Phone Number

Hey!

So if anyone wants to get in touch in the next few weeks while I´m still in Guatemala I have a phone number which is...

country code (502) 4201-6408

I´m leaving San Lucas today with friends to go traveling.. keep you updated!

Last Few Days!

So we are just wrapping up the last few days with the women. We are frantically trying to finish making store brochures for the workshops that the women are planning to give tourists, the store re-design, and teaching the women how to make patters,sew, and innovate products.

Today the women signed their contract too!! So we have 6 women who are the directors of the association. They are going to take out a loan that we facilitated for them. It isn´t really a loan, but more of a forced savings plan with a savings rate of about 26% annually. It is actually a really great system for the women. Some women can´t afford the loan so they are going to be ¨collabaradoras¨or collabarators, and will help the association in other ways. So that was a really great thing to have finally accomplished.

We have a big presentation tomorrow for the women, CARE and people in the community about what we´ve been doing for the last month. Things are crazy busy, but it should all work out. The group leaves for Antigua on Friday, I´m still deciding whether I will go with the group to Antigua or leave with a few friends to San Pedro which is where we went last weekend...

back to the store to finish it before tomorrow morning!

Chichicastenango

Last weekend most people went to San Pedro, but I wasn´t feeling that great so I stayed home, and instead we went to ¨Chichi¨ on Sunday for the day. Chichi is supposed to be the best market in central america. We set off at 10 am and didn´´t arrive until 2 pm becausae we decided to take the local way of transport.. we first took a boat, then a pick up truck, 3 busses, and finally a van. It took a long time but was super cheap. On the way back we decided to splurge and take one van, which ended up costing us about 70 Quetzalas each (about 10 bucks.. really expensive I know!).
The market was great though and it was fun to see all the different products and stuff for sale. The one annoying part, which is everywhere is Guatemala, is that you are constantly surrounded by little kids and old women trying to sell you things. They come up to you as soon as you get off the boat and wont leave you alone. It is kind of sad, but you have to really ignore them or else they wont leave you alone. But it´s just part of the culture here, and you get used to it eventually.

The boat ride....








On the back of the pick up truck... my favorite way to travel.








A beautiful church in chichi. we weren´t allowed to take pics inside unfortunately...










View of the market.











Trey´s Member´s Only jacket-Guatemala style.

The Kids

The women all bring their children with them to the workshops. These are some of the cutest kids I have ever seen!

Workshops

We´ve continued to collaborate with the women on different workshops. We´ve been teaching them about roles within their association, drafting contracts, and how to give workshops to tourists, and the women then teach us about beading, weaving, their culture, etc.

Weekend in Panajachel

We decided to take the weekend and visit the town of Panajachel for a change of pace. Our town is very quite and small, and even though it is on the lake, it does not attract many tourists at all. We spend one night in Panajachel and went out for dinner which was fantastic (the dinner´s we´ve been eating are seriously lacking as we eat at the same restaurant for every meal, and the food is really not that great), we went out dancing, and then on Saturday 5 of the girls took a boat to San Pedro, which is another town on Lake Atitlan and went horseback riding. Some other people went extreme mountain biking which turned out to be very extreme, and others just stayed in town and went shopping and eating. I think we all had a really nice time and we´re already planning another trip to another town around the lake next weekend.

Aashrita and me on the boat to Pana. So sad she and Aparna are leaving us today!

Stacy, Jane, Anna, Me, and Aashrita taking a break from horseback riding.


Dinner at a restaurant called Sunset. Everyone was so happy for a change in food!

First Week of Workshops

So we have been teaching the women different skills this past week through different workshops. The marketing team kicked it off with a workshop on branding and the importance of symbols and colours. The business team (my team) then did a workshop on the value of the women´s labour and how they should be pricing their products. Right now they do not take in to account the amount of time they work on a product, and therefore they price it at a very very low price, where they are not even making enough money to cover their expenses. The business team went through an exercise for the women to see what items they need to take in to account when they are pricing their products (such as large capital costs, material costs, their labour, etc.). I think the women really learnt a lot from this as one said that maybe they should stop weaving all together as they are actually losing money by doing so. We don´t want them to stop their craft, but we want them to see how much they need to charge in order to make any money by doing it. After going through the pricing sheet for the women to see how much they needed to charge for a huipil (the typical woven shirt that all the Mayan women wear and make) we did another exercise so that they women could see where they could cut costs and therefore lower the price. I think they really started to understand the whole process of pricing their products, which is an amazing start. The design team then did a workshop with them regarding the design process, which was great because after the business workshop the women were interested in creating new products rather than only the traditional Guatemalan products. Since then we have also given workshops on inventory, savings, and pattern making, and have also gone to the women´s store to see how we can help them redesign it to make it more tourist friendly. Yesterday the Mayan women taught us how to bead their traditional belts, dye yarn, and how to speak in their traditional language of Katchikel (I don´t know how to spell it, it is a VERY difficult language)! I´m excited for all the other workshops because they all seem to be having a very positive impact for all people involved. It´s been a very busy first week!




Reina and Sandra at their store. The items are displayed just by being hung on the walls so you can´t tell if the item is a shirt, napkin, scarf etc. There´s a lot to be done to the store, but so much potential so it´s very exciting!







One of the first workshops lead by the design team.










Trey and Aashrita beading.










Candace beading. It was really beautiful. The Mayan women typically bead floral decorations but they saw that there were other possibilities. The whole process takes several hours; we were working from about 10 am to 3 pm and finished several inches of the work.








Me and Estella, one of the daughters who comes with her mother to the workshops. All the kids are so intrigued by digital cameras and just want to take pictures with them.

Our Home!

So we are staying in San Lucas which is much smaller than Antigua, and not much to do, but our days are filled with the workshops that we are giving the women and the ones that they are giving us.

The gate at the front of our house. We have to ring the bell to get let inside...

Our blue house.

Candace and my blue room (with 1 of the 4 bathrooms attached). The blue mood of the house fits the cold, dampness we feel everyday as it is continously raining (it is winter here).

Partial view of our backyard. Comes complete with firepit, wood stove-bbq, small hammock chair, and little yard.

View from our roof. We are surrounded by mountains and volcanoes that are covered with trees and greenery. We are also right by lake Atitlan which is a major tourist destination.

Antigua Pics

The famous arch in Antigua. The city is recognized for this yellow arch and it can be found in many pieces of art, postcards, etc. Antigua is a very popular tourist destination, evident by the massive amount of white people or ¨gringos¨that are walking up and down the streets. The Guatemalan people are for the most part extremely friendly though.



This is the hotel we stayed in when we arrived in Antigua for the first 2 nights. My roommate had problems with getting to Guatemala so I had it to myself while we where there.












I went with Trey to a museum that was behind a hotel that he had stayed at when he was here last year. It was the most amazing thing. This is a view of the ruins, with tapastries hanging down covering old paintings of religious figures. There were also crypts that you could explore, as well as several museums with modern and ancient art displayed.

This was the most amazing ruin in Antigua.
















We stumbled across a Jade factory where these women were polishing and grinding the stone.

Arrival in Guatemala

Well, I am here in Guatemala!

We arrived a few days ago and spent the first 2 nights in Antigua, which is a more touristy town with about 20,000 people I think. Then we took a 3 hour car ride through the most beautiful terrain I have seen, full of mountains and greenery, to the small village of San Lucas Toliman. We rented a house for the students that has 5 or so bedrooms, with 2 - 5 people sleeping in each room. I am in a double with another girl, Candace, who is a sweet heart and we are actually very similar, so we are getting along very well.

When we arrived in SLT we met the Mayan women we will be working with for the next 4 weeks. Everyone is so warm and friendly and excited to be part of this project. The Marketing team did the first workshop 2 days ago, and it went pretty well, but they definetly worked out some kinks so that when the business team presented yesterday we were better prepared. For example, there are so many kids running around that it can be distracting, but we learned from the previous day and made it work. So we did a workshop on pricing products and the women understood what we were trying to explain to them, even going as far as saying they were loosing money so maybe they should stop weaving and start doing other things (other designs), so that was a huge feat. The design team is doing a workshop today so hopefully the women can take what they learnt yesterday and put it into action today.

On another front, everyone I am here with is fantastic. Everyone is super warm and friendly, and we are all bonding and getting to know each other really well. We have bonfires at night in our backyard and are planning a trip to the town across the lake from us for this weekend possibly.

I will try to get some pictures up in the next few days so you can all see what we´ve been up to!
-n.