New from Nepal

A friend who was in Kathmandu during the earthquake is visiting and has been telling us of the horror and the scariness of the situation at that time. He tells of the buildings falling down and having to 'sleep' outdoors and feeling the constant tremors of the after shocks, and how the city emptied out as everyone went home to their villages to see the extent of the damage there.

Fortunately most of our business acquaintances and friends we have in Nepal seemed to have survived, though there probably is no one who hasn't felt the affects of the earthquake in some way. Though there are some of the small villages up in the hills above Kathmandu that we enjoy spending time in that we just don't know about.

We have been discussing ways to send money and to help. Probably one of best way for us to help is to sell our Nepal merchandise and to go back next fall and do more business there so that at least the business people we know can start to move forward.

Our most recent shipment is in.

So come on in to Bwana Johns and see the latest and know that every item from Nepal you are buying is helping in some small way for someone get their life in Nepal back on track.

Coffee is good for you

The coffee we roasted last week has been bagged and is in the box ready to go to our stores in Canada.

I just read this article that suggests once again that not only does coffee taste good but that it can be good for you as well. I'll go along with that.

Another round of coffee roasting.

It was another hot day here, but we got an early start with the coffee roasting.
Fortunately there seemed to be rain squalls circling us so the clouds moved in and the breeze picked up and it ended up being very comfortable.
We have a couple of helpers here. An eighteen year old daughter of a friend-Khao Suay and her friend Nue. They have helped roast coffee before, and we kid them saying that they are so good at it next time they can do it on their own.

We were all done by lunch time. Next week we'll start bagging it, then it is off to Canada it goes.

Back in Thailand

We are back in Thailand and the heat- over 40'C some days. But it doesn't stop us from enjoying the food and the massages and seeing our friends again. It is great to be back.
Sook and Steves shop in ChiangMai has being doing well though it has slowed down a bit now that the hot season has kicked in. We are waiting for the rains to start so it will cool down a bit.

It is time to roast up another batch of coffee.
The coffee we roast is from Sooks village which is a Karen hilltribe village. Many of the Karen people are Catholics. In ChomThong where we live, the Catholic church is active in the coffee business. They are trying to improve the agricultural practises and to help teach people how to process the coffee once it is harvested.
 We have started to establish a relationship with them. Today we took our dried beans to them and had the skins taken off. Now the beans are ready to roast.

The coffee beans are being weighed in preparation for going into the machine that takes the dried skin off them.

Next step is to fire up the roasting machine. It'll be hot work!!