It is considered woman’s work to carry things. They carry wood, water, bananas, and other things. They learn how to balance loads on their heads when they are small children.

This is a cocoa bean pod. Cocoa and coffee provide most of the income for our people. The cocoa beans are taken out of the pods and allowed to dry so we can sell them in town.

We have a lot of these big tall trees in this forest. Some of these trees are very sacred to us and we worship them.

We have finally arrived at the place where they are picking the coffee beans. The owner of these trees is Robert’. He also owns several rice fields. He is a very important man in our village and we must get his permission to take pictures of this harvest.

The men strip the beans from the trees and collect them on mats. This is the only part of the job that the men do. The women then pick out the leaves and twigs from the pile, put the beans in a basket, and carry them to a big pile. Robert’ carefully supervises this harvest and takes good care of his workers.

We have been here long enough…the men are beginning to show off in front of the camera and not getting their work done.

We stop for a drink at this small stream and on back down the trail.

The women will carry the coffee beans back down this trail. It is their job to carry things. Men have more important things to do.

It will take us about ½ hour to walk back down this trail to the village.

After the beans are carried to the village, they must be dried…a process that requires several days. This first pile is the fresh beans that were brought down from the field today. When they are finally dried, they turn hard and black. A man from the city will bring a machine to hull the beans. Then we will finally be paid for our harvest of the coffee beans.