It will be great when we have groups here. We hope to use it for our groups and also rent it to other groups coming down. The rent taken in should cover the expenses of the office so hopefully by the end of the year it will have paid for itself, and by next year may even make a bit of money. It is also used free for all our Guatemalan groups for workshops and retreats. Kevin will be working here at the center for a couple of days painting, doing electrical work etc.

Thursday morning Virginia came in to work with us. Virginia works for Sharing the Dream part time here in Guatemala. We worked a little on a couple of things and then Ruben and Isabel came from Comotacillo. Isabel is the director of the 7 groups that we work with there. They had to get on a chicken bus at 3 in the morning in order to be here. There is a total of about 80 women in the weaving/sewing groups. Isabel gave us a report on how things are going, etc. They want to add 3 more groups. This is difficult for me to understand as they don't even have orders for the groups that they have, but this is such a poor community and it was hit by Hurricane Stan, so Isabel feels they need to spread what little they have even further.

Virginia did a design workshop with them last year so we discussed how the new products were coming. When we work with a new group like this one, things move very slowly. It takes years for them to start having quality products. We have been buying from them for several years, but haven't found a product that is a great seller and that we could recommend to other US merchants. We talked more about an order and decided how to do it. One of the reasons this is so slow moving is that the women have not set up a bank account. Again this is such a slow process because there is not a bank in their village, the women doing it have little or no education and have no idea how to go into a bank and do any of this. Ruben said he would have to take them and do it with them about 3 times. We also talked about a workshop that is being offered through another group on bookkeeping. This of course would mean travel by a few women and staying overnight where the workshop is held. We will pick up the cost for this. Every little thing that we think is so simple becomes almost insurmountable in some of these communities. 

We also visited with Ruben and Isabel about Hurricane Stan.  The hurricane did a lot of destruction in their community. We have been trying to work on this with them since Oct., but communication had been really tough. They said the communities had some initial help from groups, but the help has been long gone. We know that we cannot help the whole community but we would like to concentrate on helping the women that we work with. They said that one woman lost her home and that quite a few women had serious damages to their homes, but the most serious damage was to the crops.... Now to begin with this community is super poor, in fact the poorest community we work with in Sharing the Dream. The first time I visited them I saw severe cases of malnutrition. So... they don't have great crops to start with... We talked about ways that the money donated could be most useful. The people are hungry so that is an issue, they don't have seeds for crops, another problem... and fixing up homes...

Where do we start.. We talked about distributing some bags of food which they said was done by an organization at the initial disaster.. But, then both Isabel and Ruben said that when that is gone they are back to being hungry.. We had quite a lengthy discussion on what to do and then Ruben came up with giving each family 9 laying hens and a rooster. He works with an agricultural project so can help the families with questions they have about this. He said if the chickens are big enough they can find a lot of their own food in the ground. We all liked this approach as the people would have eggs right away and be able to have some new baby chicks and also periodically have some chicken to eat. We felt like this was a good first step.. Ruben said he thought he could get 9 chickens and a rooster and some food for $40.00 each so that is what we are going to start with for the 80 families. Ruben and Isabel are also going to go back and visit with the women and put down other priorities that we can help them with.. We have been spending all of our disaster money in the Santiago region and have been wanting to help out our friends in Comotancillo but didn't quite know how to till now, so this was really a good meeting. Contact with this group has always been so difficult.. but the most difficult places to reach are alsothe places that have the most needs. Ruben left about 12 to go back to Comotancillo and Isabel stayed and had lunch with us.

Isabel had a meeting in the afternoon with Teresa. Teresa is a consultant hired by a Danish organization to look at the business plan for these groups in Comotancillo. She looks at their different systems and then makes suggestions of how things can work better. This is a very good idea as again this is all very difficult for the groups. After lunch Diego from Ruth and Nohemi group and Maria, one of the weavers from Chontala, came to discuss products. Isabel and Diego had never met so they had a great time exchanging ideas, phone numbers etc. This networking is so important and when they live in isolated communities they don't have opportunities to do this. Teresa joined us and then there was more exchanging of ideas. It was wonderful to see. At one point Isabel made the comment, "We can do more of this, especially now that we have this center here in Guatmala City". It was really neat that she said "we" because this center is for them...  Sharing the Dream has always emphasized relationships and partnerships and to see people in the groups automatically saying it is wonderful. Virginia and I both looked at each other and said "yah". Teresa took Isabel to do more of their business and we worked with Diego and Maria on products.  Maria understands Spanish but does not speak it so Diego had to translate more of her comments into Spanish and then Virginia translated it to English. This way everything is a lengthy conversations.

By the end of all of this it was about 5 in the afternoon and I was fading fast. I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before and the long trip was catching up on me. After everyone left I laid down for an hour and slept. Then had dinner and went to bed early.. It was a long and mentally draining first day...

Friday, February 24

Virginia was here by 8 and we started working immediately. We went through the center room by room and put down what needs to happen in each room inorder to be available for groups. The center is pretty big so it took awhile. We will then prioritize our needs, look at our budget and make a plan. Our first group is coming in May from the Luther Center in Vermillion and then we have a group in June, July, and August. Of course along the way we found lots more work for Kevin... He knows I am bad enough finding work for him but add Virginia and he will never get done. (After reading this I am sure my husband Ed is really glad he is not here.) Next week Kevin will be working on the houses in Santiago, so this work is nothing in comparison.

About 10:30 Virginia and I headed over to the Mayan Hands office to meet with Deborah and Julio the accountant. Virginia was driving and took a wrong turn so it took us about 30 minutes longer then anticipated. When we arrived I was happy to see Clemente from Mayan Hands there too. He was about to leave but stayed until we got there. We visited about 30 minutes until he had to leave. We planned out our meeting on Monday when we will be meeting with the 10 scholarship students that we are sponsoring. I also had the opportunity to meet Karen from the US who is working with Mayan Hands on ergonomic chairs for the women weavers. She has spoken to Lana (Lana is on our board and works at USD in physical therapy). I am sure if Lana were with me they would of had lots to visit about, but Karen had to leave when Clemente did.

Julio, Deborah, Virginia and I had a nice lunch and then went to work...

Sharing the Dream has joined up with Mayan Hands and another organization to form a NGO called ATUKA here in Guatemala. It is a long process to do this and this one was already formed and took us under their wing. This is a wonderful thing for Sharing the Dream as we are then recognized as a legal group here and not just a project. We have been wanting to do this for years but weren't quite sure how to do this. My friend John in Virginia will be glad we have finally done this because he worked on this after he came down with me and a group a few summers ago. This took us most of the afternoon. It all had to do with keeping track of money, receipts, factoras etc. Julio will be a wonderful help to us and we will be hiring him a few hours at the end of each month to go over the books with Virginia. This will be a very complete system. A big advantage to being an NGO here with them is that we can now have a bank account in Q's, the currency. It was a headache to take dollars and then put them into Q's and do payments. This was a nightmare when Ruth worked for us. This will really cut down the work for Virginia.

We left about 5 and got stuck in rush hour traffic. We were going to stop at the market and get some food but didn't have time. We arrived home about 6. Thank goodness Kevin had found a tortilla stand and a small fruit and vegetable market in the area so we had food for supper. My son Seth arrived from Senahu. More about that later about 7:00. It was wonderful to see him. He will be helping me for the rest of the trip. After dinner Seth, Kevin and I put our heads together to try and figure out the internet in the office. Virginia is still having problems getting connected and we thought between the 3 of us we should have one brain and be able to figure it out... I guess that was a mistake as we couldn't do it. I am hoping my friend Walter will drop by tomorrow so we can see if he knows what the problem is..

Tomorrow will be a full day... Lots more going on...

Hope everyone is fine. Without the internet at the office these e-mails are difficult. I am hoping to be able to take it to an internet cafe on Sat. and get this out. 

More later,
Diane