A day in the life with the women from San Antonio Aguas Calientes

The Leadership Council from our home church, Pathways Community in Largo, FL, came for a visit, and three of the wives, Donna, Marilyn and Ruth came along to hang out with me and Jessica. We had the priviledge to go to a small village called San Antonio de Agua Calientes. We were welcomed into the home of a lady named Victoria. She described to us how she saw a need in her town for the women to be able to earn some money for their families. They were weaving beautiful textiles, but other people were buying them and taking them to the Mercado (market) in Antigua, and the women weren't making much profit.

So, Victoria started a co-op. Each lady had to contribute a piece of aluminum, and together, these pieces formed a roof for a small shelter. On this dirt floor, every day, the group sits and weaves.

Victoria described their daily life to us, from grinding rice into milk for a drink called Horchata, to how they balance baskets on their heads so they can carry a lunch into the field for their husbands, to the weaving process, to cooking tortillas.
She taught us about their Mayan traditions, and we acted out a Mayan wedding ceremony (Jessica was the groom!). Then, we all made our own tortillas on their small stove, and sat down to a Guatemalan lunch that had taken these ladies hours to prepare for us. On a side note, this was also a Spanish test from our teacher, Alejandra. Jessica and I have been taking lessons from her for about a month and she thought it would be a good idea to use this event as one of our tests. We were very glad that Alejandra came with us as we were totally lost.