Acopio

Among the Q'eqchi', a cave, a spring, a mountain, a rock or a lake can be someone. These are the tzuultaq'a: they have names, temperaments, desires, and the land belongs to them. To plant on it, harvest on it, build on it, live on it, their permission is needed. It is asked for through a ceremony, the majejak, in which sugar, incense, candles of several colours, rosemary, a chicken, and chocolate are burned. Here, cacao is not a cash crop that was given meaning after the fact: it is one of the things given to the mountain. In 1877, a decree abolished communal ownership of land in Guatemala; from 1889, Q'eqchi' families were leaving for Belize. The Cahabón centre does not give the land back. It pools what the plots yield.

The Cahabón drying shed is a hall on wooden stilts, long, open at the sides, roofed with translucent panels that let the light through and keep the rain out. A solar panel on the roof. The beans are spread out on black mesh and raked over, several times a day. Drying too fast locks the acidity in instead of letting it settle; drying too slowly in this climate, where two thousand five hundred millimetres of water fall each year, is just as unforgiving. It is the most delicate stage in the chain, and it is the one a single family cannot manage alone.