Once mom left, it was time for more work, and work I did. The week after her departure, I went on my first visit to the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City with Doña Ofelia who makes earrings out of seeds to participate in a special sale for Embassy Staff. We left Pachalum at 4:30am and from 8am to 1pm sold her jewlery alongside other NGOs and Peace Corps Volunteers’ artisans (I was the only municipal development volunteer, all the others were from the Eco-Tourism program). It was really exciting, Doña Ofelia met the ambassador and sold him two pairs of her earrings, not an experience too many people get to have.
Doña Ofelia in Embassy
I really enjoy supporting local artisans and there are other women in town who make other products. After the trip to the embassy, it became clear to me that the women’s office could do more to support these women by providing them with a workshop about marketing and how to get profits out of their work (I do not think the women are considering the full cost of their work, they might be recovering cost of materials in their prices, but they do not take into consideration a profit margin) on April 26th.
A week later, a project I have been thinking about and working on since January finally came to fruition – on April 4th and 5th a group of six women leaders, my counterpart and I went to Chiantla, Huehuetenango to do a leadership exchange with women who are involved in the Network of Organized Women’s Groups in that municipality. In the trip we attended a general assembly of the Women’s Network, had a discussion with female leaders of the Network (the governing council), visited a project site, and got some siteseeing in.
The idea for the trip came to me after the second Women’s Conference in December 2010, when I realized that my days here are numbered and that my planning and organizing these women’s conferences was not sustainable – in order for the conferences to continue after I leave, the women need to be invested and ask for it. Added to this, the departure of my counterpart in December and the fact that she was not replaced in a timely fashion (Juanita became my counterpart officially on April 1st) illustrated how just working within the municipality would not be sustainable either since there are changes to personnel (and we ARE in an election year, so when a new mayor comes in it is not uncommon to replace staff). The key to making lasting change would be to get women involved and committed, and the example of Chiantla, which I had visited in pre-service training in September 2009 and heard about how well-organized women, could be an inspiration to women here in Pachalum. I wrote a project proposal, presented it to one mayor and then when we changed mayors to the new one for support. I got in touch with my friend Cara who is a PCV in the Women’s Office in Chiantla and got everyone on board for the exchange. The mayor agreed to help finance the trip and I promised to find some outside funding to help defray costs.
In March when we had the third women’s conference, I called a few women aside who seemed to have leadership potential and who represented different communities and social sectors (a teacher, a nurse, a housewife, etc). We organized a meeting for the next week and did an analysis of the situation of women in Pachalum. I wrote invitations for five women, and wrote permission slips for their husbands/bosses at work explaining what the trip was for. One woman declined and another two who had not attended the first meeting asked to get involved. We had another meeting the Thursday before our trip and discussed what we were going to do, what they wanted out of the trip, and came up with questions to ask the women in Chiantla.
Pre-trip meeting
On Monday April 4th, we met at 4am to head out to Chiantla. Due to some technical problems, we did not get on our way until 4:30am and I was worried we would not make it in time, but I think we broke a record arriving in Chiantla at 8am (3.5 hours, when I went on public transport last May it took me 5.5 hours). We had time to eat breakfast and visit Chiantla’s church before the general assembly of the Women’s Network. Chiantla’s church is famous for its silver Virgen, so we went inside and took some photos with the Virgen.
In Church
After our mini-pilgrammage, we went to the Assembly and sat up front. Chiantla used to have these meetings every month, but now due to budget troubles, they are less often. I planned the trip for the second Assembly of the year where the topic was Good Citizenship. Around 45 women showed up (there are around 70 women presidents of their groups who are invited, but since the muni cannot offer to cover the cost of transportation, some women are not able to make it regularly. Chiantla is a HUGE municipality and some women have to walk/bus for over three hours to get to the cabecera).
Asamblea
The main topic of the meeting was a presentation by an NGO about what it means to be a good citizen. There was a slideshow, but since a lot of women are illiterate, the presenter spoke a lot and used examples from everyday life to illustrate her points. After the presentation, the second point of discussion was voting. Women do not get to the polls as much as men do and since it is an election year, we held a fake election in the assembly. Another PCV, a Social Worker and I were each representatives of three made up parties (Apple, Strawberry, and Pineapple) and we had talking points to try and convince the women to vote for us. I was the only legitimate candidate, promising to take women’s issues into consideration and also to make sure to work with the community development councils while the other two candidates promised free corrugated iron, jobs for everyone, to paint all the houses, to build football fields and a date with all the single ladies (that candidate got the most questionsJ). After we gave our campaign speeches, we took questions from the audience and women stood up to ask us about what we were promising. Then everyone got a ballot and there were elections.
Going to Vote
While we waited for the votes to be counted, the women discussed why it was important to vote and how it is important not to feel obligated to give your vote to a candidate just because they give you something. In Guatemala it is very common for candidates to give out things when campaigning (shirts, corrugated iron, food, even money, etc) and then people feel obligated to vote for them. The promises my competitors made were funny, but they are not that far from the truth. The Women’s Office explained that it is all of the womens’ rights to get as much free stuff as they want, but then when it comes time to vote they can vote for whatever candidate they want, there is no obligation since it is an anonymous vote. When the tallies came in, I won 45 votes, and my competitors a combined five votes.
Discussing the importance of marking ballots correctly (big X)
At the end of the meeting, we all took a photo (Pachalum is representing in the middle)
All participants
After a short lunch break, we did a leadership exchange with some of the leaders in the coordinating committee and OMM staff. There was a long powerpoint about the history of the Network in Chiantla, its acheivements, challenges, and suggestions for Pachalum.
Meeting with Junta Directiva
We finished our meeting at 4pm and instead of going to the hotel to sleep, the women wanted to get out and explore. Right outside of Huehuetenango (the capital of the department of Huehuetenango, it is 20 minutes from Chiantla) there are Mayan ruins called Zaculeu. The ruins are not as extensive as the ones in Mixco Viejo right outside of Pachalum, but they were nice and we got some excellent photos.
Pachalum Models
I was really impressed with the activeness of my women on the first day, they participated in the assembly and were really excited by what they saw. On day two the plan was to go up to a community that was receiving a project thanks to the unity of the women there and the prioritization process in the Women’s Network (all the communities came with projects and this community’s needs were seen as greater and therefore got the first project).
After breakfast and some hanging out in the park, we headed up the mountain to the Cuchumatanes, a huge mountain range that covers the north-west part of Guatemala.
Chiantla Plaza
Climbing up the Cuchumatanes, one can see volcanoes in other departments, the valley of Huehuetenango and sometimes when the weather is not great, you can see the clouds below you as you climb up. Chiantla is known as the municipality with water – it has a lot of natural springs and provides water for much various municipalities, but when one gets to the top of the Cuchumatanes – la cumbre – it is too high up for water springs. The cumbre is like a whole different world - there are strong winds, short grasses, and no trees. The crops up there are potatoes, fava beans, and corn (though I did not see any crops that grew that high above the ground, so I do not know how well the corn would grow). The community we went to visit has 36 families that have been receiving training and have all contributed some money in order to get water tanks installed in their houses. The water tanks will be used to capture rainwater or morning dew in the the non-rainy season so that women do not have to leave the house at 4am in order to walk to a water source and carry it home by 6am.
Rather than dividing land plots with fence, stones and cactus-like plants marked the different lots
Cara and I with our counterparts
We went to the woman leader’s house for a final training before the families received the tanks about water cleanliness and how to take care of their tanks. All of us introduced ourselves and congratulated the community on their unity and hard work to get their project.
Juanita talking
While we waited around a while for the tanks (they came late, so we ended up leaving before they arrived) we found the family’s sheep and all of us took photos with the sheep, we don’t have those in Pachalum. It was so funny, the women reminded me of my mom, who goes crazy for baby animals – there was a baby sheep that was born five days before our visit and all the ladies wanted individual photos holding him. Who am I to go against the tide, I took one too.
With baby sheep
We left la Cumbre midday and rather than head straight back to Pachalum, we did a big loop through the municipalities of Aguacatán, Sacapulas, and then back down to San Pedro Jocopilas and Quiché. The big roundabout was for us to see the birthplace of the San Juan River right outside of Aguacatán, Huehuetenango. It was a beautiful spring-head and the scenery getting there and back to Pachalum definitely made the extra three hours in the car worth it.
Río San Juan in Aguacatán, Huehuetenango
At this point, I am disposed to call the trip a success. The women left inspired by what they saw and today we will have a follow-up meeting to share what we learned with the women who could not go and to plan next steps. I have a good five months to get work done before the elections and I am hopeful we can set up something to continue into the next administration and beyond to guarantee womens voices are heard and taken into account.
A very special THANK YOU to the funders of the trip to Chiantla, Huehuetenango. I am not sure if they would like to be publicly named, so I will let them remain anonymous (unless they let me know otherwise). For a mere $117.50 nine people were able to go to Chiantla, learn from the experiences of women there, visit new sites, go farther away from home than they had ever gone before, and get inspired to try to establish a women’s network here in Pachalum. On behalf of Seño Sucely, Doña Paula, Doña Jovita, Doña Floridalma, Seño Silvia, Merli, Juanita, and myself I extend our deepest gratitude.
