a meeting

Doña Maria invited us to eat lunch with her, in her family kitchen. Hot potato and corn stew, scooped from our bowls by tamalitos- so hot it made my face sweat and Steven loved it. Then we followed her into the rest of her home, where the wooden-plank beds and a bench were at once bedroom and sitting room. Her house is one of the most cared-for we’ve seen, cinderblock with a real cement floor, and pictures from a calendar thoughtfully stuck up on the wall. Through the window into the kitchen, Maria shooed the chicken from the bowl of corn.

We borrowed the room for our meeting, and more than a dozen women gathered around. I began again the same introduction I had been using for the last week, that we were volunteers here, and I was coming to talk to women to see how Agros projects were affecting them and how they might support them more. Steven was hoping to take some photos of their projects. And then my questions began – Why do they join the communal banks? Have they ever owned land before Agros came? What do they hope for their children? Each answer is something so basic to their daily life, you can sense they are not accustomed to having to explain. Yet at the end, a moment of magic. I ask them if my questions are strange, and they tell me that they like it, they are glad to be reminded of what they want for their children, education and to be able to have work.

And then, before we left, we took a walk to see the work these women were doing to bring income into the home, some with the help of an Agros micro-loan and others on their own. Outside of the meeting, showing us the work of their hands, their capacity and beauty and pride came out…but just look below and you’ll see. As usual, Steven’s work is better than words…