Site Visit

Yesterday I went to do an overnight stay in a new volunteer site, it was my second one and I enjoyed it a lot.  I spent the evening hanging out with the new volunteer's host family and playing Dominoes.  Then in the morning I was given the opportunity to go on a tour of the communities organic chocolate (cacoa) tour.  It was pretty cool :)

This is a cocolate tree... Here's an interesting fact, when cacoa is ripe it turns green, when it's unripe it's purplish red.  It's the reversed of a lot of fruits... Like the banana which is green starting out and then turns yellow as it ripens.

The inside of the cacoa fruit is white and sweet, and it's the seeds within that are later processed as chocolate.  First they are removed and then they are either fermented, baked, or dried in a green house like the photo below.  To tell the quality and type of the cacoa they cut the dried seed down the middle and compare their colors.