Dieter (and other happenings)

Time to check in with the ridiculous adventures of Keith and Jenna…

So tons of stuff has happened since the last time we posted a blog. I’ll do my best to try and get you guys up to speed without taking to terribly long to do so, but let’s be honest, I can get a little long-winded sometimes, so bare with me.

The biggest news was probably having Dieter with us for ten days starting on October 31. We picked Dieter up at the airport around 11:00 and as you can imagine we were very happy to see him. Something funny happens when you’re really looking forward to something and it seems like it’s so far away, but then one day what you were looking forward to finally happens. It’s just kind of funny. You have all this build up and hype about something, then all of a sudden, there it - or he, in this case - is. It’s like everything that happened between the last time you saw the person and the present suddenly slips away and it seems like you never left them. Of course that’s not what really happens, but it’s just something I’ve noticed feeling when I see people I haven’t seen in a while. It’s really special when you can just jump right back into life with someone and pick up right where you’re at.

We left the airport and headed to the mall to grab a bite to eat and do a little shopping for the coming week. Over lunch we got up to speed with all of Dieter’s travel news and talked about what we’d be getting into while he was in town. I should note at this point that Dieter wasn’t feeling 100%, physically speaking. I only note it here because it will come into play later in the story. So we finished lunch, got some groceries and started our trip back to the farm. On the way back to the farm Dieter mentioned that the landscape and houses on the side of the road were very similar to what he has seen in South America. So if you’ve been to Paraguay, you’ve got an idea as to what it looks like around the Philippines, or at least Mindanao.

Over the next couple of days we really just got settled into life on the farm with Dieter. We walked around the farm a lot, had lots of coffee and talked for hours about all of adventures in the Philippines as well as what’s up next for us. We were hosted by the Perrines for a few meals and even got them to come to our place for a dinner that Jenna and Dieter made together. For those of you who don’t know, one of Jenna’s favourite things to do is cook with her Dad. I like it too cause it means dinner is gonna be really frickin good! Not to say that dinner isn’t good when it’s just Jenna cooking, they’re both amazing cooks. We also tried to play a round of golf during Dieter’s first week, but it didn’t go so well. We played the first 5 holes of the front nine and then got rained out, so we took a break for a bite to eat. After we finished our meals, we headed to the back nine where we thought we’d try our luck again. We didn’t make it very farm before the rains picked up again. We finished the 4^th hole on the back and decided to call it a day. It wasn’t the most successful round we’ve ever played, but it was fun none the less.

Dieter’s health didn’t really improve during his first week and we were beginning to get a little concerned. We had plans to head to Davao for the weekend, but with his health issues and general concerns about flying we weren’t really sure what to do. On Thursday night we decided it was time to head to the hospital to see what in the heck was going on. A short examination, one quick test, a simple prescription, 236 Pesos (around $6.00) and an hour later, we were on our way back to the farm feeling much better about making the trip to Davao and knowing Dieter’s issues were limited to a minor infection.

So early Friday morning we boarded one of the Perrine’s planes and began our voyage back to Davao. Flying back to Davao is very cool for a number of reasons: first of all it means that you are only travelling for about 45 minutes as opposed to 6 to 8 hours of driving time. Secondly, you get to see what the area really looks like from above which really drives home how much reforestation needs to happen in Mindanao. It’s also just really cool to fly in small planes. We touched down in Davao at around 10:00, grabbed a bite to eat and made out way to Peacebuilders. After some introductions and some chatting, we ordered lunch with the entire staff and Dieter got up to speed on who everyone is and what they do. After lunch we got settled into our hotel, had a bit of a rest then met up with Dann and Joji for Dinner.

Saturday morning we headed to a small island that is about an hour and a half away from Davao via boat. We went there with our friends from the Kroc institute at Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. We spent the day relaxing in the sun, doing some snorkelling and having a bar-b-q right on the beach. It was a good time, as it always is at the beach. Once we got back to Davao we spent a little time tooling around the city and showing Dieter what our life was like before we came to the farm. By the time we had everyone where they needed to go and everything done we needed to do, it was all we could do to get some take-out Chinese and crash in our motel room. We were spent.

Early the next morning we made our way back to the airport, boarded the plane and were on our way back to the farm. The rest of Dieter’s time here was pretty mellow. We worked on some coffee trees, cooked and ate many more awesome meals and started refinishing a table for John. Before we knew it, it was time to head back down to Cagayan to take Dieter to the airport. Saying goodbye was lame, but it was ok since we knew it wouldn’t be long before we would be making the trip back to Vancouver. We are so blessed that Dieter was able to visit us and we had a wonderful time.

Moving on…

On the 14^th of this month, we were visited by Stacey and Lorie Toews and their 4 children. Stacey and Lorie make up one fourth of the owners of Level Ground, the company we shipped coffee to in Canada earlier this year. They were here to visit Coffee for Peace as well as the Perrine farm in order to give everyone some good ideas as to how we can improve things here regarding every part of the coffee process, as well as the fair trade aspect. It was nice to have them here and to get some very positive feedback on how things are coming along on the farm. Stacey and Lorie have been all over the world and have seen many different ways to care for coffee. Their excitement for things here was inspiring and rejuvenating.

Speaking of the coffee, things have been going very well lately. Many of the issues with the processing have been addressed and as a result have yielded some very noticeable improvements in the quality of the coffee. We still have a ways to go, but things are definitely heading in the right direction. In the past few weeks we have shifted our focus from working on the processing center to working on tree health and soil management. We are now preparing things for next year’s harvest, so we are very hopeful that by the time harvest happens, everyone will know what to do and the harvest will be plentiful. Long story short, things are going very well here.

This past weekend we headed to the small island of Camiguin for a little rest and relaxation. Our good friend Oliver, who lives on the farm from Tuesday to Thursday, invited us over for the weekend and hooked us up with the local scene. We stayed at a little resort called the Golden Sunset Beach Club (sounds like a retirement community, right?) which was right on the water. The resort is owned by a lovely couple, Phil and Sue, who took excellent care of us even shared a few meals with us. Sue is a Filipina but she has this thick English accent which kind of throws you off for a second. The reason for the strange accent is that Phil is British and they lived in England for over 20 years. They were great.

Oliver hooked us up with a motor bike for the weekend, so we were able to have quite a bit of freedom to explore the island as we saw fit. The island is only 62 kilometres around and has only one major road, so it would be pretty hard to get lost. The locals are very friendly and almost everyone you meet says hello. We saw most of the sites which included hot springs, a waterfall, a sunken cemetery that is now in the ocean, a blacksmith shop, and the remains of a church that was destroyed by a volcano in 1876. The only thing we didn’t really get to experience was the ocean life. The weather didn’t really co-operate with us so we were unable to spend any real time in the water. We tried to take a boat to very small island called Mantigue, which is known for being an excellent place to snorkel, but while we were in the boat on the way, we got stuck in a storm and chose to turn around. We were in a pretty small boat, maybe 16 feet long, when the weather took a turn for the worse. The winds picked up, which in turn increased the size of the waves, maybe as much as 8 to 10 feet by then, and then it started pouring down rain, and we saw lightning on the horizon and heard thunder. That was the last straw, so we decided to run for the shore. By the time we made it back to the beach we were about 0.5 kilometres south of where we wanted to be because you just couldn’t see where you were going. Just as we were getting out of the boat, things started clearing up and it looked like we should have pressed on. We decided we had enough adventure for the time being and made our way back to the resort.

We left Camiguin on Tuesday morning, but had several stops to make before we got back to the farm. Our first stop was at a store called Salay where locals make handmade paper products that are sold to Ten Thousand Villages; very good decision to make that stop, especially as we're starting to pick up souvenirs for people back home. Next up was a baker on the side of the road where we picked up some buko (fresh coconut) pie. We had sampled this pie while we were on Camiguin and thought it important to pick up an entire pie for our consumption. Next we hit up Oliver’s new wine and spirits store where we made a short stop then headed out to do a bit of grocery shopping. After a bite to eat and some grocery shopping we were finally ready to start our last leg of the trip, back to the farm.

On Thursday night we had a fabulous Thanksgiving feast that Jenna had been preparing over the previous two days. We had dinner with Oliver, John’s son Paul, Ate Kriz and Reg. It was a wonderful meal that was lots of fun and something I’ll remember as a highlight in the Philippines. As I posted on my Facebook status earlier in the day, I have so many amazing things to be thankful for that’s it hard to know where to stop. My life is overflowing with blessings from God and love from so many amazing people. I am more blessed than I deserve to be. This Thanksgiving is one I will never forget.

As of yesterday, we only have two more weeks on the farm before we head back to Davao where we will be for four days before heading back to Vancouver. It’s insane to think about how close that is and we are bursting at the seams to see all of our friends and family members. But before we go there are a few things we need to wrap up. Since the coffee farm is running smoothly now, we will shift our focus to reflection and documentation for our final assignment. Yesterday we sat down with Ate Kriz and Reg to outline a book that we will start putting together over the next two and a half weeks. This book will (hopefully) put all the pieces of the puzzle together and will serve as a guide to the best practices for coffee planting, tree care, harvesting and post-harvesting activities. This book will be the capstone to the work we have been so blessed to participate in over the past two and a half months.

We would ask that you would continue to pray for us as we begin saying goodbye to the people and places that have shaped these past ten months. This time has been challenging, frustrating, very rewarding, lonely and joyous for us. Please pray that these next few weeks will be very meaningful and effective for us as we wrap things up and that as we make our way back home, our transition back into North American life can be as smooth as possible.