Sally Foster, Baltimore

( Sally Foster, For the Baltimore Sun / July 23, 2011 )

From time to time I return to Brazil, where I had worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the early 60s. One of my favorite places to visit is a farm in Minas Gerais. With so much of the farming mechanized these days it is difficult to find people still harvesting by hand. I was quite pleased to find a group of workers harvesting coffee and they even let me try running my hands along the branches to gather the beans. However, I did not try throwing the gathered material up into the air fearing that I would toss the beans instead of the debris.