Dunfords and the Chocolate Factory

What would Willy Wonka do without this wonderful fruit or indeed most of the world if we couldn’t have our favourite chocolate fix from time to time? 

Cortez originally brought this plant from the Aztecs and introduced it to the Caribbean, where coming from the Aztecs only the High Priests and Tribal Chiefs were permitted to indulge themselves in this sweet seductory satisfaction! The Dominican Republic is very proud of its cocoa, which is one of its main agricultural exports.  Cultivation began in the 1980's, and the country is considered one of the best producers of high quality organic cocoa in the world. The country is filled with miles of cocoa trees, particularly in the area around San Franciso de Macoris in the middle to northeast part of the country.

So when the humanitarian missionaries here, the Haws, invited us to visit a possible humanitarian project and then tour a cocoa plantation, we jumped at the chance.

The Cocoa plantation

A great lunch

Our fellow visitors - the Haws and folks from
San Francisco de Macoris

So we'll now take you on a tour of the plantation itself.   

This is the planting area.  The beans are placed in the flat, moistened, and then covered with heavy paper until they begin to sprout.  The spouted beans are then just planted in the ground until they become big enough to move to a good location on the plantation to become another cocoa tree.

Can you see the little purple pods?

Here's a closer look.

Here's a big one!  There are several different kinds of
beans growing here.  

The tree bears an oval pod about the length of a hand which grows directly off its main branches.

The pods all have to be harvested by hand.  The husks are used as fertilizer to be used in the plantation.  A great use of green recyling, right?

When you cut this the pod open,you will see five rows of nuts or beans embedded in a white pulp. They gave us each one to suck on  - the white fleshy part was kind of non-descript.  If we'd bitten into the bean, we're told it is really bitter.   Twenty pods deliver about two pounds of bitter-tasting beans

 The beans are left to ferment for three to six days which will loosen them from the pulp and oxidize to a brown colour. These drying rooms rest on movable tracks to that the beans can be brought out into the sun if the day is clear. 

We then went to the processing area.  This was only a mock plant for visitors to the plantation.  

Here we are getting ready to enter the processing area -
cute little hats, huh? 

The dried beans are roasted for about thirty minutes at temperatures up to 140C, then broken and ground up to produce chocolate or pressed to make cacao butter..

Then the beans are run through a kind of grinder to break them up.

The mixture is then mixed with sugar and milk and it goes through the extruder to make it finer.

We then entered the refinery area where the mixture is kneaded in the Concha which looks a little like tha kneading process that you might have seen if you visit one of those fudge making stores in Helen or Gatlinburg.

Here the finished chocolate is heated to the right temperature
before it is moved out to a marble counter for more kneading.

When it's the right consistency, the chocolate is then poured into molds or made into other products.  In the gift shop, you could buy a chocolate facial scrub and chocolate soap - hey, what a great way to keep clean, right.  There were also truffles and wonderful chocolate bars to purchase of all levels of sweetness.

One of the guys had this great leather hat made in Haiti that I
made Rob put on - isn't he cute!

There were a lot of other things growing on the plantation.  They had a large group of turkeys growing in a pen. We were surprised to see them - we thought that the turkeys we see at the stores in November were from the States, but, obviously, not necessarily so.

A pile of chinola fruit - passion fruit back home

All in all, it was a really sweet experience!

This is guayaba - it tastes a little like grapefruit.

The Book Fair Materials Donated to a Needy Family

As you may remember, last year after the big book fair, the materials from the building itself was donated to a needy family to remodel their home.  Last year, the family had three children and was living in a one bedroom home.  So the donated materials allowed them to add an additional room and a place where the wife has started a beauty parlor – a great way to help folks be self-sustaining. 

Here we are in front of the building.

This year, the materials went to a much more needy family who only had one room and a very leaky roof.  About 30 local Church members arranged for the take-down of the building and then making the additions to their home, but it was awhile before we were able to go see the finished product.

Here are the four men taking the building apart.

This sweet family with three children doesn’t live on a street but down a dirt path like many impoverished folks here.  The husband drives a delivery truck which means he may earn a few dollars a day.The metal roof now keeps the water out of the house – before the floor turned to mud every time it rained, and there are three little bedrooms for the kids and the parents.

   

The Martinez home is right behind us - this is the path that you take
to get there, which opens into kind of a neighborhood courtyard,
surrounded by four or five houses.

Such fun to just play in the dirt, right?  Better not to wear a lot
of clothing or there's more washing to do! 

Here's their front door made out of corrugated tin.

A building wall.

The washing machine is outside.

A neighbor was washing some things in a big tub.  As you look
at the previous pictures with the dirt courtyard, it's understandable
why the water was just filthy as she tried to get things clean.

The clothes then get hung outside to drive.  You can see 
the walls of other buildings

A cute little neighrbor child was just out sitting on a chair 
with two others to keep her in - such a happy little soul!

Here are Brother and Sister Martinez.  She got so emotional when she talked
about how grateful she is for the new walls and ceiling.  By the way, do you notice
his shirt?  It says "Woody's Taxidermy", and Alaska.  Many, many folks wear
shirts that have been donated from the States.  It's kind of funny to see grown
men wearing shirts that say "Adam's Elementary" or something on them.  More
about these in another post....

. 

Before we left, we happened to look up at the trees growing nearby.  There was a guanabana and a star fruit tree.  How neat that they were able to grow fruit to supplement their income.

Deacons Camp

The Boy Scouts program is not really seen here in the Dominican Republic, and not in the Church at all.  But the Area President really wanted the young men ages 12 and 13 (called deacons in our Church) to have an opportunity to receive leadership training, cooperation, and problem solving.  Our director, Rafael, has been very involved in this first-ever camp, working with several other men many long hours to make this all come off.  Last week, we were asked to come to the camp from Thursday afternoon until Saturday afternoon to film it.  It was a wonderful experience for us.

The Church's camp is just outside the town of Bonao near the mountains - it was a beautiful day when we arrived as you can see below - such fluffy clouds.

Here are the huts where the boys stayed.  

We had a little place attached to the main building with air conditioning and our own bathroom (although no hot water). We were glad to not have to share the bunkbeds with anyone...







Picture over 600 deacons with this leaders organized by their local church units.  Add to this flags that they made depicting a favorite scripture, games and lessons based on values in the Book of Mormon, good food, great music, and a balloon event, and you have some idea of our time there.





These young boys are incredible! Their testimonies of Jesus Christ and the maturity of the majority of them was amazing.  They loved having their pictures taken and whenever they saw us with cameras, they always stopped and smiled, waiting for the click of the camera.

Some of the activities included a piggy-back relay (bearing one another's burdens), a battle between Shiz and Coriantumr where, tug of war, 

For the first night meeting, the boys all changed into white shirts and ties - they looked so cute.  There was a musical number of the Armies of Helaman and then a video on the power of the priesthood.  

Wearing their camp bandanas that were all handsewn by a couple of women, and in their white shirts, the boys are ready to leave for home right after the balloon lift off.  

Our director Rafael with a group holding the flag for the camp.  

 For the final activity, over 600 helium balloons were given out.  The boys were each supposed to write on them with a marker something that they were going to do better when they returned home.  In the nearby field at the appointed time, they all lifted off.  They were beautiful going up into the air.

We just had to add these final lovely shots of the mountains - so peaceful.