On February 8th, we visited a very special Mayan Hands artisan group in Vasconcelos.
It was a multi-generational group of 14 women who are flexible and very creative. Notice that their cortes (skirts) are different from those of other area we have seen.
The group had a large sitting area with shade provided by sewing sacks together to make a roof. Also they spread a lot of pine needles on the floor to welcome us as you can see in the photos above and below. The smell from the needles indeed added to the warmth we felt from this group.
This group has existed for 19 years, working with Mayan Hands. It began with thirty women but the group didn't work with so many so the group split up. At first they began weaving table runners, baby blankets, and brocade purses. There was lots of competition from other groups of weavers (as women traditionally weave, and it was said that 750,000 people weave in Guatemala), so they began to make bracelets, but there was still not enough work for them to make enough money.
Dona Brenda (Rosenbaum) saw the need to do something different, and the women were willing to try. A couple from the U. S. was brought in to teach a felt workshop. They brought the special needles, wool, and any other implements needed. The first products were bunny eggs. After learning how to use the needles, they began creating their own shapes. The first animal they made was a horse, as it was common in their region, so I bought one. (The doggie was mine.)
The women soon added doves, penguins, and sheep. At first the animals were floppy, but they soon learned to make stable animals with wire inside for shaping.
As a result, these animals are ornamental and not for young children to play with.
The Mayan Hands staff took the felt artisans to the zoo so that they could see the animals in person, and then they decided which ones they wanted to make in felt. They have improved the quality of their work over time and now have 50-60 different animals and other shapes. They work with imported wool. for the outside but can use local wool for the inside. They can make two to four felt objects a day, depending on the size, the time they have, and elaborateness.
Each takes two to four hours to make..
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| Lesley is a Mayan Hands employee who works with this group |
They introduced themselves, telling us their age, marital status and number of children (if any), and we notice that there were a lot of younger members. Some who used to work with the group have aged and cannot work anymore. Some talked in their first language
Carmen is the head of the group. She is 25 and has two daughters, ages 6 and 3 weeks.
Diega, who seemed a bit shy at first, is 36 and her daughter Karen is 13 and has a school scholarship from Mayan Hands. Here Diega is below, smiling, showing the purse I bought from her.
Emilia the daughter of Juana, is "visiting" the group. She is 19 and in her second to last year of high school, studying accounting. She lives in the house where the group is meeting today.
Candelaria is the group secretary. She is 24 and single.
Maria Teresa is 17 and she has one daughter Ingrid who is seven months old.
Candelaria is 26 and married with one boy who is 5.
Micaela is 25 and single. Below she is pictured with the beautifully embroidered purse that she had made that I bought from her. I decided later to use it as my new tallit bag. The back is made of corte material and has two zippered pockets where I have put kippot and my tiny yad.
Maria is 50 year old and has seven children, four sons and three daughters from about age 35 to 19.
Antonia is 30 and single.
Santa Huit is 45 with eight children, six girls and two boys from 22 to nine.
Rosa is the group's treasurer. She is 36 and has four girls and one boy and is wearing the pink sweater. I am sorry for the poor quality of some of the photos but I had my camera on the wrong setting for a while.
Juana is 46. She too has eight children (4 boys and 4 girls) from 26 to ten, including Emilia who is "visiting" today. We are being hosted in Juana's home.
When we began to introduce ourselves, the indigenous women clapped as each of us finished our introduction. Ilana realized that we had missed an opportunity to clap after each artesan had been introduced instead of just at the end, so she humbly apologized to the group for not clapping after each of their introductions and thanked them for teaching us the right way in their culture. Her sensitivity is one of the reasons I respect Ilana so much.
After the introductions, we met some of the Mayan Hands staffers, including Maira who lives in San Juan but is from San Pedro.
She speaks Tz'utujil (which is spoken in Solala and one other department) so translated from Tz'utujil to Spanish for some of the group members who spoke to us int heir first language. Then Leslie (who also works for Mayan Hands) or Jeannie translated into English. Maira is in the middle with the cloth on her head and Leslie on the left of the photo below.
Mayra is 34 and has two children, a girl age four and a boy who is two. Maira visits local Mayan Hands communities and is in charge of samples.
We noticed that the younger women in this group have fewer children than the older women and started having children in their twenties or 30s. Also, some of the women are still single and are not getting married at an early age like their mothers had..
We then helped the finances of the women by buying their wares. Below you can see Danny and the beautiful bag that he bought and others from our group shopping in the background. He too is using it as a tallit bag!
This was a wonderful group to visit. It would have been nice to sit in three smaller groups with them with one of the three of us that spoke Spanish in each group so the women could ask us questions and also find out more about these special women. But then we also did not have the time to do so as Jeanne and Ilana had set up so many wonderful visits for us. Maybe that will be possible when a future group comes and meets them.
I learned from Brenda that Mayan Hands offers scholarship for the daughters of its weavers. Last year 39 were scholarshipped and this year 51 are receiving scholarships, including six who are attending university. This would have been impossible without the help of Mayan Hands donations. If you are interested in learning more on how you can help, check the Mayan Hands website or write me and I'll send you more information.
After this wonderful visit, we headed to the Georginas Hot Springs, which I will describe in another blog.
The next day after crossing Lake Atitlan, we visited MayaWorks kippot makers in Santiago. It is one of the two MayaWorks groups that makes kippot. (The second group has 40 members.) Our boat landed in Santiago, a city of 70,000, and then we took a ten minute truck ride down a rather narrow path/road to the group of 15 women.
This was a very special visit for me as I had been looking forward to meeting the women who had made the kippot that I bought in 2001.
When we walked into the home compound, two little children ran up to Jeannie and Danny and gave them big hugs. The children have known Jeannie most of their lives, and she is like family to them.
Members of our group brought along items to give to the artisans including crochet hooks, scissors, reading glasses, crayons, pencils, non-electric tools, etc. A boy from Chicago who was adopted from Guatemala collected school supplies for Guatemalan children as his b'nai mitzvah projec, and Jeannie said that she would get them to Guatemala for him. Jeannie sent some to us to take down with our luggage, and the night our trip began, the items were put in eight piles, bagged,
and then distributed to the eight artisan groups we met. Below you can see Jeannie giving sacks to Diego and Mirna, including a special sticker book for Diego to share and a special book in Spanish for the boy, entitled "Diego" and a puzzle for the little girl.
Below are some of the women in the group.
Lidia is 17 and no longer studying but did finish 9th grade. She is standing next to Fidencio, our driver.
Josefina is 22 and wearing the plum colored outfit.
Maria, age 28, is standing above to the right of Jeannie. She started with MayaWorks at age 16. She finished high school with a diploma in Business Administration last year. She want to continue her studies at university but needs more money. She hopes that she can earn enough so that she can start next year.
Elvira, one of the leaders, welcomed us, and like the previous group leaders, told us how happy it makes them that we visit and value their work. She is 37 and has three children. Diego is her son. She is in the photo with him above.
Fourteen-year-old Rosaura is Elvira's daughter. She has a scholarship from MayaWorks to help with supplies for school. She is in 7th grade and sometimes helps her mom make kippot.
Hilda is 17 and just began making kippot. She finished 7th grade but chose not to study any more.
Dolores is 41 and has been making kippot since her group began to crochet them in 2001. She has three children: Josefina (the oldest), Lidia in the middle, and Mirna the youngest (4 1/2 years old).
Some huipiles are very heavy while these are more spring like.
One of our group members told an artisan that her huipil was beautiful and the woman offered to sell it to her...which she did.
The three Guatemalan employees of MayaWorks were also with us, Luis, the accountant, Angelica (who visits the groups and does quality control), and Charlie.
It takes about four to six hours to make a kippah. The embroidered ones and the 7" ones take six hours to make. The last few years, MayaWorks has been getting orders for about 7,000 kippot annually, so orders keep the two crocheting groups busy.
The story of how they got started to make kippot is fascinating. A Jewish woman was on a MayaWorks tour to Guatemala in 2001 and saw the hackysacks that the group was making.
She immediately said that the artesans could make kippot! And they have every since.
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| This one fitted beautifully on Susan's head |
The MayaWorks artisans had been making the MW designs for a long time and then three years ago began making their own designs which MW now sells.
Below two of the women are embroidering kippot for a big order they have. The woman on the right is kneeling as she embroiders.
The women also weave and I bought a lovely wall hanging with quetzal birds embroidered on it from them.
After that we visited two MayaWorks mezuzot artisans in Santiago. They make beaded mezuzot that can mostly be used indoors, and they also make jewelry.
Bead work is slow and taxing. The women make the mezuzot by first making a flat piece and then sewing them ends together with a row of beads to make the cylindrical shape.. The seem is invisible. It is really remarkable! We suggested that they could also put the Hebrew letter shin instead of the Jewish star on the front. The star is actually quite hard to make, and they have done a beautiful job. Also we told them that they did not have to put the star on the back as it would be hidden by the door frame. It takes at least two hours (maybe I meant days?) and often more to make the mezuzot.
There were originally 75 in the group but now there are between 23 and 30. They earn a bit less than the other groups, about 700 to 1000 quetzales monthly, or $100--$130. They also make challah covers with birds embroidered on them.
The women mainly spoke Sutiuil, and Diego translated for us. His pants were beautiful. His wife made them for him, and the saying is that one can tell by the number of birds and the intricacy how much his wife loves him. Diego has a store in town in Santiago, near where our boat docked. He also works with wood and made the windows and doors at the hotel/restaurant where we had lunch.
He said that Santiago had only 14,000 people when he was young and now the population is over 50,000. The increase in population is mostly from children and grandchildren and is a wonderful place to live.
Our last visit with artisans was on February 10th. Because of the winds on Lake Atitlan, we could not visit the eight women in the Mayan Hands group, but two of the women did come to us at our hotel in Panajachel. Some of the others did not come as they were afraid of traveling on the lake, but they sent warm regards and hoped that we enjoy their country and the lake.
Lilian Elizabet is 39 and has four children, two boys and two girls, ages 22, 19, 16 and ten, and two young grandchildren. She began making kippot ten years ago and has been with Mayan Hands for three years. There used to be twenty in their group but now their are eight as not all could maintain a good quality standard. In a good month, each earns about 300 quetzales (around $40) so they hope to develop more production and sales. They make 6" kippot and can make two a day.
The huipiles (blouses) of the women from San Pablo are very different. They buy materials and then make the special collar. It takes about a week to finish.
They also make adorable small animals like the little cat below.
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| I got three of these for family members, and Mayan Hands has more for sale.
They were very sweet, hard-working women, and we were very glad that they had come to see us. We asked if their children wore traditional clothes, and we were told that it depends on the mothers. A little huipil can cost 200 quetzales or take the mother a while to make, but a simple t-shirt may only be ten quetzales in the market. Nancy from the Panajachel office of Mayan Hands does not wear traditional clothes but does wear them on special occasions.
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He learned from his grandfather and father, and has been doing this work for over thirty years. So altogether in the three generations, over 200 years of ikat weaving are involved. However, his children are not interested in following in his footsteps. Juan de Dios' brother also works with him
His workshop is above his home (which is a work in process). He prepares all the raw materials, dyes them, tie dyes some, dries them, spins huge spools of thread, and mounts the looms. It takes 20 days just to do that much of the process.
Here is a link to some colors of jaspe/ikat design.
He mainly works with blues and blacks. It is not a business where someone can get rich, but it does provide a steady income. He usually sells to wholesalers. Here are some photos of the process.
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| Tie dying, a bit untied |
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| Drying material |
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