the village

Her hands smoothly spread the corn masa into the big leaves, preparing the traditional boxbole.  Her aunt stirred the coffee beans that roasted on the iron grate above the fire.  As a younger member of the communal bank, her ideas came quietly, but they were strong.  The pigs and chickens that she had bought with her loan were clearly a source of pride.  We spent an hour on little wooden chairs in her kitchen, but the whole time my questions and Steven’s camera didn’t pause her work.

“Why are you coming here to talk to us?” one woman asked.  “Well,” I said, “I think because many of the women here don’t speak Spanish, sometimes the men speak more, and Agros doesn’t get to hear your ideas.  I think it is important to know what you think about the projects and your lives here, so I’ve come to talk with you.”  My guess at the lack of voice for women here must have resonated, because with this vision Catarina, a community leader and our translator into Ixil, became my emissary, just as passionate about this project as I was.  She guided us from house to house, explaining at each doorway that we had come to do interviews and may we have a few minutes to sit with them?  She shared this idea with each woman, and they nodded in agreement. 

We had arrived in the village a few days before.  After eight weeks of preparations - visiting villages, adjusting my project design, and preparing interviews – Steven and I were dropped off in this Ixil community a few hours from Nebaj along a rutted dirt road that hugs the side of a narrow gorge.  We knew very little about how anything would happen once we arrived, but over the next few hours, guided by a community leader, a woman was found to be our translator from Spanish to Ixil, a family agreed to feed us meals, and we pushed together the exam tables in the clinic to make a bed where we would spend the next few nights.  The next morning we ate beans and eggs and tortilla with the family, and started towards the house of the president of the Women’s Communal Bank, the first interview where I would ask about the bank, women's leadership, land ownership, and family relationships.  All with the hope to understand how these are seen from their own eyes...

We left each house full – of the words that gradually created a clearer picture of the life of the women, of bananas or atol or lime juice people warmly offered, and images of the beautiful mundane that makes up daily existence in this village.  Mostly we are grateful – that this community was willing to let us into their homes, shared their stories with us, and told us we too were just children of God like them.  Though our time was brief, we got a glimpse of living – families laughing, meals prepared, a days work – though so different in form, the very same substance of human existence lived the world over.