November 23:
Our next stop after 'Movimiento de Desarraigados' was Cotzal to visit some families and what initiative they are working together for their community. Our first stop was what looked like a gated school. In fact, it is an ongoing project for indigenous Widow Weavers affected by the bloody civil war. It is a cooperative and sells handicrafts typical of the Ixil region ( Cooperative Y Venta de artesanias tipicas de la region Ixil). The project is located in the Centre Cultural Tejidos Cotzal Fair Trade building, and within the next year they will have it completed as a place of eco-tourism specifically a place for travellers to stay. We were met by Pedro and two women, one 12 and the other in her late 70s. Pedro was approached by the the two women, who are the founders, to be their spokesperson. For us he translated Ixchil to Spanish. to understand why this cooperative is so important to this community, you have to consider the historical-cultural separations and gender roles held strong in Guatemala. Recall my discussion of the machisto and marianismo gender roles which hold men and women in, most often, dangerous positions of aggressive and powerful versus meek and powerless. We have seen this trend around the world, across history. Due to this gender role separation, only men worked with outside and women in the house. And when you lose thousands of men targeted during the war, women are left helpless. They are unable to tend to property or provide for the rest of the family, especially in the rural and isolated areas. So when families lose the males in the family, or are stuck hiding and running away from the violence, women are (I use present tense as this is still a continuous issue around the world) never taught how to live and provide for themselves as the rest of their families left behind. This is what this cooperative attempts to alleviate. They train the local women and provide an avenue for them to make their own money, in a way they can afford. Other than their skill in weaving these incredibly detailed and beautiful materials, they teach each other how to work the land, purchasing seeds, so they can pass it on to the next generations. That is where the eco-tourism is about to come in so travellers can experience 100% locally grown and made products. |
| Weaving bicycle wheel |
As the two ladies were setting up their waist weaving, Pedro showed us their other weaving room. It is just about completed, made only out of wood. Inside, I see an alternate weaving mechanism that is home-made and welded with a bike wheel and chain. My inner bike nerd came to life seeing the clever design of reusing. He then shows us where the restaurant, kitchen and shower areas will be. Outside the building grows what they call "foreigner tomatoes".
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| Weaving all this to make a purse |
Pedro explains that in order to fully complete the fully functional eco-tourism accommodation they will need to make 70,000 Q ($12,301CAD). The whole point of this vicinity is for there to be another avenue for these women to make and provide services on their own. It is an avenue to teach locals and foreigners the skills of their families and for those who have lost loved ones, of which is incredibly empowering.
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| With these hands: Photo Cred Kalista Sherbaniuk |
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| So much time, energy and work |
The two women have strung up their weaving from a post to their waist as they kneel. The older lady in Ixchil and Pedro in Spanish tell us a little about herself as she works. The older ladies first husband turned on her and would beat her. She finally mustered up the courage and managed to leave. She later decided she would let herself fall back in love again, only for him to also beat her. She says she has had enough of men now and instead just works. She hand weaves all of the material with the waist belt method. Even all the string she uses she hand dyes from roots and other natural products. They both repeatedly tie individual knots to make the patterns like animals while using pieces of wood to separate the strands to than push it tightly downward towards their stomach. The traditional handmade huipil shirt and skirts you see, will often be the only clothing they wear, because it represents who they are and because it is expensive for them to make and buy. Traditionally the huipil she wears represents who she is and where she is from. You normally can differentiate the differences in huipil depending on one's age; darker colours for older, brighter colours younger. She typically spends around 20 days on a bag she is making now. Spending over 5 hours at a time on her knees she will sell the bag for 60 Q ($10 CAD), once a zipper is added. Our hearts drop to realize how little money that is for the time and effort it takes. In Guatemala, the reality is the manufactures do never have a fair wage, and that is how the government system is set up.
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| The Coffee is Roasting: Katerina and Juana's home |
After lunch, Pedro takes us down a steep narrow dirt path to one of the founding women's house. Katerina, an Ixchil woman of around 66 (she is unsure of her certain age). She invites us into her tiny home made of tin and introduces us to her daughter Juana (who is 29) and two children. Throughout our stay I cannot help playing peek-aboo and sharing making with faces with them as they giggle. We sit around a little fire where she begins roasting them over the fire. We are invited to ask questions and as it gets more personal she accepts to tell her story and why they both live without husbands. I offer to her to continue attending to the coffee beans as she goes on to tell of her experiences during the 1960-1996 conflict, and how the struggle for women like her never ended at any Peace Accord and reconciliation.
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| Juana and her daughter |
After her brothers and other 62 others were killed, the army came back and told the community where bodies were, but they only had until 10am the next day hours to claim them. most of them who were able to come to retrieve the bodies where the women and children. If that was not traumatic in of itself, the was army was on either sides on order to watching to see if they were crying. If they were caught crying or show any emotions or else they would be labelled as Communists, sympathizers of enemies of the state. If they did not have time to bury their family member in the cemetery they had to bury on own property. She had to frantically collect some wood and nails to make a coffin. Her first husband killed in '81. He was forced to be a civil patroller where he was sent to the mountains. She had actually been with him, collecting crops, collecting milpas for maize. Then one day, the guerrillas recognized him, and calling him a traitor, pulled her hair, pinned her to ground, and fired the shots.
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| Erica is comfy |
Around this time, between '80-82, the Guatemalan army decided to put up a military garrisons in Cotzal. Everyday, she describes was an endless fire squad. They had then ordered the community (remember mostly just women and children left) to give their food rations to army. If they did not hand over what they deemed a sufficient ration, they would call them Communists: traitors to the state, accusing them of sharing with guerrillas. Then sometime family members would come, the next day, calling them traitors, for sharing with the army. Because of the violence, she decided to run and stay with another family. And when she was finally to able to get a night's sleep, the army decided to show up at other house, burning everything, and killing the chickens.
She then fled to coast because of the danger. Since so many men were gone, farmers started hiring women. But obviously not out of sympathy. Under those conditions, she had to give up all of what was left of her possession, which would mean she was already was owing him. Living in room and board, the women like her, would lie together on the dirt floor. They were given only 6 tortillas a day and had to work 30 days straight. You could not complain or else you were kicked out or threatened to go to another farm which would treat them worse. She explains this as the loneliest year on the coast, unable to be in touch with family. But then she met someone and they fell in love. They had decided to move back to Cotzal but by that time, the army had another military base in a school. The military already had a list of everyone while coercing people to tell them everything. So as a new person, the first thing they did was arrest him in assumption that he was probably a guerilla. The municipality, told her she would have to go to the garrison with proof that they were married. She was terrified, but went because of her husband. The head of the municipality, a military officer, at the time was actually Otto Perez Molina (to be Guatemala's last president ending in September, tried for corruption). At the time nicknamed Tito, he came to welcome her to have a drink with him. Wondering why he was being so kind, she became even more worried from witnesses' warnings that if you are offered a meal you were dead next. Having no other choice, she repeated she was here because she wanted her husband back. He responded that he was proud of her, to have brought a man back to community. "Now", he said, "I will make him a civil patroller with his own group." Just like that, her second husband was recruited without either of their acceptance or real choice.
She ended up following him to the mountains, because he did not know the area or even how to use a weapon. They were both terrified. From '84-86 she said he was recruited as a civil patroller, around the food crops in the mountains. She said the army would take the patrollers there to destroy the crops. Then during one of operations he never came back. She still is not sure if he was killed or escaped. Her daughter Juana was four at the time. They never saw him again.
The only place she felt safe was in the coast, so she worked in coffee fields with Juana on her back. They did not come back to Cotzal till '94. Juana in that time had gotten married, but there was no work nearby, so they decided to move to capital. If you knew how to use a machete, there was some form of security. They were totally broke so Juana’s husband would have to work 73 hours a week.
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| Peek-aboo |
Then one day in his last hour of that week, the husband was patrolling and he got killed. She was at home, when the public ministry came to tell her he was dead. So she came back home.
The women then showed us 3 photos of him. One family picture and two of him dead. The baby in the picture is the boy who currently playing with her sister., the daughter she was pregnant with when he died. Cristian explains that it is common in some communities to take pictures of the dead in memory.
Katerina, the mother said that she never learned how to weave as a teenager But by '97, learned along with her daughter at around aged 12. That is when they made the decision to be part of the cooperative of weavers. There were 5 women that came together in the community and now there are 45 of them. She notes that they are still poor, and always still owe people something, like the 'owner' of the property that has always been hers.
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| The whole coffee process while hearing their story |
We ask if Katerina and Juana still do not have rights to this property even though this has been here most of all their lives ? The answer was no. There was no paperwork, no death certificate, even from her brothers and first husband. Their goal of these women was that once they had reclaimed the bodies of her brothers, they could receive a death certificate to recognize their ownership to the property. Even though she was told that after they were exhumed she would have access to rights, they still have not been recognized. The only thing they have been able to do is rent from a man, for an exuberant price which continues to hold them back from saving anything. Cristian reminds us that because of this continual machisto society woman continue to have no say. He reminds us that, here in Guatemala, women were not allowed to vote until the '80s, and even those that could prove that they were literate (and note, women in areas are still not valued enough to go to school).
Katerina begins grinding some coffee on a stone amongst the group. She tells us she realized the best way to make money is to cook. The two had saved up for this grinding stone. Before we left, she gave us some coffee. It was delicious, reminding me of chai. She says she adds pepper and cloves. The chirping of a lonely chick and a mewing kitten seemed to express their goodbye as we thanked them.
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| I See You |
Pedro said he was taking us to another founding member. He lead us through a muddy patch, in between people’s house shacks , and across a little bridge over rapids. We pass a young girl spinning string with a wooden mechanism. Cristian explains she is making rope. Down the street there is a man lying on the ground fixing his tuk-tuk. We pass a bunch of kids. They are intrigued by us white girls. I raise my camera with an inviting face. Before I raise it to my eye they giggle and duck under a gate. We end up playing this game and making faces as we sit in a house across from them.
We then meet another Petronila. She a very tiny lady, hunchbacked from a life of work and weaving. Pedro our guide, tells us she is nearly deaf and cannot see very well. We sit with her as she tells us her live story.
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| Petronila Son-in-Law |
Petronila, her husband and her three daughters were working outside one day, when the army came. They took them inside, covered their faces and tied them up to chairs like we were sitting in. Then some officers came. They insulted the family and then took her husband. The room we were in was where they spent a lot of time as a family. The husband had made the chair behind us. Now there is a an altar of pictures of them around a cross. The man in one of the pictures was not actually her son , but was married to one of her daughters. He was found dead in one of the military garrisons just a few months ago. They are still waiting to get the remains back. To identify him, they had a picture of him wearing the same cloths. They were able to get his body back. He is now buried in the cemetery. He was her everything. They did everything together. When he had to go to the coast she would come with him, just so they could be together. Under the military control here, everything was with a schedule even for the time you were making meals. They could tell by monitoring the smoke that would come from the pipes. So they had to be very careful, as they were not allowed to have meeting or get togethers. If they were caught, the military would come and burn everything. This was to prevent people from meeting. This was happening in the universities too. In this area universities were infiltrated, even to just have coffee with a couple of friends. They could not even do that.
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| The Taken Juana |
After they took her husband and her brother in law, one daughter had left to the city, who is still there. But then one night the military came again. This time it was not political, but they were looking for all the pretty girls. They tied them up, and told her they needed her daughter to please them. She cannot remember now how old she was. She still does not know where she is after they took her. It was devastating having her daughter taken away and that she could not do anything about it. The sad thing is she thinks she will never find her.
After they took Juana, the conflict got even worse, so she ran to the mountains to hide. Then one day she found a little girl alone, wounded with an infection in her leg. When she found her, the thought somebody must have decided to give her another daughter. So she saw it as a gift because she was not done loving her daughter. So it was up to her to take care of her so she brought her home. She did not know who her parents were, but she decided to call her Juana, like her taken daughter. She could not tell her age because there were no documents. But now she is the grown woman in the other room.
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| Little Pedro Walking Now |
Juana got married not too long ago. She never got married or started a life for herself before because she felt indebted to take care of Petronila. Now she cannot have kids. But Petronila heard of a young couple who just had a child. The father could not care less of keeping it, nor did the mother have the money to provide for the baby. Petronila thought to herself that because all this time that Juana has taken for her and now Juana is going to die alone? That when she decided to contact the girl and then adopted the boy, so when Juana gets old like herself, she will have someone to be with her. "Because," she says, "a child is the one who fulfils your life as a mother."
She decided to name the baby Pedro because it's as if her husband Pedro has come back as the little boy. She says she is old, she is tired. But even through though these two are not her blood, Pedro and Juana brought her the little bit of happiness to her life when everyone else was taken from her.
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| Back to Work: Petronila |
She then stops Pedro to ask for the time it is because if its 3:30 she has another hour of light to continue working. We see her carrying a chair for herself as she hobbles out and sets herself up to weave. She is working on a beautiful red cloth.
I have never been so humbled and certain to make a purchase as I did for some items from them. They are incredible and the most durable scarves, bags and clothing I have seen! I invite you now to look into them. Open for group shipping or a place to visit on your next stay to Guatemala!
Centre Cultural Tejidos Cotzal Fair Trade:www.tejidoscotzal.org ; tejidoscotzal@gmail.com
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