Upcoming MayaWorks Sales

Happy Summer from MayaWorks! MayaWorks products may be coming to a neighborhood near you. Check out these upcoming summer sales.

Evanston Ethnic Arts Festival
July 17th & 18th
12pm - 7pm
Dawes Park at Sheridan & Church
Evanston, Illinois

Bebe Paluzza
July 31st, 10am - 5pm
August 1st, 11am - 4pm
Renaissance Schaumberg Convention Center
1551 North Thoreau Drive
Schaumberg, Illinois

Brantling Bluegrass Music Festival
August 6th, 7th & 8th
4015 Fish Farm Road
Sodus, New York

SoNo Arts Celebration
August 7th, 10am - 6pm
August 8th, 11am - 5pm
South Norwalk, Connecticut

Dekalb Corn Fest Craft Fair
August 21st, 10am - 5pm
August 22nd, 10am - 4pm
164 E Lincoln Hwy
Dekalb, Illinois

To check and see if MayaWorks is coming to your neighborhood visit our website at https://www.mayaworks.org/sales/. Want to see MayaWorks come to your neighborhood? Make it happen! Become a MayaWorks volunteer! Email stacey@mayaworks.org or call 312.243.8050 for more information.

MayaWorks Hand Up Challenge is a Big Success

Because of its generous donors, MayaWorks raised more than $30,000 in its Hand Up Challenge. That's way above our $20,000 goal! We are very grateful for the many women and men who believe that the economic development of communities begins with the development of its women. We could not do our work without your support.

Donations help MayaWorks sustain tutoring centers in its artisan communities, fund scholarships, pay for artisan training and provide microloans so that women can start small businesses. These are all vital programs that address the cycle of poverty. It is our goal that our women become economically independent and their children have a brighter future.

Thank you for standing with us as we develop strong communities in the central highlands of Guatemala.

Where angels are?

The village of Xetonox is where they make the simple, pretty, rustic MayaWorks cornhusk angels. Ten of us were there, on a MayaWorks tour.

It was the middle of the afternoon and we were all moved by both the poverty and the serenity of the home in which we were gathered. Our hearts were were moved by the strong and lovely people of this isolated place. And we were also, well, pooped. It had been a long day. We needed coffee. We needed a break.

Just then we were told that two of the women were going to demonstrate for us how they make cornhusk angels. I plastered my polite and supportive smile onto my face, while inside I wondered if they ever had North Americans just sort of implode on these trips. These people are awesome, but I need to rest my poor brain.

Several women brought in a pile of cornhusk. The women explain they don't make the angels alone, it's a group project. Whenever there's an order, they meet to work.

One of the women made a little ball out of a sheet of newspaper, then expertly wrapped with a single dried husk.

Voila! A head.

Fingers fly. The body, the skirt, the arms. Someone takes a small hank of cornsilk, braids it, hot glues it to the angel head to create brown silk hair.

And it's done.

Like I said, we were all tired. As soon as they started to make the angel, some of the other Mayan women, who were standing off to the side, turned to ask Mirian some questions about business. It's not easy to get an opportunity like this, these women have things to discuss with their area manager. They are speaking to each other in Kakchiquel.

Someone else starts stalking in Spanish, so that conversation flies. Our group realizes that somehow the formal part of the presentation is over, we start chatting a little bit among ourselves. We kid each other, we marvel together at these people and this day. We're relaxing, stretching, you know how it is at the end of a meeting.

The women making the angel intuit that the dynamics of the group has changed. They're no longer the center of attention, so they start chatting with each other, once again, in Kakchiquel. It sounds like they might be enjoying a bit of gossip about us. There are some quiet giggles. Then again, they are young women, they may be talking about young men they know.

So there we all were. Some stunning young women. Some beautifully aged women. Little tots. Leaders cementing relationships with these women that they know. The ten of us travelers from the US smiling and moving about. All talking with animation and contentment in our three languages.

I look at the women working with the cornhusks. Right then, the angel's wings are being attached.

Wherever we come together in the name of peace, justice, and hope - well, that's where the angels are.

Do you hear them?

Several years ago I lived several days as a guest in the home of Dona Vicente in Xetonox, a small hamlet about 20 minutes down a dusty road from Tecpan, in Guatemala.

I am thinking so much about Vicente and her husband and their family. I know that my age is within a few years of their ages, we laughed about that.

In my life, here in Racine WI, my husband are working hard to get ready this weekend for a party to celebrate the graduations of two of our children from high school and from college.

Vicente and Jorge are dealing with the aftermath of the torrential rains that followed Hurricane Agatha. What I have heard, through MayaWorks, is that some members of their extended family perished in mudslides. That their home, the place where I stayed, was perilously close to a slide.

In honor of the struggle of their lives– here is something I wrote after staying with them.

This is how Doña Vincenta, and a million other Maya women, make breakfast for their families every morning.

First you get your husband, your sons, or yourself to grow a milpa of corn. Milpa is the word for a smallish plot of land owned by the family. It may be passed down from your parents or you may have purchased it. A milpa is, more or less, the size of a basketball court.

Most likely your primary farm equipment is a hoe, a machete, and knee-length rubber boots. You may own, or perhaps your neighbor does, a backpack sprayer with which to spray fertilizers or pesticides on your crops.

Some farmers own oxen and a plowshare.

I'll never forget watching the neighbor walking behind his oxen, guiding his plowshare, while the music of the Backstreet Boys poured from a boombox.

When the corn is ripe, go out and pick it by hand. You'll select out about 30 excellent ears to hang from the rafters to save for seed corn for next year. The rest you put in your hand-made slatted corncrib.

Oh, in your spare time, after harvest, you will hack down every cornstalk in your milpa. You slice off all the leaves of the stalk. That will be feed for animals. The stalks will be used as fencing.

We were talking about breakfast, right?

Every afternoon fill an empty seed sack with corn from the corn crib. Measure out about a half laundry basket of corn.

Hopefully you have a man about who will spend about 5-10 minutes beating the bag of corn with a stick to knock kernels off the cobs. Empty the whole bag of corn and cobs into a basket, pick through it to pull out all the now empty cobs. If there are kernels of corn left on the cobs, peel them off with your thumbs.

You will end up with a dishpan of corn kernels. Burn the cobs as fuel in the stove in the kitchen.

I didn't see the following part happen, but I'm pretty sure it did. Take your basket of corn kernels to the one neighbor in the neighborhood who owns a molina - a generator-powered grinder/mill. That person, for a few centavos, will grind your corn into cornmeal.

Bring the cornmeal back home.

Now it's time to cook, which you do in water laced with lime. Lime is from limestone, you can buy chunks of "cal" in the market. Powdered cal is -- get this -- what we call "calcium supplements."

Lime helps corn soften, helps it cook faster. Though now you see why Maya, who rarely eat dairy, don't get osteoporosis. They eat trace amounts of lime in every tortilla.

The cornmeal in limewater must be boiled and simmered for an hour until it turns into mush. This is done outside over a wood fire because the pot for this job is too big to heat up over an inside stove.

Stir the pot from time to time. It's not easy to keep this "masa harina" cooking while not sticking or scorching, especially when it rains.

After it's cooked, pull the pot off the fire. Cover it with a cloth and put it in a place where animals can't get it. Let it cool overnight.

In the morning you must make tortillas at least a half-hour to an hour before your husband and/or sons leave for work. Many men work an hour or two away, so leave they leave the house by 6:00 to 7:00. You have to have enough tortillas made by then so your men can fill their bellies, plus have another dozen or so tortillas for each to take with to eat during the day.

Bring the heavy pot inside your little house. The fire under your kitchen stovetop must be quite hot, you'll have stoked that already.

Mix the cooled corn dough some more with your hands. Now pull out a golf ball-sized lump of the dough, mix it in the palm of your hand. From time to time, dampen your hand with water from a little bowl. Pat the lump flat, round off the edges, slap the tortilla on the hot flat surface of the stovetop. When it's cooked just enough, flip it over. Be careful to not burn your fingers.

Keep doing this until you have made between 5 and 25 tortillas for every member of your family. The bigger the nutritional needs of each family member and the fewer other foods you have to give them -- this determines how many tortillas you make.

There are 12 people in Doña Vincenta's family. This includes her family, plus the wife and 4 small children of their oldest son. Marta, Vincenta's daughter-in-law, helps make the tortillas.

Doña Vincenta told me she makes tortillas for two hours every morning. She makes more than 100, puts them in a basket, covers them with a cloth. That is her pantry of tortillas for that day.

She will make harina again that evening for the next day's tortillas.

The tortillas are delicious and filling. They will be accompanied by a few beans, perhaps a salsa made of tomatoes and greens, or chilies. One topping I was served was several hotdogs sliced very small, mixed with cooked tomatoes and onion.

I don't think I will ever buy instant oatmeal again.

How MayaWorks Practices Fair Trade

MayaWorks is much more than an outlet for Mayan products. The commitment of MayaWorks to the economic development of women goes far beyond the exchange of money for goods made in Guatemala. At its core, MayaWorks is about creating work for women so that they become self sufficient. MayaWorks believes that community development happens through economic development of women who otherwise have limited ways to participate and contribute to the economic stability of their families. Giving women an opportunity to earn an income from their skills gives them self-confidence and hope for themselves, their children, their family and their village.

MayaWorks operates within the principles of Fair Trade. This means that women are paid a fair wage in the local context and take part in decision making. MayaWorks artisans are paid at or above the minimum wage in the local context. They receive a 50% cash advance at the time an order is placed and are paid the remaining 50% when they turn in products.

All MayaWorks artisans work from their homes. This allows them to be available to care for their children and elderly family members. On average women weave five hours per day making over 165 products for distribution through MayaWorks in the United States.

MayaWorks provides artisans the tools they need to weave and finish products including foot looms and sewing machines. In addition, MayaWorks assures that artisans are fully trained to create new products. Each weaving group receives at least three trainings per year that include workshops such as how to weave ikat fabric and sew complicated children’s items, as well as workshops that develop transferable skills such as business administration and financial management.

Artisans are not organized by cooperatives but rather by local weaving groups. They share leadership and, together, decide who will be a part of their group and what products they will make. MayaWorks has worked with the same weaving groups for over 15 years and has made a conscious decision not to take on additional groups until all of its artisans are working at capacity.

MayaWorks makes a commitment to its artisans and their families by providing educational opportunities such as literacy courses, scholarships and local tutoring centers. MayaWorks also offers low-interest microloans so that artisans develop into entrepreneurs and have an alternative source of income.

MayaWorks’ Guatemala operation has been completely managed by indigenous women since its inception. These administrators understand the complexities of doing business in Guatemala, speak the artisans’ native language and live in the same communities as the artisans. More importantly, they are driven by their desire to see indigenous women progress in a country where they are often regarded as less than second class citizens.

We are thankful for the support we receive from friends like you who have made it possible for us to provide nearly $2,000,000 in earnings to indigenous women in Guatemala and over $190,000 in support of charitable activities in artisans' local communities. Gracias, mil gracias!

Join MayaWorks at Green Festival Next Weekend!

In one week, Saturday May 22nd from 10am-7pm and Sunday May 23rd from 11am-6pm, join MayaWorks at Green Festival in Chicago at Navy Pier! MayaWorks will be one of 350 vendors offering environmentally friendly, sustainable, recycled and socially conscience products. Also enjoy many speakers and delicious food! For more information visit http://www.greenfestivals.org/chicago/

MayaWorks Hand Up Challenge

In a world where women own just 1% of the world's financial assets and earn only 10% of the world's income, MayaWorks has provided nearly $2,000,000 in earnings to indigenous women in Guatemala. MayaWorks is about creating work for women. It's about giving women a hand up to use their skills to provide for their families and build a brighter future. A friend of MayaWorks has made a $10,000 challenge gift to the Hand Up Challenge. For every dollar MayaWorks raises, the donor will make a matching donation. These dollars go a long way in funding artisan training, awarding scholarships to young girls, supporting tutoring centers in artisan communities and granting microcredit loans so that women can build small businesses. Together we can transform women's lives. Take part in our Hand Up Challenge and help women realize their dreams! Donate by June 30 on our secure website at www.mayaworks.org/donate.php.

Thank you!