Germán finds a gigantic flashlight in his pack, and shines it in the field.  "Pauraques," he says of the pink eyes looking at our light – nightbirds fresh in the field from migration.

The coconut train stops at La Union, where a driver meets us.  We drive through Dole's pineapple fields.  "You know something about pineapple work," Germán says, "two hours after your first day, you can't feel your back."

"You would think they could automate some of that work?"
"They tried that.  In the past, they tried machines.  But they found that the pineapples got bruised and they couldn't export them.  It can only be done by hand."

Like so many who grew up near the Caribbean city of La Ceiba, Germán worked as a general laborer in the Dole pineapple fields.  Pineapples are only harvestable once a year, and the fruit must be tended throughout the year.  But the fruit sits in the middle of a nasty, oversized bromeliad with thorns and spikes.  Men who labor for these fruits face incredible hardship.