Beginning of my week, La Caminata, and Elecciones

Monday afternoon I went to Llanos de la Cruz with the newest intern of the Office, Elba. She's 17 and in a crafts school, so she'll be teaching workshops in the different communities on cooking and craftsmaking. At Llanos, she'll be teaching recycling projects. A very small group came and we played hot potato - a favorite here apparently - and to break the ice had to pop a ballon by hugging someone. I was paired with a very tiny mayan lady, and our odd coupling brought many laughs. They decided they were going to start growing mushrooms out of recycled corn leaves. So I'll be going there every Monday and learn about the Guatemalan way of recycled craft projects.

Tuesday was the International Day of Women, and the office along with the Worker's Union of Xela organized a parade from one park to the central park. Elba and I got there at 8am, when the parade was supposed to start. People trickled in and finally we were able to start the march at 9:30, also known as 8am Guatemalan time (are you starting to notice a recurring pattern here?). Not many women showed up, and when the leader shouted "Que viva el dia de la mujer!", the "Que viva!" awaited response from the crowd was very weak. I learned the next day that last year, almost the entire Llanos community came because the OMM was providing snacks. This year, OMM didn't have funding for snacks, so only a fraction showed up. I don't know how the women from the office feel about that, they kind of shrugged it off, but to me that's kind of a downer. I know free food anywhere in the world is always a very efficient motivational strategy, but still. Do the women actually care about women's day and are they actually learning and benefitting from OMM's work? Is OMM's work efficient? I still haven't really been able to grasp all that OMM does, mostly because I'm coming in in media res and their work is spread out over the year, and has been over 5 years. I haven't really been able to render myself useful yet, but on Tuesday and Wednesday I was the designated photographer, which I hope will continue to be my job in the next few weeks.

The march was in advocacy of equality in the workplace and the respect of women’s rights. Posters read “I survive every day to a world of discrimination”, “I am an employee, not a slave”, “I am a woman, not a sexual object”, “women making breaking through in typically-male jobs”, “my pregnancy doesn’t limit my capacities” etc. The march led up to the municipality, and the governor of Xela and the human rights director of the municipality spoke, acknowledging the need for women in Guatemala to continue fighting for equality, women’s development and against discrimination, and saluting women’s value, role and significance in society.

According to several studies, the elevation of women’s rights helps democratize a society, and the development of the status of women helps a country tremendously economically.  Although the Guatemalan government has made efforts to better the situation of women in the country, such as financing a public women’s organization in every municipality, and passing a law last March to combat sexual violence, exploitation, and people trafficking, 5500 women have been killed since 2000, making Guatemala one the most dangerous places to be a woman in the western hemisphere. According to government documents, 717 women were killed during 2009, an increase from the previous year, most of those raped and about one third victims of domestic violence. Women suffer high levels of poverty and social exclusion - while the development index for the country in 0.56, the development for women of rural areas is 0.17 according to Mujeres en Red – and face huge disadvantages in the labor market.  

Brutal violence against women, impunity in those crimes, and deep injustices and inequalities in women's human and labor rights is fostering an environment of terror and intimidation for women in Guatemalan society. This may lead women to retreat from participating in public life and limit themselves to the private sphere, abandoning their indispensable role in national development and annulling the progress that's been made. Already, women's civic participation is extremely low, there are only 7 female members of Congress, and only very recently and very slowly women have started to take up leadership positions and posts traditionally performed by men (there has been a significant increase in the number of women mayors this year).

Wednesday was the elections of the junta directiva of Llanos de la Cruz, again I was the designated photographer which was awesome. We brought Coca-Cola so almost all the women showed up this time. The leader Elvira won again, no surprises. It started to rain, thunder, and lightening, but the women were determined to get their Coke cans, so they all stayed in line in the pouring rain. That night we met up with the group and watched a documentary about money, its origins, the system it has created in our society, how it affects us as people, and the alternatives to today's money-obsessed relationships and ways of life. Its called The Money Fix, I strongly recommend it. We went to the famous Indian restaurant of Xela for dinner to celebrate our 1month anniversary of being in Guate. I've only heard amazing things about the indian restaurant, and rightly so. We kind of forgot we were in Guatemala at some point during dinner and when the waitress came and spoke spanish I was wildly disoriented, expecting her to speak in an Indian-accented english. We went dancing too, which is always fun.


The editor of Entremundos finally got back to me about my article and liked it alot! calling me a great voice with an ink heart, and calling the article brave and strong, consequent to what Entremundos is used to publishing! So that makes me super happy, although I wrote another one just in case because she hadn't answered me and the deadline was today. I actually like the 2nd one I wrote better so we'll see what she says! But I'm pretty thrilled right now, and the ladies at the office really loved the pictures I took of the Caminata and the elections. I'll post pictures and my article soon.