purchase a piece of land on which she planned to cultivate fruit and coffee. The family, in terms of jobs, wears many different hats. Their work includes raising chickens, buying and selling clothes (such as the items pictured above), buying and selling fruit, and cultivating their own fruit and selling it. One of Antonia’s sons works in a factory in the capital city, and the other works as a local school teacher (pictured here, sadly stricken by polio). Both sons promised to help pay back the loan for this new and exciting project, which their mother planned to take on with the help and expertise of her extended family. |
($3,250) to invest in his micro business, which is weaving the traditional long colorful skirts, called cortes, worn by indigenous Guatemalan women. His profession is called tejeduria, and the Totonicapán region of Guatemala, where the cooperative is located, has a thriving community of tejedores, famous for making some of the most brightly colored and intricately patterned cloths and skirts. In January 2007, due to his petition and timely past payments, the cooperative increased his loan balance so that he could purchase a more sturdy and modern home for himself and his family. Pictured is Don Santiago’s daughter using his telar to elaborate one of the aforementioned skirts. |
is a 34 year-old coffee, banana, and maxam farmer who asked the cooperative to finance a coffee cultivation project. An experienced farmer, Francisco has maintained mature coffee plants on his land for some time harvesting and preparing the beans for sale. But he had a vision of a new coffee project that would be more profitable. Coffee plants are usually first cultivated separately in their own little pots, and then later transplanted. The market value of these small plants, or pilones, is quite high compared to the costs of producing them, if one already has land with sufficient coffee plants to provide seeds. Thus rather than sell just mature coffee beans, Francisco wanted to invest in this new baby coffee plant idea. In addition, he studied a grafting technique in which stems from one type of coffee plant are attached to the root of another type of plant to create a stronger and more disease resistant hybrid. He has already incorporated this method into his farming. In the picture above, myself, Francisco, and his wife, are standing in a sea of his coffee seedlings. |