Cloé Bayeur-Holland, a student in co-operative studies and a BCICS researcher, recently returned from Guatemala where she spent four months living and working with a women's weaving co-operative. While there, Cloé sent a series of emails detailing her experiences to us here at the BCICS. These emails are a personal and touching account of her time in Guatemala, and relate in real terms to the struggle the women of Guatemala endure to provide for their families and to survive in the harsh reality of Guatemalan life.

The BCICS is preparing to publish a book that compiles these emails, along with photos Cloé took while in Guatemala and an academic paper she wrote that details the state of women's co-ops in Guatemala. Look for the book in early 2007. Meanwhile, here are some snippets to whet your appetite:

Family Pets .

   "Ongoing and overt racial discrimination and segregation ensures that the Mayans remain an uneducated and exploitable workforce. Government and Big Business (United Fruit Company) control most of the fertile land, forcing the Mayans to cultivate their maïze from steep mountain slopes where yields are insufficient to meet their dietary needs.
   In 1950, the elected president appropriated the fallow lands of private and business estates with large holdings in order to distribute them to peasant co-operatives. The United States government, consumed by McCarthy-era delirium, quickly lashed out to crush the 'communist regime'. A small group of intellectuals and dissidents fled to the jungle to form a resistance. Civil war was declared and the military opened fire on the Mayan people.
   From 1950 to1996, over 200,000 Mayan died or 'disappeared' and some 440 highland villages were obliterated-buildings burned to the ground and inhabitants massacred. Countless widows and orphans were left behind without means of providing for themselves."

   "ASOMADEK is a women's weaving co-operative that fights the social and economic oppression of Indigenous people in Guatemala. The Co-op was formed in 1987, following the worst period of violence. A Canadian working with Guatemalan refugees in Chiapas came to the mountain region of Sololá to see if he could help alleviate the devastating poverty there, especially among the women widowed by military massacres.
   The only skill claimed by women was, and is, back-strap weaving. With a group of community leaders, Ron (the Canadian) devised a plan to market the traditional weavings to a North American market. However, Ron insisted that the women themselves take up the management of the project, contrary to their culture and tradition. Teaching the women to take on leadership roles has been difficult. They are almost entirely illiterate, many do not even speak Spanish. They lack the most basic education that we take for granted. It is difficult for us to imagine the absence of this education. Efficiency is sometimes traded for autonomy but the goal of ASOMADEK is primarily to empower these women, secondarily to maximize profits."

   "I hope the pictures I bring back will convey some of what I have failed to communicate with my letters. And maybe one day I will try and tell you about the missing teeth, the bare feet, the worn out clothing, the deep, deep lines that age young faces, the open sores, the braids, the colours, the hopelessness and the endless smiles."

   "I met this woman in the movie theatre last night. Her name is Bonnie. She was the only other person watching Finding Neverland. It was a nice film. Bonnie and I struck up a conversation afterwards. I told her what I was doing here, and she told me about the schools she has helped to set up and run in Santiago de Atitlan. Yet another do-good gringo, I thought to myself. But she is intelligent and we hit it off. We got to talking, I don't even remember about what specifically...the violence, which she witnessed, the disregard of the Maya people, our families, our religion and our love affairs.
   She told me about her children, and her grandchildren - who are older than I am. About her family who supports the war in Iraq. She explains how her family responds to her protests against US involvement in the military overthrow of the government in Guatemala 50 years by saying, 'Well something has to be done about the spread of communism.' Bonnie wears a t-shirt depicting the face of Ernesto Guevara smoking, and she likes to pick fights with her conservative church congregation back in the US.
   She is the most incredibly revolutionary grandma I have ever met, and I've met the infamous raging grannies.
   Bonnie left Guatemala in 1980, when the massacres in Santiago became too overwhelming. But she didn't stay away long. This is her home, and she loves these people. She returned to encourage the people to send their children to school. She said, when she was first here in the 70s, literacy was around 2%. It has now reached 40%. She says there is hope; things are changing.
   She wrote a book in the 80s. The publishers declined it because they didn't want to deal with the problems it would cause them. The book is called, Guatemala: Blood in the Cornfields. It tells of her experiences in Guatemala watching the violence escalate and of the refusal of people in the United States to believe what was going on. Her book is now, finally, going to be published. It should be coming out in a few months. She also showed me her poetry.

Cloe in Traje with niece .

   I spent the night at her house, and heard all about her budding love affair with a man who is younger than her children. He has all the characteristics she admires in a person.
   I was both surprised, and not surprised at how much we have in common.    
She is returning to the States in a couple days to visit her grandchildren. I will be gone when she gets back. She left me with the words, 'we will see each other again, maybe in the afterlife... if we end up in the same place.' And she walked away with a wink."

   "I know in a previous letter I expounded on the virtues of the uneducated Mayan people, but now I am here to contradict myself. When running a business, virtues leave something to be desired. I almost forget that no one I am working with has more than a grade three education...even less, considering the faults of public education in this country. I almost forget, because they are so smart and resourceful. Yet, I know the youngest, brightest can not do basic math.

Maruka (Cloe's host mother) and her great-neices.

   Yes, this cooperative takes a lot of external guidance...no, it is not autonomous, independent, and self-sufficient. But, as much as I would love to see these people empowered, and determining their own future, they do not have the skills to propel this business into success by themselves. That just isn't the reality. This is a hard blow, to my romantic, naive, idealistic vision of marginalized peoples everywhere. I come here determined that WE should be learning from THEM. But what do I see? They need help. They need much help. They need patient, gentle guidance. They need to be taught, educated about things that are so basic, so taken for granted to us in the North, that we don't even realize we have the knowledge.
   I hardly consider myself an expert on business, on marketing and sales. I took an introductory economics class once. But wait, here I am, trying my best to offer my aid, my skills-that-I-didn't-know-I-had, my creative genius to furthering these sheltered people's advancement into the world of international business, 'trade', commerce....I am encouraging them to use capitalism as a leg up into the world of health, happiness, and well being. 'Here, let me help you market yourself a little better.'
   This goes against everything I have always told myself I believe. And yet...what else is there to do? What better thing to do?"

Cloé Bayeur-Holland - Edited and formatted by Adam Harrison