Mayan What??

When I got my Peace Corps invitation to serve in Guatemala in July 2008, my title was "Sustainable Agriculture Marketing Facilitator." The only marketing experience I really had was a two month internship I had two years earlier and a semester of marketing in both undergrad and grad school (where my group and I "marketed" our service- We Got Gas! A fake gas delivery service), and as for agriculture... well... does playing in the dirt when you're a kid count for anything? I didn't think so. And let's be honest: if Peace Corps had known how many plants had died as a result of me not watering them while my parents would be away for extended periods of time while I was in high school, then agriculture probably would not have been the area of choice for my placement officer.

During PST (Pre-Service Training), it was made aware to us what kind projects were going to be in our near future, and surprisingly enough, one of those projects had NOTHING to do with agriculture at all: artisan handcraft marketing. Of the eight people in the marketing training group, three of us were girls, so we were certain that it would be one of the three of us, due to the nature of the work it would entail (working with 10 women's groups- much easier to build confianza if you're a woman).

The day we found out our sites, pretty much everyone was shocked to learn that I had gotten the site with the artisan group- my other friend, Sara, has a strong art and design background, but because Peace Corps says they really try to match up sites with people's personalities, I suppose something about me must have screamed "ARTISAN!" Maybe. I didn't think so, but something must have...

When I went out for my site visit, a grueling eight hour bus trip, which I still make almost once a month for some kind of Peace Corps activity or another, I got the chance to get to know some of the ladies and the products they make.

One product in particular that they make are... ready for this? Yarmulkes. Kippahs. Yamakahs. Yes, my little indigenous Mayan ladies make Judaica products.

Crocheted to perfection.

As a marketing volunteer, my main goal was to of course increase the sales of the women's products- but how? Online sales seemed like the most logical way, but there was one slight problem: none of the ladies knew how to use a computer.

I tackled this, and my counterpart, Isa (who has a grade six education), now can do simple word processing, create documents, etc., but this still isn't sufficient for her to be able to handle online sales, since I honestly couldn't expect her to learn all the intricacies of the internet within another year. So how would I make this idea a sustainable reality?

Luckily there are a number of artisan organizations that have helped out the ladies in the past, and continue to do so- training them in the process so they not only continue to have work, but expand their knowledge of techniques and designs, as well.

One particular organization, Mayan Hands, have been selling the ladies's kippahs in the US for a couple of years, but has just recently launched their online store. When I found this out a few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to speak with the director of Mayan Hands about the pricing for the kippahs, and in order to make our's more competitive to the other kippah-crocheting Mayan ladies (yes, we have competition IN Guatemala, believe it or not), we talked about where costs could be cut... and voila. It seemed all too easy, but I guess sometimes that how things work out.

So, my friends, readers, followers, etc., please take a minute of your time to look at the beautiful products my ladies make on the Mayan Hands website.

These are probably the best selling products the ladies have; it's the best percentage of profit they make from any product, and it has one of the quickest turnover rates in terms of production, so rest assured that the ladies are getting a very fair price for their work.

The main goal behind the artisan project for the ladies is to provide food security for their families. San Marcos suffers from one of the highest rates of malnutrition in Guatemala, and my town has one of the highest rates in the department of San Marcos. In addition to artisanal training, many of the ladies are also apart of the association's agriculture groups, where they learn about nutrition (cooking classes), compost piling, building family gardens, etc., so they can utilize their money they have earned through their artisan work to provide better food security for their families.

Many of the women are single mothers, so this also provides a job opportunity for them that is near by their house. Many rural Guatemalans find themselves taking jobs down on the coast at coffee, banana and sugar cane plantations, thus forcing them to leave their families, towns, sell all of their animals and work in less than acceptable conditions.

This art gives many of the single parent ladies the possibility to stay in their communities with their families and still be able to earn a living by themselves, give educational opportunities to their daughters, contribute to build their self-esteem by them making financial decisions on their own, and in the process, empowering them.

The colors of the department of San Marcos (red, green, yellow and black). But because they look like rasta colors, I like to call these kippahs "rastakahs."

Doña Aida, Doña Isa (my counterpart), Doña Olindia and Doña Wilma with an assortment of products (including wine bags, yoga bags, scarves and coin purses) the ladies from 10 communities have made.