Looking out of our room we could see the Welcome Center (aka the gift shops). It looked like a Mayan pyramid.
The Welcome Center from street level.
A young child playing outside of his tiny windowless home.
We've never seen so many neighborhoods without cars parked anywhere.
Our first stop was at the Escuela Primaria Rural School.
We were greeted by a marimba band. Note that there were five musicians playing the same marimba at the same time!
We visited two different classrooms - one 5th grade and one 6th grade.
Their teacher (who is also the school's Principal) had them ask us questions. They asked "What is your name?", "Where are you from?" and "What work do you do?". After we all answered them, we were told to ask the students similar questions. My question, "Who is your favorite teacher?", garnered a lot of laughs.
We were then entertained by the students who danced and performed a story for us.
The story line became surprising when the lead dancer was knocked unconscious by a villain.
He was then carried off the stage on a pole.
And the villain danced on. . .
After the performance, this young boy reached up and gave me a small Origami airplane that he had made. He then thanked me for visiting them.
After I took his picture, his friends jumped in to get a group shot. They were all having fun and were so excited to see their picture in my camera.
As I turned to walk away, this young girl handed me a two-sided page of crayon art she had drawn.
Everyone on our tour had been given a bag full of pencils, paper, erasers, scissors and other items these students needed. We donated them to the school on our way out. We also donated some other items like baseball caps, art kits, etc that we brought from home. What a fun time!
Our next stop was at a large banana plantation.
Walking through the banana plants - yes plants, not trees. We were told that bananas are actually flowers and not fruit. There is a wire cable running down the rows that are used to transport the bananas. The blue fabric is used to keep bugs off of the bananas.
Here is a wilting banana flower. The flower seeds mature into the bananas that we eat.
Banana plants grow from the Mother plant (the tall green one on the left). Next to it on the right is the Grandmother plant (last season's Mother plant). This stump contains enough water to keep the Mother plant alive in dry weather. Then there is the Child plant at the base that will become the Mother plant in the next season.
We're enjoying the shade.
So are our friends, Warren and Cathy Vedder.
Here come the harvested banana flowers ready for processing.
First they are literally chopped up into the groups of 8 or so that you see in the store.
They are then thrown into a large water tank where they are cleaned and moved to the next area.
All that exits the chopping area are the stems.
Sterilized water completes the cleaning process.
They are then removed from the water tank and sent to the packing area.
Labels are attached to the bananas. Note that there six different labels including Chiquita. I looked at bananas in our local store and found the same label - I know where they came from!
The shipping boxes are assembled and placed on a conveyor belt.
The last step was the packing station. Then, off to shipping. . .
Our last stop was at their local church. No doors, open windows on the sides.
Small but nice indeed. We then exited through a side door and were seated and fed some local food.
The main course was a local enchilada that contained chicken complete with the bones! It was good but swallow carefully.
Of course we were entertained by a marimba band.
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