Eladio Pop: Chocolate Superman

 

The Tourism Board commercial calls him part farmer, part philosopher, part superman. Eladio Pop has a big, sunny personality that draws tourists to him like pale houseplants that push their leaves upward to reach his life- giving rays. He certainly isn't the only traditional chocolate farmer in Toledo, but he's the most famous. His farm tour involves an energetic climb up a steep hill, upon which, their chests heaving from the unaccustomed exercise, his visitors are allowed to rest and enjoy the panoramic jungle sloping down to the distant sparkle of the Caribbean Sea, far below. Elado scoops a calabash into a bucket of homemade cacao wine, the top of which is thick with slimy white seeds speckled with shiny black whole allspice. He offers this to his visitors, urging them to strain it with their teeth.  Overcoming their revulsion, the more adventurous of the group taste this viscous brew,  finding, to their amazement, that it is delicious. They reel a bit as they scramble back down the hill behind him, on the way to see the Mayan ruin near the spring.  

 Eladio's Chocolate Adventure, run by Eladio's large family, features farm tours, chocolate-making demonstrations, meals, and, of course, handmade chocolate. Eladio's personality is the main attraction. He's unpredictable and occasionally outrageous. Once, I heard him share an anecdote about the time his Mayan ancestors spoke to him in the jungle. "What did they say?" I asked, spellbound. "Well, sudden one I had to stool," he began. 

"Oh."  My interest in the story had suddenly dwindled. But Eladio wasn't finished. 

"I dig a hole with my machete, and there, I find a jade (artifact). The ancestors show me where to dig."

The ancestors certainly work in mysterious ways. 

When I first came to Columbia Village, Eladio took my friends and me to his farm to help him work. Unused to machete work, we weren't much help, but in between his outlandish anecdotes, Eladio patiently showed us the different techniques for chopping a tree (at an angle) and chopping a snake (straight across, making sure not to cut the snake cleanly in two, as before it dies, the severed front portion may bite again).  When I cut at the wrong angle and the machete bounced back, he'd remind me, patiently. "That one is for snake, Lisa.  Try like this."  Impervious to heat and insects, he cut with quick, efficient movements, clearing away the vines that threatened to choke the young trees, 

The documentary The Chocolate Farmer featured Eladio shelling cocoa beans and sharing his philosophy: "I tell my children not to trust too much in education.  It won't help them. The farm is the only thing that will sustain them." As his daughter's teacher, I was a little indignant. How could he say that education would not help her? But at the same time, I understood him. Education and money might lure his children away from the traditional lifestyle he wanted to pass on to them. 

Fortunately, Eladio has managed to have the best of both worlds: his children have taken degrees, but they've used their marketing savvy to promote Eladio's Chocolate Adventures, which rose before the pandemic to one of the top three Trip Advisor-rated attractions in the nation. 

I met Eladio walking in the village this year.  The young trees we had cleaned all those years ago had grown to thick, gnarled giants, and then the disastrous heat and forest fires in May had destroyed many of them. Eladio was undaunted. His hair was peppered with gray, but in his seventies, he was still recognizable as the Chocolate Superman of the BTB video.  And his smile was still as bright as the sun.