El Valle, Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic

Altagracia is part of a small group of women who have banded together to form a “community bank”—a small cooperative that has borrowed and paid back several small Kiva loans to help expand their Cacao-related businesses in this small farming community in the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. She leads a group of women who meet together regularly to support each other in life and in work, to keep each other accountable financially, and to improve their families and community. Altagracia showed us how she takes raw cacao pods and begins the process to ferment and prepare the beans for sale.

We also visited a nearby cacao farm and got to see the several stages of how cacao grows in the lush tropical forests of the Dominican Republic. This was particularly exciting because we had just attended a workshop the previous week in Santo Domingo where we learned how to roast and grind cacao beans and make our own chocolate bars. It was very exciting—especially for Christina Marie the pastry chef—to see the whole life cycle of chocolate first-hand!

An island in Japan dedicated to art.

Life with a pastry chef.

Cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin, Washington, D.C.