Winding Down

Today was filled many goodbyes, and tomorrow morning we will say a few more before we catch the boat to Pana and then the shuttle to La Cuidad.

I look like a mess .... be kind.  Maria is only four years older than Phil.

This is Maria.  She and I had a lovely 45 minute conversation in Spanish (since she doesn´t speak English).  I think I understood everything important.  We went to Santiago via launcha for the festival of their saint.  It was packed and we decided only to stay for an hour before heading back.  We spent two hours altogether on the boat rides.  You can not be in a hurry here, that is for sure.

One of the families we helped through the cooperativa.

 This women is a widow and has eight children.  This is her working in her kitchen.  She doesn´t speak spanish, only Mayan, so Rueben translated.  It takes her three days to make one of these clothes.  She can only get around $4.00 for her work.  Then the tienda will make it into sirivetes and sell them for $7.00 a piece.  I think you can get about four in each one.  So we help with food.  The next two pictures are bedrooms for her and her children.  In large families, only a few children can go to school, so the cooperativa trys to help at least one child go to school in each family that isn´t able to.

 This is another family I visited today.  The father is blind due to an accident in the moutains 8 years ago.  He has a wife and five children.  They live altogether in one room.  Below is the kitchen area of the house.  Notice the walls are bamboo.  The garbage can hold the water for drinking.  They cook with wood.  They have a bathroom space out in the open with people that live next door.  Flies were very heavy, and it is winter here.  I can only imagine in the summer what it is like.

My instructor Ruben.  He insisted I take the pictures and video because people to know of the work of the cooperativa.  It is something very dear to his heart.

I am going to try to upload the video of the Mayan woman working.  I did go out and buy some sirvettes, just in her honor.  If she would of had one completed, I would of bought directly from her just so she would have more money in her pocket, but she didn´t.

I don´t think the video is working, I will try to upload when we get home.