I decided to design a website myself about the country of El Salvador, to show its beauty and the possibilities that are now there thanks to an administrative policy that is progressive and open to change. Thus began 8 months of creating a website with Site Builder that has nearly 200 pages of content.
This article is really about the importance of saving your work, but first let me tell you how I discovered Homestead. Three years ago I needed to create that website, and spent the next month researching web hosting companies. I stumbled across Homestead and downloaded the trial version of Site Builder, realizing instantly how easy it was to use. I called up the company to make sure they were real and not a one-man shop out of a garage before signing up. Since then, I call them every once in a while for a technical solution and I’ve been more than satisfied. This is not a testimonial, but rather a reflection of making the right choice.
So, why did I need to create a website? In January of 2005, my mother asked me to take over my grandfather’s coffee plantation in El Salvador. It had been abandoned for 20 years during the civil war and was being plundered by the previous mayordomo (foreman). He was in the process of claiming it for himself, and had even forged his birth certificate with our family name of Samayoa.
At the time I was working for a private jet company flying VIP’s around on a Falcon Dassault 2000. What did I know about growing coffee? I couldn’t even speak Spanish! But my mother would not take no for an answer, and the very next day the power of attorney was transferred over to me.
I took a 6-month leave of absence, sold off some antiques and headed south. I landed in a small village nestled between four volcanoes. I rented a house in town and found one person who could speak a little English to help me translate. It took 6 weeks to get a phone line. I was finally able to have high-speed internet, but no television, refrigerator or running water. I hired a woman named Anna, who for $80 a month came by every day and managed to see that I survived. She cooked beans and tortillas over an open fire and washed my clothes in the river.
The plantation covers 200 acres, of which about half are planted in coffee. While resurrecting the vine-strangled coffee trees, I decided to plant 6,000 trees of cacao, better known as chocolate. The gods were looking after me that summer, because the plants I bought were Criollo, the rarest kind of chocolate representing only 8% of the entire world's production.
At one point, I had 65 happy workers earning a daily wage of $3.25 a day. We became very close; they were my substitute family. I was the odd gringo girl who brought Finca Los Angeles back to life and gave them jobs. I became quite good at first aid, helping anyone injured with machetes or by falling out of trees while harvesting coconuts and trimming branches.
During my six-month sabbatical, I came to know several people at the government agencies who were interested in my planned crop diversification of cacao. I attended many events, including a visit to the presidents house. I met ministers, the vice president (who happens to be a woman) and the newly appointed U.S. Ambassador Mr. Charles Glazer. A good group of people with sincere intentions.
Returning stateside, it took a good week to adjust to American life again, particularly the gluttonous consumerism of which we partake in a never-ending cycle. As I returned to flying the rich and famous around, I often told my story of life on a plantation. My audience, passengers on their way to Aspen or Vail for a weekend of skiing, or to Hawaii to drink in a little sun, were fascinated. But there were always two things people asked me. “Where is El Salvador?” and “Isn’t there still a war going on?”
It became clear that the country still suffered from a negative stereotype, despite the fact the peace treaty was signed in 1992. The old guerrilla faction is now a legitimate political party and have buried their guns. The economy switched to the dollar in 2001, and the country has been very pro-American. It saddened me that no one seemed to know this. I came to learn after doing news searches on the web that the only news reported was, unfortunately, the bad news. And much of it was just regurgitations from the war. That's when I decided create my own website about El Salvador.
After about 8 months of work on nearly 200 pages of content, I flew to El Salvador for another trip. I was about three hours from publishing my finished website when the unimaginable happened. Anna set a vase of flowers over on the table where I was working in my rented house. Five minutes later a visitor came in, and with him came a strong gust of wind. In what seemed like a painful slow motion movie, I watched in horror as the vase toppled over and a gallon of water spilled over my laptop. Instant death.
I had another week before returning home. I called Homestead to make sure they had my files. “We don’t see anything here on our end. Have you been saving and hitting the 'Publish' button?”
“What do you mean, hitting the publish button? I thought saving it was enough,” I said as my stomach heaved up into my throat.
I had been saving regularly, but that saved my work only to my hard drive, and not to the Homestead server. All my work appeared to be gone. I spent the week in shock under a coconut tree lamenting my stupidity.
The Saving Grace? I took my laptop to Best Buy, and they were able to download the contents of my hard drive; everything was still there! My laptop was sent out to dry, and returned fully restored.
And, of course, the first thing I did was hit the publish button!
