On October 19, 2011 the students of week B of Masonry, Building Maintenance (BAM) and Social Studies class went on to a historical field trip to the Hacienda Buena Vista at Ponce, Puerto Rico. We left center at 9:00am for a long but beautiful ride thru mountains of Puerto Rico heading to the southern part of Puerto Rico. We finally arrived at Ponce around 11:00am just in time for lunch at the Plaza del Caribe Mall. The 37 students enjoy a great lunch and at 12:45pm we finally arrived to our destination, Hacienda Buena Vista.

Hacienda Buena Vista was (and still is) a Coffee and Cacao Plantation established by the Vives family in 1833. Has result of the Latin American’s independency wars between 1810’s and 1820’s  from the Spanish Crown , Spain loyalist in the Americas were bound to move, in order to avoid retaliations, to the last colonies that Spain still held control; Puerto Rico and Cuba. That was the case of Don Salvador Vives and his family, so they moved from Venezuela to the mountain side of Ponce, Puerto Rico to start over a new life. The architectural structure used to build the hacienda is based on Venezuelan Spanish masonry and the industrial production of the coffee and cacao is based on water propulsion system  by the construction of a 2 miles long  water canals from a nearby river, this help propell the mills; a total GREEN process.   The students had a tour around the facilities and machinery of the hacienda. They even roasted and granulated, like the Vives family did back then, their own coffee enough for a good cup of Joe. We left the Hacienda Buena Vista at 3:30pm with a great educational experience about the “king’s” (related to the kings of Spain’s) product and pride on the Puerto Rico’s coffee. After this field trip experience we headed back to Barranquitas Job Corps.

End of Report

Reported by:

Raymond L. Reyes, BJCA Social Studies Teacher.