Over the last couple of months I have been harangued by various different people to buy a mobile so that they could always contact me and know where I am. At first I dug my heels in and refused but when I am at one end of the country and have an order for coffee that needs to be prepared asap…well even I can’t argue against the advantages of technology. On top of that I seem to have spent a minimum of 12-20 hours each week on a bus either with a rucksack and several boxes of coffee or just trying to build up contacts…I thought I had given up the commuting lifestyle when I moved out here… including the mobile phone, apparently not.
It’s been a manic few weeks, not least because I am going away for a bit, and I wanted as many ‘clients’ as possible so that we could gauge how much coffee would be needed for the future, in that respect it has been frustrating to say the least. Generally people are very enthusiastic about the idea of buying organic coffee and they will buy a pound bag and wax lyrical about how great it smells but then they are unwilling to commit for any large amount which is such a shame. This happened very recently in Leon where I was fixed up to meet the local supermarket manager, once I had made sure that I had was there for 9.30am – a 5am start for me to get there on time – I couldn’t see the director because he had changed his mind that morning and was leaving any new product purchasing until the start of January.
Yes it would have been nice to have been told that in advance but ultimately there is no point in getting upset about it, however if they don’t take it in January then I will give them a piece of my mind…
I do understand that that is how small businesses start and in many respects I would rather that it went slowly and surely rather than explode and end up failing due to unfulfilled ordering before we even got anywhere.
It’s not all doom and gloom by any means, I was approached by yet another women’s cooperative up in Miraflor who had heard about the success of the project and are really keen to get involved, this is excellent news because the more people we have interested in it the more coffee supply we will have in the future, I am also delighted because it’s one of the communities where I taught and where I used to live and it’s a huge accolade that they had heard of the project and thought that it was a great idea so much so that they want to be a part of it.
