very small, but I didn't earn anything. I was really helping my mother because she always had to carry a baby, my little brother, on her back as she picked coffee.
The child started working when she was five, taking care of her little brother, and at the age of eight she worked in the field and was paid for her work. Working conditions are primitive, as were the conditions experienced by the people on the trip to and from the plantations each year. Indeed, working conditions were reminiscent of slavery. Rigoberta's older brother died from inhaling fumes from the insecticides used on the coffee crops, sprayed while the family was working. At one point, the family was evicted without pay from the plantation because one of the children died of malnutrition. The fact that the peasants are paid does not mean they are not treated as slaves, and indeed considerable effort is expended in seeing to it that they are paid little or nothing when possible:
There's an office in every finca where all the work you deliver is taken. It's
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