Carlos walks them to a plant, shows them how to strip the yellow-tinted leaves without damaging the leaf buds that will grow in to replace them. Drop the green blades into the sacks. Looks easy enough, Jack thinks, and he nods his head in acknowledgment. He starts on one row; Matías starts on another. Jack hasn’t done any form of physical labor since he was in high school, and even then it was just washing dishes—not all that physical. His sausage-fingered hands grip the limbs at the base, work down over the length of the limb with a pulling motion. Working and stripping an entire plant. He watches the children and tries to mimic their movements, their form. The repetitive actions are rough on Jack’s delicate uncalloused hands. They become sore and red, then begin to swell. Blistering. Then bleeding. But he stays with it, going down the row, the sack growing ever heavier. Then walking to the courtyard to exchange the full sack for an empty one. Then back to the plants. His back and knees are pulsing with hurt. He is drenched in sweat. The arches of his feet throb. He feels his hamstrings start to cramp and knows. He needs salt. Electrolytes.

He tears strips from his shirt to wrap around his cracked and bleeding palms. Sweat burns and stings his eyes.

Matías asks Jack, “Have you ever done gardening?”

“Not since I was a kid. My mother had the green thumb in the family. Planted a massive garden of tomatoes, peppers, beets, corn, green beans, and eggplants every year.”

The sun beats down on Jack and Matías, draining them of fluid. Jack feels light-headed. He feels a swirling sensation in his brain, as if he might pass out. Just keel over from heat exhaustion. All around him, children are doing the same thing he is doing, only better. Faster. More productively. Laughing and running back up the path to the courtyard after filling every sack. Emptying it and returning for more work.

Carlos waves to them, and Matías and Jack sit down beside him. He has a bucket of well water and a large wooden ladle. Dipping the ladle, Jack sucks the liquid into his mouth, slaking a throat that feels coated in grit.

Matías asks questions. Translates their conversation back to Jack. He asks how long Carlos has been doing this type of farming.

All his years, he says.

Jack tells him to ask, Why not try coffee or cacao?

Carlos tells Matías, not enough money for his family. This type of farming, this crop, is all they have. It pays for food and shelter. Clothing. Education.