Sharing the Dream

Monday, May 22, 2006--Ruth & Nohemi Weaving Group--Chontola

After breakfast this morning, we followed Diego to Chontola to visit the Ruth & Nohemi weaving group. The trip was an adventurous series of bumps and curves and eventually we arrived at the Methodist Church. From there, we followed another guide on an interesting nature walk. The walk was pretty steep on the way down, and I couldn't help but think about how "fun" the walk would be on the way up. How I wished I was in better shape!

Eventually, we arrived at our destination. The steps into the building were made of the steel Diego had told us of last night that still had bullet holes from when the military opened fire on the church. You could tell the metal was once bent by the force of the impact and to make the stairs, had to be retwisted.

We went to the back of the building to an open room that was completely covered in weavings and other crafts. There were several children running around and playing on scooters. We sat and listened to Maria and her husband explain the project. All of the women weavers were widows, except for Maria, whose mother was the founder of the group.

In the early stages of the group, they sold pigs and chicken to buy thread and other materials for the weavings. The weavings are brought to the workshop at the building we stayed at and are then sewn to make distinct crafts. There are a total of 14 women in the group and they hadn't had an order in quite some time, so money was getting tight.

Two of the women brought their backstrap weavers to show us how it was done. I watched as they counted the strings to pull and make the floral patterns on each of their designs. It was very tedious work! I'll never look at the weaving prices the same way again when I saw how much time was put into each of the parts of the weaving. One of the women commented that it took her 3 months for one weaving and she could only weave for about 1 hour at a time before her legs started to hurt. Watching these women on their knees weaving, I instantly thought of the chairs other villages were beginning to utilize and how they would be very beneficial to these women as well. Their quality of life would improve with the use of the chairs, as well as the speed at which they created the items. Virginia mentioned that she would try to get a connection started.

We then had the time to shop around the store. Many of the women were quite excited for this time and lay weavings on our shoulders as they nodded and smiled. They weren't pushy like the sellers in the market, and I knew from the prior discussion, that the women hadn't had a sale in awhile. I bought quite a bit here, but it felt good to know that the money was going right to them and not getting a cut taken out like it was in the markets.

Group with Chontola women

We left the house, after taking some pictures and saying goodbye to the kids. Three of the children sat on an outside step, shook our hands with their cookie-covered hands, and said "adios" as we waved and smiled. We went back up the hill, and just as I thought, it was quite a trek. We huffed and puffed our way up the incline as the locals smiled, almost giggling under their breath as we passed. We eventually made it back to the van and then headed back to Mixco to return to the Center.

Jacquie