March 17, 2009

Today was a crazy, hectic day! We spent the majority of the day visiting one of the honeybee sites in the community. I honestly thought it would be a quick drive, maybe half an hour max, but this was definitely not the case. We all jumped into the infamous 4x4 trucks again, and headed towards the mountains. This ride was even rougher than before. We encountered steep 45-degree angle inclines, crossed small streams of water, and were constantly dodging low hanging branches. This drive took about an hour and a half, but we stopped a few times to enjoy our surroundings in the mountains of Panama and to take a bunch of touristy pictures. One of the highlights was actually jumping out of the trucks and climbing a mini-mountain. It was an extremely steep hike, and I was complaining about my burning thighs most of the time. The farmers, however, raced up the mountain with ease, and helped us along the way too. When we finally got to the top, the view was amazing. We had a 360-degree view of the Panamanian mountains and we could see the clouds touching the mountains around us. It was breathtaking. Getting down from the top was a different story, but we all made it safely with the help of the local farmers who were pros at climbing.

When we finally arrived at the honey farm site, we had to walk another half an hour to actually see the beehives. We looked at the hives from a distance so we didn’t disturb the bees, but you could tell that these farmers set up their farms very carefully. They explained to us that the reason why they build their hives so far away is because they want to produce the purest honey possible. Their hives are in a perfect ecosystem; there are no pesticides in the local flowers and the bees are living in a healthy environment. This allows the farmers to harvest a very organic honey. Visiting the hives was a great experience because we were able to see how the farmers live and work. I still can’t fathom how they do it every single day. Most of them walk about 2-3 hours in the blazing heat, just to do their job.

After looking at the hives, we were invited to eat lunch at Brother Alcedes’ father’s home. This house was where some of the honey gets packaged and labeled for sale. Brother Alcedes showed us where they kept the honey, which is in this huge tub with a valve at the bottom for bottling. He also let each of us bottle some honey and label the bottles. It was a really cool experience. At the house, we got a chance to talk more with the farmers about some of the problems they’re having. We asked them about their legal status and if they were doing anything in regards to that issue. They said that they are currently in the process of filling out the paperwork to become a “co-op” or cooperative, however, they must meet a list of requirements before they can do so. Some of the requirements include building a central structure for the home base of the co-op, deciding on a formal organization structure, and passing health requirements. These are the things we definitely need to focus on in the next couple of days.