Working with Eugenio at theTrapiche

Today I decided I was gonna help the host father and work for a day at his buddies sugar mill. I hopped on the back of his tractor (chapulin) and down the hills we went. I had to wedge my two feet on the small tractor hitch. I kept looking at the 8 foot wheels on both sides and wondered which way I’d die if I was to fall. The bumps on the dirt road sent the hitch sliding from left to right, I had to hang on for dear life. Eugenio didn't even look back so apparently this was normal. I extended my body over the roof of the tractor but the black fumes blew in my face. I decided the spine-compacting position was better for the moment . I wasn’t sure why I was putting my life on the line so early in the morning.

We began with a 22 by 12 foot pile of sugar cane. The sugar cane grinder – called trapiche - was hooked up to the tractor engine and fired up. No more than five pieces at a time and don’t stick your hand close to the grinders because if your finger get caught it would suck your whole hand in. The sugar cane was loaded with ants that left nasty bites!

The locals seemed to enjoy the sight of me working and said that I was doing so good that I needed to come back. Hmmm. We continued work at the never-ending mountain of cane until something between the engine and the grinder started to smoke. The emergency key was pulled out and everybody gathered around.

Trying to show that i knew what i was doing I pointing at some bolts and spurted some meaningless banter in spanish. Nobody gave my comments any attention- for due cause- so i kept my mouth shut i tried to learn something...

Well the only thing that I did learn was that I jammed too many sticks of cane in the grinder. The motor was screwed. Apparently those weird noises were the motors forewarning that we were pushing it too hard.

I wasn’t solely responsible, I was working with the older man; a guy with a huge beard that hadn’t said anything all day.
The problem was we couldn’t defend ourselves against the accusations or say anything to redeem ourselves- the grinder's motor was frozen -the sticks of cane were left sprouting out of the grinder like a chia pet.


We waited for a long time until the damaged part of the motor could be welded. Everyone standing around-gaping jaw, blank look, I figured it was the bodies only defense mechanism capable of masking the boredom everyone was suffering from.

We had already grind thousands of the long sugar canes and the adjacent tub was almost full of the sugar-water produced from the cane. The sugar water is passed through to another huge open container where it is boiled. It continues to be boiled down until eventually is formed into a sticky caramel which is hardened into “tapas” – small cylinders.- four tapas can be bought for about 1000 colones- about 2 american dollars. Mostly they are used for making agua dulce, a local drink.

At the end of the day I had eaten so much sugar cane.I was sure I’d spent the night on the toilet with some seriously debilitating belly ache. Finally I got home- exhausted and dirty. Back at the house I tried to convince the host mom that this wasn’t the first time I had gotten my hands dirty.