And I love it.
Not the secret part but thebelongingpart. Being just Tavi. Getting to know the locals who have worked this land with their families for decades, as well as their friends and neighbors, who think I’m ridiculous for myday joband who would eat raw beans before talking to reporters. Eating dinner with them at their houses and hearing their stories and realizing that life is so much more than what you can buy and how you look. Getting their honest feedback on flavor combinations and various truffle recipes at gatherings that we regularly host.
And now that our trees are making beans again, now that we’re this much closer to launching our chocolate business with beans harvested on our own land, this isreal.
Naomi and I did something.
We did something good for the land here, for the people here, and for the world.
Not that I can tell anyone.
Prance around in public telling people I bought a run-down, dried-up cacao farm out from under a mining company that wanted to strip the land and offer the locals horrible mining jobs so that I could go into the luxury chocolate business with a rando I met when she accidentally crashed my private tour bus one time, caught me eating fish and chips with a side of chocolate chip cookies, broke her leg trying to get back off my bus, and became my best friend in an unexpected but good series of events over the months that followed?
Hello.No.
I’mTavi Lightly, with all those Insta followers who know I wouldnever. I’m famous for eschewing dairy and sweets and endorsing exercise and vegetables on all my socials.
It would be on brand if I were shilling the raw cacao beans to be used in facials and as raw ingredients in organic, no-sugar-added smoothies, extolling their antioxidant powers to make skin younger and bones healthier and muscles stronger.
But I don’t want to beon brand. My brand is something I fell into when I didn’t have any better ideas after realizing college wasn’t for me if I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, nor did I have any faith that I had the skills necessary tobesomeone.
Now, I know I want to be a success of my own making, doing something I love instead of something I got into in the hopes of winning my mother’s approval, something I keep doing because I’m so strapped for cash with all the work this cacao farm has taken—plus a few side charity projects that I can’t fathom giving up—that I can’t quit.
And running this farm with Naomi?
It’s been the single biggest source of joy, other than my dog, in my entire life.
Even with it requiring every dime I can get my hands on.
I was born into money—money I can’t fully access until I’m thirty next year, but still money—and I’ve finally found a use for it that makes me feel good.
Like I’m doing somethingreal.
Something that matters to the people around me, to the locals who were struggling for work to make ends meet before we hired so many to come back to the farm and started finally paying them what they’re worth. Something that matters to the earth, which won’t see these twenty acres that we have now ever be deforested or mined. Something that matters to the end customers who will eat our truffles on bad days or celebrate milestones with them or give them as the perfect pick-me-ups to friends in need.
“We’re doing it,” Naomi cries. “We’re making our dreams come true! Come inside! I have more beans from the farm across the mountain, and I promised Luciana and her daughter that next month’s flavor would blow them away, so we need to get to work. Plus, we’ll have to pick the final launch recipes soon if we’re going to haveour own beansthis fall.”
“Did we get the dried banana peels?”
“I got everything on your list, plus Maria at the market insisted I add fresh guava.”
“Maria is brilliant.”
“Right?”
Pebbles barks her agreement as I follow Naomi inside the small house.
There’s no air-conditioning, so I flip my hair up and tie it back with a rubber band from the basket by the door.
“Did you want to rest or something first?” Naomi spins back to me. “Hello, eighteen hours of travel plus jet lag.”
“I’m good.”
“You’re like ... justhow?”
“I slept on the planes. Plus, Ialwayshave time for the things Iwantto do.”
She throws herself at me and hugs me again. “I’m so glad you gave me a chance to prove I wasn’t the weirdo I looked like the day we met.”
