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Sat. morning we got up early and packed and had a cup of coffee before we= hit the trail. Virginia and Diana who work for Sharing the Dream here are= our traveling companions for the next 4 days. We plan on going to some new cooperatives in a part of the country where I haven’t been. Our driver is Otto Bravo who is an agronomist and works for a group called Cosecha. Otto said he would drive for us as he works in this area. We packed up some breakfast/lunch and were ready when Virginia and Otto arrived at 7. The transportation was a pick up and wasn’t a large pick up. It was a 2 seater so that helped. It pays to be bigger then the other 4 so they decided I should go in front and the 4 of them squashed together in the back seat. We changed off seating arrangements during the day with Virginia and I riding in the pick up bed for part of the day. We drove to San Pedro Pinula, Jalapa to see the “Cooperative El Bosque”. On the way however we did stop and eat our packed lunch. About 30 minutes from our destinations we met Byron the accountant for the group. He also needed to ride with us but was able to sit in the front of the pick up as Virginia and I were in the back with the luggage. The cooperative is renting space in town for a small office and carpentry shop. Byron told us the cooperative is compromised of 125 families. They are involved in different projects. They have the carpentry shop that employs 5 men; they also have the craft project that has 35 families involved. They weave pine needle baskets. This is quite interesting and they make beautiful baskets. This is what we are most interested in seeing. They also grow mushrooms and raise rabbits. We spent over an hour at the office finding out about the cooperative, how it is run, how much the artisans receive etc. He gave us the stats for the last 2 years on the projects. It really was an eye opener as in 2006 they had sold almost $7000 worth of baskets and as of this year they have sold about $400.00 worth. The difference was that last year they had a grant to hire a person who went around Guatemala and worked with stores to sell the baskets. This year they weren’t able to hire him and that made quite a difference. They do not have an international market at all. The cooperative marks up the baskets from the weavers and this profit helps to sustain some of their other projects although this year it hasn’t been able to do that. He said their administrative costs this past year were covered by a German NGO (non-government organization) but that funding would end in Dec. They are not sure what they will do then. Before we left the office we looked at a few things they made in the carpentry shop and decided we would have them make a few things for our center in Guatemala as we haven’t quite furnished it all yet. This is a good way for us to buy furniture as it helps out the cooperative. At about noon we headed for the Piedras Negras community where the artisans work. It was about 45 minutes away on really rough roads. It is the rainy season so there were a lot of wash outs and muddy roads. It was steep, the roads were narrow and it was a very interesting ride. Byron and Virginia rode in the back and the rest of us were in the cab. We arrived at a home in the community where there were about 15 women weaving baskets, plus at least that many children and babies. We met the president of the cooperative who told us more about the group. There were about 10 women there weaving the baskets and about that number or more children. After about being there 5 minutes we found out there were small biting gnats. They were awful. By the time we left our legs were covered. More about this later. This is Peggy now: The people in Pierdras Negras were some of the poorest I’ve seen. Most were shoeless, the houses were made of mud and had mud floors, and the age of the mothers was much younger than previous villages I’ve been in. They were, however, not sad looking and engaged us and their children while they worked and their leader talked. Since this is not an indigenous-speaking village, our rudimentary Spanish worked somewhat. They demonstrated basket making and told how long it took to complete each type of basket. Back to Diane…. Peggy had to go to something. The women were very interesting. They were weaving the baskets and the needles had been collected from 2000. Like Peggy said they were a very poor group. I noticed one of the children covered with sores on his head and legs. It is probably from the gnats. This is also where we saw the mushroom production. They had a big hut covered with black plastic. We went in the first door and had to put our shoes in lime before we continued through the second door. The mushroom bags were hanging from wires. The bags were corn husks, and other organic matter. The mushrooms were growing out of these bags. I will try and put a photo so you can see how this is done.
We then went on and saw the rabbit production. They had a big building with lots of rabbit hutches. It was all explained but it is too much to write in a journal. I think we need to work with this group to help them to try and find markets for their baskets. They are beautiful. This will take some doing. Any thoughts from anyone? We said our good byes as it was getting late and went back to San Pedro Pinula for dinner. Guess what we had for dinner? Rabbit and mushrooms…. It had a nice sauce on it and was quite good. We were running quite late so we got back in the pick up and headed for Chiquimmula. It was a long day and by this time our gnat bites were really itching. Diane |
