Life without coffee
Life Without Coffee Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! We were in Haiti and the pounding woke us about 4 am. Roasted coffee beans were being crushed in a large wooden mortar made out of part of a tree trunk. The long blunt-ended pestle was dropped onto the beans over and over. Any chance for sleep was over as we listened to the heavy wooden pestle pulverize coffee beans. Someone made a fire outside the small 4 room house and had hot coffee ready for us. They served it in white enamel cups with brown raw sugar and white bread. That was our breakfast. I was 54 years old and I did not drink coffee. Until then. That morning I was with a medical team who were getting ready to see @ 200 patients close to a river south of Leogane. The five of us had spent the night in the village, all in one room, and had done more talking and laughing than sleeping the night before. The morning air was nippy and we were barely awake. It was coffee or nothing. I chose the h