My name is Caryn Maxim. I live in NJ but spend 2 weeks of each month in Cajola, a Maya Mam community in the western highlands of Guatemala. (The Mam people are one of the 22 Maya ethnic groups in Guatemala.) I have been helping a group of women start a weaving cooperative, MayaMam Weavers, over the past years. I would like to share with you some of their work, some of their stories, some of their wisdom, as well as why fair trade -- or trading fairly -- matters.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Here we are in April, 2013, now with 21 members. It has been a while since we updated our group photo and we have had growth and changes in our group. (One of our members was ill and is not in the photo). Caryn has been gathering statistics about us, so we want to share them here too.
Of our 21 members, 16 are mothers and among us we have a total of 45 children. Most of us have one or two, but we have as many as 7 children in our families. Very sadly but typical of Cajola, 13 of us are single mothers. We are single mothers for various reasons...some of us are widows (one of our husbands was killed by the drug gangs when he was trying to cross the border), some of us have been discarded by our husbands or lovers. One of our member's husband has been in the U.S. for more than 15 years. Here in Guatemala we call that a "white widow". Our other "survey" was about education. Nine of our members never had the opportunity to go to school at all. One finished first grade, 3 finished 2nd grade, 5 finished 3rd grade, 1 finished 6th grade and one is studying in college. We are very proud of her. But the rest of us have been studying with Anadelmi, our literacy teacher at work, to be able to learn to read and write and do our math so we can keep track of our business!
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