Tobacco Tuesday

The farm owner Sergio.

This was the start of my fourth full day in Nicaragua. I was loving every minute of it at this point. It was clear from last night that I am older than the other students and cannot keep up. I did my best though. We had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Again I forget what I had, but it was good. There was almost no food that wasn't spectacular the whole week. I may have had gallo pinto again because YUM! It was so good. Most days breakfast included some version of eggs as well.

Then we all piled into the van and went to a tobacco farm in Esteli. The owner was Sergio Torres an heir to the original owners. Like coffee there is a lot of work that goes into cigars. This specific farm does organic cigars, and is the only place in the world that does. The market for those is mostly Germany if I remember correctly. Farming tobacco can be a challenge here (especially organics) as they deal with white files and tobacco hornworm. I saw a few of the white flies. They utilize many IPM techniques, from insecticides to netting, and a combination of hand weeding and herbicides.

We walked through the fields as the workers carried on with their tasks. When it is time to harvest they have to be careful. The filler tobacco will be cut up, but the leaves for wrappers need to remain whole. The filler and wrappers leaves are from different kinds of plants. When the plants are ready to be harvested "someone small" cuts the leaves. After they are cut they go to a barn and are hung and dried. Women use needles to run string through the end of the leaves, and men hang them up high on long stick poles.

Far down the row a couple guys are cutting the leaves
and sending them down this yellow conveyor.

Peyton and I in a tobacco field. See the netting above us?
It protects from too much sun and insects.

Inside one of the barns where they dry the leaves.

We then took a lunch break and went to a steak place. I don't know the cuts well and ordered a kind of fatty one by accident. This was my least favorite meal, but it was my fault. Dr. Bunch ate some of the fat off my steak eeewwwwww. I'm glad it didn't go to waste though! Here Peyton had some chicken that I think she talked about for the rest of the week. It did look pretty good. I think at this point I had already gained 5 lbs. Not that it stopped me from continuing to eat all of the good food I came across.

After we saw the farms and how people collected and hung the leaves we went to the factory. It seemed like a great place for the employees. He offered daycare, on site healthcare, and transportation for those living further away. I personaly wouldn't be jumping for a job there though. The air inside was really hard to breathe because of the ammonia from the plants. Women rolled the cigars by hand and their fingers looked so stained. I bet they get nicotine highs cutaneously. Men put together the tobacco that goes on the inside and the women roll it. Sergio said "Men build the house, and women decorate it". One job cannot exist without the other. They are equally important. This is supposed to promote gender equality.

This machine tests the airflow.
If it's not up to 'snuff' it goes back to the team that rolled it.

We went back to Granada again and stayed at the same hotel. I roomed with Chelsea again as we were now accustomed to each others..... behaviors. Thanks again for helping me out of that trap of a bra ;). We all got showers and went out to eat again. I got a good old cheeseburger. The food near the hotel in this area of Granada was so Americanized it didn't really matter, and I always like to try the local takes on American food. Cristina and Shelly joined us this night and the service was pretty slow. Then we all went back to Kelly's the dance place and had another amazing night. I met a really cool chick named Suzie from Costa Rica. I could not keep up with her Latina dancing! So much fun!! We stayed out until around 1, and then I thought about zip lining the next day and decided it was time to drink some water.