Into the Wild, Guatemala Style

Last night I was so tired that I went to sleep really early, unfortunately I also had to wake up early, even though it was Saturday! This was my last day to visit communities with APROSADSE.

Our first visit was with a group called Women in Action (Mujeres de Acción) - who have been receiving microcredit loans from APROSADSE for quite some time now. On IDEX's last trip to Guatemala, I had visited this group, and some of the women recognized me! I sat down to talk about their work and how they feel about their participation in the group.

Many of the women here are new members, but five of them have been in the group since the beginning. Most of them are working individually with chicken-raising projects. Talking with them, the women offered several comments about their projects and how grateful they are to be in a group where they can share their problems and accomplishments and have support from one another.

Maximiliana, who is 47 years old and married with nine children, explained her biggest challenge was finding affordable chicken feed. This echoed comments given by a group member from the community of Chi Armira. Berta, whose project is quite big as she has 1,000 chickens, says that she's a bit worried now because some of her chickens seem to be getting ill and she needs to have a vet check them out.

Other stories were more positive like Maria Julia's story. Maria Julia has had great success with her egg-laying hens and now sells eggs in her community. She was invited to join the group by her mother-in-law and now she is the vice-president of the group, even though she has only been with the group two years. Being vice-president has encouraged her to speak up more and see that she can be one of the leaders of the group. Like today for example. The president of the group was unable to be present because she was studying, this allowed Maria Julia to open the meeting and introduce the group members.

Maria Julia's mother-in-law, Maria Elena, is one of the five women who started the group Women in Action. She's also had success raising chickens and local varieties of turkey. During Christmas time she can sell her turkeys at a high price and earn a good income from those sales. As a result Maria Elena has bought a cow that is providing her family with milk. Ever resourceful she also uses the chicken's waste to make organic fertilizers for her plot of agricultural land. I visited her at her home and on my way noticed the local primary school Los Pi ños Xesuj, also supported by APROSADSE, only through its education program.

After talking with the women, I said my thank you's and good-bye's and went on to my next visit.

I was driven on a long, unused road down to a small valley where I would meet Hector and the land where he cultivates his tomatoes, beans and corn. When I met Hector, he was approaching me with two boxes filled with tomatoes on his back, only supported by a cloth that was wrapped around his forehead.

I looked to see where Hector was coming from and was shocked. He had climbed up a narrow path along the edge of a cliff, where one false step could have lead to a horrible fall. Balance was hard enough to maintain with my own purple purse - can you imagine with two boxes of tomatoes tied to your head?

Hector showed me how he is transitioning to organic farming as he learned that it is both cheaper and more sustainable in the long run. He said to me,
"APROSADSE has been the one to show and teach me about organic agriculture and they've supported me with my first microcredit to invest in this project. I'm working hard to achieve my dream of having my own land to be able to support my family well and pay the education of my children. I also want to help contribute to community projects such as the school. I believe that we should support our community in any small way, because that is how we can improve our living situation."

There is a river that runs by his land and as a result, Hector has free access to water that helps to reduce his farming costs. I needed to cross the river to see his other land. Fortunately, the river was low since it is the dry season. I remembered the river scene from Into the Wild and I thought to myself, "I hope I can cross back." If I couldn't, then I guess I wouldn't have minded. The place was beautiful, surrounded by tall, green pine trees and dappled sunlight. Some of the pine trees had been carefully trimmed in order to allow sunlight to shine through to the land. Combined with the music of the river flowing by, it created a peaceful world away from the buses and typical urban noise.

It was a good way to end my field visits with APROSADSE.
Photo credit: Marlon Garcia

Chicks on a Plane

I visited two communities today, El Carmen and Chi Armira, that both work with APROSADSE's Agroecology Program. They were both groups that had received microcredit from APROSADSE for the first time.

The first group is based in the small community of El Carmen in the village Varituc. There are 30 families that live in this community. The community is about 20 minutes by car from APROSADSE's office in San Martín Jilotepéque, the nearest town, making it quite isolated. Varituc has a reputation for migration. A lot of its men have migrated to the United States in search of better opportunities for their families. This is a profound loss as not only does this break up families, but the remaining family usually has a debt to pay, which are the fees for the husband to leave.

We met a group of 13 women who were participating in APROSADSE's programs. Four of them received microcredit for a cow-raising project. Patrociña was the one who spoke the most and at one point said, "Please excuse my fellow women peers, who are too shy to talk today."

Patrociña has a very optimistic personality. You wouldn't think that she was missing her husband. He left ten months ago, leaving her behind with their five children to find more opportunities to sustain his family from the United States. Patrociña is one of the two women who go to APROSADSE to attend the health training workshops. They come back to share what they learn with the rest of the group. Patrociña says she has benefited from the cow-raising project since it has helped pay for her children's education and has provided milk for them to drink.

In the next community of Chi Armira, we visited a group income-generating project that is raising 600 egg-laying hens. Chi Armira is much closer to San Martín Jilotepéque and so people have access to the local market. This group of four members has been working with this project for a while, initially another organization was supporting them and there were 13 people in the group. But most women left after the first year because their husbands didn't allow them to work with the group because it required too much of their time. Who would cook them dinner?

The President of this group has been on her own with her two children for ten years since her husband left for the United States. She mentions how her husband wouldn't like to see her working with a group but she likes it, so she's doing it anyway. They have had challenges with this project because the cost of the chicken feed is very high right now. They're hoping to sell the hens in three or four months to earn income, which they will reinvest in the project.

As we walked towards the chicken coop I saw a mother hen with lots of chicks everywhere running around. I tried to pick one of them up to check how they were doing but they ran so fast. The mother hen was did a good job protecting them and it became quite a challenge. But when the coast was clear I caught one! They were very healthy. One of the group members said I could take two of them with me, but I told her it might be hard to take chicks with me on the plane.

Clearly the APROSADSE’s Agroecology Program offers communities an opportunity to enhance community’s nutrition, develop agroecology skills and improve income for their families.

Photo credit: Marlon Garcia

Bagels in Guatemala City

Katherine Zavala, IDEX's Coordinator of Programs is traveling again. This time Katherine is visiting our partners in Guatemala: AFEDES, APROSADSE, and ISMU. Catch up with her news on our blog.

Sunday, April 13

Today I arrived at Guatemala City to start my two-week site visit trip to visit three of IDEX partners in Guatemala. I was quite the zombie, as I had taken the traditional red-eye flight from San Francisco to Central America. The airport at Guatemala was a shock as it has been largely expanded since the last time I was here and it took forever to get to the immigration stop. Being a zombie, I was so out of it that when I got to the immigration officer I had not filled any form (nor had I received them, as I was probably skipped by the flight attendant who hands out these forms because I was dead asleep!). Fortunately, unlike other immigration officers I know, the officer was nice and gave me a moment to fill everything in.

It was only 10am by the time I arrived at my Bed and Breakfast (B&B), which turned out to be very cozy and very clean. This is the first time I've stayed in this area, so I decided to check it out and walked to the nearest mall.

Hanging out at the mall wasn't really how I wanted to spend my first day in Guatemala. But there I was with my cappuccino and bagel.

Walking back to my B&B, I past some of the chain hotels and chain fast food restaurants. McDonalds was two blocks away from my B&B, so ultimately it became my place for dinner.

But in spite of all these American businesses, I can tell that I'm in a different environment. It's really nice to be back in Central America. I can't wait to visit our partners!

Microcredit in Chiapas

Katherine, with Toño, DESMI's Director

When I entered DESMI's office, I thought to myself, "I want to work here!" DESMI's office is in a beautiful colonial house with a huge garden, which they have owned since 1979. I knew several of DESMI's staff from my IDEX trip to Guatemala last year, so seeing them again felt like seeing old friends.

Sitting down with the staff on my office visit, DESMI taught me a lot about their programs, and specifically their microcredit program. DESMI works in 3 regional areas in Chiapas: North, South and Los Altos. Currently, they have one person managing each regional area but they are in a process of staff restructuring to see if there is a way to better facilitate the work in these areas by distributing the responsibility.

I found DESMI's microcredit program very interesting. DESMI's loan fund will only be distributed to collectives. The whole process from the moment the community applies for microcredit to receiving it may take 2 to 3 months, as DESMI wants to ensure that the microcredit they receive will guarantee success of their project. There hasn't been a case where DESMI has rejected an application. Instead, if something doesn't make sense or the application is not complete, DESMI's staff will take the time to visit the collective and work together on the application. Every first Monday of the month, DESMI's staff sits down together to look at all the applications. Since 2003, they have not received many applications.

DESMI expressed to me their excitement on the exchange trip they're doing next week together with K'inal Antsetik to visit IDEX's Guatemalan partners: AFEDES, APROSADSE and ISMU, as well as other organizations. They are planning to visit AFEDES' Weavers' Store in Santiago Sacatepequez and APROSADSE's agricultural program in Chimaltenango.

DESMI is hoping to learn especially how these organizations work with gender issues into their programs, since DESMI is also initiating their own workshops on masculinity. These exchange trips, organized by IDEX partners themselves, came about during IDEX's regional conference in Antigua, Guatemala in January 2006. IDEX's partners decided they wanted to exchange experiences as they saw that they all were facing similar challenges although living in different political and cultural contexts.

IDEX has been a long supporter of DESMI and it's easy to see why. DESMI is continually working to become more efficient in their site visits, training and in being more aware of the needs of the communities. DESMI is currently working on developing a monitoring and evaluation plan to ensure they are achieving the objectives they have set themselves to accomplish."It hasn't been successful yet, to be honest," Toño, DESMI's Director tells me, "but we are doing our best to get this plan together because we want to make sure that DESMI is working well to improve the quality of life of these communities."

Kat