It takes a village to raise a child...

...and the village of San Miguel Escobar is doing just that.

The town has no playground or public recreation facilities.  The public school holds recess on the main traffic thoroughfare in town.  Kids will be kids, and play where they can, which means you can find a soccer game in the streets almost any hour of the day.

San Miguel Escobar coffee farmers, Timoteo and Filiberto are fortunate enough to own two small fields side-by-side.  These were once rural fields, but the town has grown and overtaken them.  The fields are located less than three blocks from the public grammar school, making them excellent for public use as well as organized grade school activities.

Timoteo and Filiberto decided to make their land into a public playground that could also be used for coffee drying.  They dreamed big, and came up with a plan.  It includes two multipurpose courts that can be used for basketball, volleyball, or papifut—the local favorite game, much like soccer played on basketball court.  They included a space for playground equipment and a roofed workspace for processing coffee or watching games in the shade.

Click here to find out how Timoteo and Filiberto and progressing with their plan.

Girl power
Papifut matches in the San Miguel Escobar plaza are no place for girls... according to the boys, anyway... but times, they are a-changin'. The young women of San Miguel Escobar have declared Sunday afternoons a boy-free- zone at the new community papifut court... more
Christina González, one of Angelica's Gonzalez' employees, lining up her shot