gestured to the microphone, and the guitar hero gestured back yes.

After performing a number of songs with them that night, and having a plethora of drinks bought for me by people who appreciated what I had added to the evening, the clock struck midnight, meaning the music had to stop (this was my first experience with Goa's election time noise ordinance; I will address Goan elections at some point in the near future).

I joined the band for a post-performance smoke. I introduced myself to the guitar hero and told him I loved his style, he responded back with something similar and invited me to his apartment the next day to jam and crash for a day or two. This was the start of me and Anirban’s fruitful friendship.

I packed up and the next day hopped on a bus to Panjim, the capital and port city of Goa, as well as Anirban’s place of residence. He picked me up from the bus station on his sports bike and took me through Panjim, along the water. We crossed over a river that emptied into the bay on the right and was lined with old Portuguese style buildings to the left. Then we passed by downtown, a bustling urban area with some taller buildings to the left and casino boats in the bay on the right, all lit up with neon signs connoting royalty or luck or the likes (despite the 30 cent minimum bets and my love for casinos, I never made it out). Then we passed down a recently revamped road lined with new, old-looking, LED street lights. This long straight road was the site of Anirban’s most recent bike wreck—a comforting piece of information to hear as we are swerving through buses and cars going 60 mph.

The apartment was big and covered in posters of late and great rockstars. The guy who lived above Anirban heard us jamming and came and knocked on the door and offered beers and hash; we welcomed him and his gifts. This was Antonio, a super cool and passionate Spaniard from the Basque country who was really into sustainable farming. We spent the night playing songs and watching youtube videos of musicians we admired.

I felt quite comfortable in the apartment from day one—it was definitely a quintessential bachelor pad; full ash trays, dirty dishes, burn marks on the glass table, a toilet with a thin film covering, signifying the avoidance of scrubbing, and many other tell-tale signs that very few women enter the premises. Little did I know at that point that this would become my place of residence for the next two and a half months as I continued goin Goan.

Picking Coffee in Salento, (with a step by step of the coffee process)

One little window of good weather in Manizales. This is the main
drag of town, which goes along the top of a mountain ridge.

Manizales was allegedly supposed to be a hip college town with many beautiful sites and a notable nightlife. The upside was that our big hotel room cost us 12 dollars a night, the downside was that it was raining the entire time we were there and the college was on a break, leaving the bars pretty much dead. For 3 days straight, we would wake up, secure breakfast, put on our walking shoes, and then a torrential downpour would ensue. This made for lots of time watching movies on the two (2) American movie stations in English. We couldn’t even score drugs because the nightlife was back at their padres’ houses for the week—we tried once, but the guy never showed up and we ended up waiting on a quiet side street for 30 minutes to no avail. On the third day, we decided enough was enough…

Four hours and two small buses later we were in Salento, a tiny little coffee town with a population of about 4,000. It was much like the little agricultural towns (of probable fantasy) I envision to be in the rolling hills of Oregon and California; it seemed like there was a common agreement that no one was going to work too hard, no one was going to walk too fast, and no one was going to give someone else trouble for partaking in a doobie. For lodging, we decided to go with the Lonely Planet pick, The Plantation House. It was a bit out of town, at least 7 or 8 minutes from the town square (‘far’ by local standards).

The Lonely Planet had deftly reported that the Owner was English, and after seeing his wife, who was a smoking hot older Colombian woman, we figured he’d be a dashing James Bond type Londoner, complete with a popped collar on his custom tailored trench coat. He turned out to look more like a grody version of the old guy from Jurassic Park. Picture Dr. Hammond, less a cane and even-growing facial hair, with the addition of about 35 shades of yellow on his teeth and a strange conversational mannerism that teetered between a stutter and a drawn out ‘um.’

This description may be peppered with bias and envy though, because he is living the dream (my dream). He bought a small coffee farm, which is 7 hectares by satellite, but situated on high sloped hills, so the amount of land which he is being taxed for is actually about half of what he actually has. It had just switched to organic (read much less efficient) when he bought it and was operating at a total loss, so he likely got a good deal. He turned the farm house into the first building of his hostel, and then bought the neighbors out, creating an impressive compound of gringo-sanctuary. He employs some of the local teens and older guys to work the farms and hostel, and sells about half of the coffee produced; the other half is consumed in the hostel, by the workers, and other locals in the favor of the Jurassic Park guy. Three times a week he would give a lecture on the economics and history of coffee farming

Hot wife, check; favor from the locals, check; a renewing audience to BS to, check; new and sometimes interesting world travelers coming in every day, check; boo coos of organic coffee, check. Not too shabby ol’ chap…

The view from our window... you can't put a price on this kinda beauty, but the room cost 8 bucks per person.

They have also cooked up an ingenious scheme for labor. Any gringo can work from 7:30 in the morning to noon at the coffee farms, doing repetitive, semi-arduous labor with the teens he employs, in exchange for a set lunch brought down to the farm (valued at about 7,000 pesos, or 4 bucks). Brilliant… folks from London, Switzerland, Norway, and other spots where a hamburger will run you 20 dollars, all working for less than a dollar an hour. The gringos don’t feel ripped off at all, however. For once we are getting to do something and not have to pay for it, and we're getting an ‘authentic’ coffee picking experience.

From about 8:30 to 10:30 we went around with big baskets strapped to us, picking the red, semi-red, and brown coffee berries off the trees. It was actually loads of fun, it definitely appealed to the inner hunter-gatherer. The idea of picking berries for hours got even better when a distinct smell and plumes of smoke started coming up from where the real employees were…

What the bosses don’t know, and what we were later told to keep privy about, was that every one of the employees we were picking coffee with was holding, hardcore holding. Not the holding that a 45 year old does at a Tom Petty concert when he sneaks a doobie in to spark up during Last Dance, we are talking the holding that a self-respecting high school pot dealer would have with him on 4/20 at the movie theater. I was elected to break the ice with them and see if we could join their silent reggae session. Instead of passing me the joint he had, Alonzo reached into his fanny pack. While I thought the fanny packs they had might have important work papers, or cell phones, or wallets, or even a Colombian ID… nope, just copious amounts of the finest Mary Jane in town. I suppose they did have work papers, but all of which were of the rolling nature. He put a handful of the leafy substance in my palm and handed me 5 rolling papers—being used to paying for everything I asked how much, and he shook his hands as to say ‘on the house.’

We edged our way up the hill, singing songs and joking, occasionally picking a few berries here and there. My guess is that the 5 of us picked about half the amount the 3 pros did, but at least we had a good time doing it. As the midday sun started coming out they said the work out here was over. We didn’t want to go, we were all enjoying this leisurely manual labor, but we found that even more leisurely work awaited us.

Next we shucked beans for another hour while guzzling down fresh coffee and riding out our stoning from earlier. This is the part of the process after the berries are de-seeded and the seeds are left out to dry, the husks are removed by hand and with a sifter and the beans are then roasted to the familiar dark brown color you see when you open your sealed bag from the grocer. Our ‘free’ lunch came and we chowed down, after we were invited to go enhance our hunger with the locals, that is. Here is a rough idea of the process we learned in a single morning's work:

Step 1: Baby coffee beans, built by adding coffee berries and dirt with  water and sunlight.

Step 2: Big coffee plants, made by letting baby coffee plants grow for a while.

Step 3: Picking, red means go, yellow means maybe, and green means no.

Step 4: This machine takes the fleshy and sour outer part of the berry off, leaving a white seed (this becomes the coffee bean!).

Step 5 and 6: After the inner seed is left to dry for a week, the outer layers are peeled off, because they taste bitter  and burn during roasting.

Step 7: All those shucked, dried, and reshucked seeds get put in a big ol' pan for roasting.

After a few hours of frequent stirring, we now have something that resembles what you get in a store!

In the 2 hours of work we did in the fields, including that of the pros, we picked (optimistically) 5 pounds of coffee once the berries were all dried, husked, and roasted. This is B-grade coffee as well; coffee totally unfit for the likes of an American Quizinart or K-cup—it tasted great to me; the beans just weren’t as plump as those from your typical bag of Eight O’ Clock. After the farm, the finished product gets shipped to the states, packaged, shipped to grocery stores, and sold for 8 dollars (4 when on special) a pound. Our day’s work would equate to 3 to 6 or so bags in total, and our coffee wasn’t even export grade. So, ipso facto, this leads me to believe that either someone on the coffee supply chain is getting heavily subsidized or thoroughly screwed in this ordeal (or maybe a bit of both).