I have never travelled so far outside my village as I have this past week when I visited Pakse to study coffee. The journey took three days, but the long car ride couldn’t stop my excitement to be selected as the representative from Phalem village to take part in this study tour. It is special for a woman to get to travel without her husband in Laos so for me it was great to join the trip to take time to learn about coffee. Although I missed my family a lot, with my cell phone it’s easy to talk to them every day. For me, it is also the first time where I got to travel by myself and not have to deal with any home responsibilities. I’ve never had time to myself like this because I got married so young.

My husband and I were so in love that we got married as soon as he returned to our village after completing secondary school. This was despite my parents wanting us to wait until I finished my education. I was only 15 years old. I hope that our kids will be able to get more education than I did because now I realize that it is better so that they can have more opportunities in life. That is one reason that my husband was so supportive of me travelling to Pakse because he knows that when I bring back knowledge from the south, this will help improve our coffee and our future.

Since arriving in Pakse I have learned so much about coffee that I never knew before. I am very impressed with what I’ve seen in the warehouse. I’m so happy that the coffee industry in Pakse is doing well and that the farmers there are happy to farm coffee.  The warehouse is so large and successful but it also made me aware of how much work it takes to make high quality coffee. Luckily for the farmers, high quality translates into a high income and this is something we can learn from and follow in our villages. The farmers taught us all how to sort coffee beans and I got to know what the difference both in appearance and taste between good and bad beans. When we went to the cupping at the café, I learned what makes each different coffee from around the world have a unique flavor and taste. I didn’t know that there were so many different types of coffee. Although I don’t like the flavor of coffee myself, I got to compare tastes like sweet, sour and bitter coffee and this helped to teach me about what makes quality coffee. This trip has motivated me to work hard to improve our coffee so that we can get the highest prices possible.