APOLONIA VALERO

I am Apolonia Valero González, I was born in 1970 and have lived in Rincón Toningo for 35 years. I dedicate myself to my family or I go to work: to cut cane, to get firewood or to plant or pick peas, to work with a “moruna”, to plant trees with my children or now that it is mango season I go to look for mangoes.

For 12 years I worked in a greenhouse, planting vegetables. I also sold vegetables. About four years ago I started growing coffee plants. Now I have a bread oven, so I make bread and cakes and sell them. I want to experiment and make cakes with the coffee husk. My children used to ask me if I wouldn’t be ashamed to go out and sell bread, coffee or tomatoes, but I always tell them that it’s a decent job, something to be proud of.

I have always worked hard in the fields, ever since I was a little girl. My father died when I was about to turn seven, so only my mother, my two brothers and I were left. My brothers got married, so I started working in the fields with my mom to support us. For four years I worked selling breakfast in the schools: at JN, elementary and high school. I would wake up at three in the morning to prepare the tortillas at home and the breakfasts to sell and leave. In the afternoon I would come back and prepare the bread to sell at night. But nowadays I can hardly see anymore, they told me that it hurt me to prepare the bread in the oven and then go out to sell it, so I can’t see very well to read papers, I need glasses. Now I get up at three or four in the morning to prepare the tortillas and by six o’clock I’m done, I have the whole day off. I really like working in the fields because I plant. I have apples, plums and nanche sticks that I gather and sell.

Approximately 20 years ago my husband joined the cooperative, initially there were between 20 and 25 people who formed the cooperative, but my husband did not like it because “it was a lot of work” and he left.  He did not want to continue. I used to make coffee for my own consumption. Five years ago, I made an extra quintal and sold it to Don Marce, the representative of the cooperative, and he liked it. Afterwards he told me that I cleaned my coffee very well and that I should process more that year, so that he would buy it from me again. So, that gentleman liked my coffee very much and that is how three years ago I sold him eight quintals of my coffee. Thanks to that I have my roof, I made my house out of it. I am working with my children. There are eight of my children and four of them are the ones that help me the most to pick the coffee when it is dry and clean it. When it is time to cut, we all go to cut. I also have ten grandchildren.

Many people say that it is a very tiring job, I don’t know if it is or not because I liked working in it and thanks to that I have the coffee that I make. Yes, it is work; sometimes we spend eight or ten hours cleaning the coffee. As a woman producer it gives me great pleasure to know that my coffee is already sold. I am very happy. I would like to invite more people to join this, it is a very nice job, because you learn many things. I don’t have as much knowledge as some other producers, but I am very happy that in such a short time I have reached this point. My children also tell me that this year we can prepare all the honey coffee, because they are very happy about the scores too.