Tres Cosas

The three things I will share are a little Chilean culture and a bit more of our olive mill operation. We teach a family close to the farm in a little town called Loica. Town might give you the wrong impression. What is smaller than a village? But, what it doesn't have in size it more than makes up for in beauty and peacefulness. Today we got to see the main cash venture that keeps the family afloat. They raise and market fruitillas, as the Chileans call them. You will recognize them as strawberries, and they are amazing.

Beneath that beautiful berry I want you to notice all my calluses, results of hard physical labor. Well the hard work comes from Hada and her little family. The strawberry work lasts most of the year with pickings starting in late September and going into May. Hada told me at the peak of production they will pick up to 200 cases in a day. That is hard in itself, but then add this difficulty factor.

The plastic tunnels give a greenhouse effect so not all the strawberries ripen at the same time.

Bring the empty crates up the hill and carry the full ones back down; everyday for 8 months. They told us that on the side hill it is ¨mas calor¨ in the summer sun from November to March. Up until last year Grandpa and Grandma were involved, but this year it is just young Hada, her husband and teenage son. Hada´s brother Williams can help after work. He is the main guard at our olive farm´s gate.

This is young Hada, the strawberry picker, her little girl Sarita, Hermana Hill and Grandma Hada. Grandma has climbed these hills for many, many years doing strawberry work. She deserves a rest.

In years past, the bright green fields in the distance were full of Grandma´s strawberries. As I have said in previous posts, these are hard working, humble people. They will share everything they have. Here is dessert for Sunday dinner tomorrow.

We were a few days early for peak ripeness, but they insisted we take some home. 

Mi segunda cosa.

Hada´s niece is a little girl named Mary. We found out in one of our lessons about hobbies that Mary likes to dance. They told us of a dance competition, so we went to see her perform. All her family works in the fields and could not go watch. She seemed happy to have us there. Mary is in the middle.

The little guy on the right is her partner. Notice the traditional flat brimmed hat on the chair.

The Chileans love this dance. We watched dancing for probably a full hour and every dance is identical. The music will change, I think, but it is the same dance performed by every couple. The crowd claps and cheers every time like it was the first time. I am not sure what the judges were watching for, but they picked winners in each age group. 

I am going to try to enter part of a video of some older kids. I hope you can watch it. We have been told the dance represents a Rooster wooing a Hen. That is all we know, but it is very, very popular.

Numero tres

Just a couple of shots of the olive mill. The mill operated this year for the first time. The harvest and processing of the oil was a success. Many lessons were learned, but it was successful. That means we have high quality extra virgin olive oil in some of our tanks. Our manager has been marketing that oil and a local producer purchased several thousand liters. In fact I believe he took about 180,000 liters to his plant and bottled our oil under his label. Just a few pics.

Through the pump and liter counter.

To the tanker.

Three compartments to fill.

That much will cover a lot of salads, or dip a lot of bread. 

One of these tankers carries about 30,000 liters. This one customer took 6 tankers full.

And that is mis tres cosas. Hasta luego.