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Guatemala
November 16-23, 2008
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by Chris Megargee
PartnerTrip Coordinator |
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Sunday, November 23
 As I write this, I’m in flight heading back to Seattle after leaving Guatemala this morning. It’s hard to believe that the week went by so quickly, and yet I’m impressed with how much we learned, saw and experienced in just seven days. On Friday morning, we left Panajachel and drove to San Andres Semetebaj, another town near Lake Atitlan. We were continuing our visit with our microfinance partner, Génesis, and the plan for the day was to attend a working meeting of a communal bank. After driving for about 30 minutes accompanied by Génesis staff, our bus pulled off the side of the road in a rural area surrounded by fields of corn. We walked right into one of those fields, down a dirt path, and past a pig lounging in the shade of some corn husks, in order to arrive at the home of one of the communal bank members just as their monthly meeting was about to begin.
 Thirteen women, all dressed in their traje (as the traditional, colorful, Mayan garb is called), gathered in the dirt courtyard of this home as chickens ran underfoot. After exchanging greetings and introductions, the bank members proceeded with the first portion of their meeting, which consisted of making their monthly loan payments. One by one they came to the small wooden table where the leadership team they’d elected from their own ranks was seated, and there they made and recorded their payments for all to see. Given that they are guaranteeing one another’s loans, it’s everybody’s business to be sure that everyone is paying up.
I’ve had the privilege of attending several communal bank meetings during various PartnerTrips, and I was impressed by how quickly and efficiently they handled the payment process. It was especially impressive in that it seemed clear they were eager to get through the business portion of their meeting so they could move on to the second part of their monthly gathering: the training session.
 Génesis offers capacitaciones (trainings)
at every third monthly meeting of their communal banks. While these trainings cover a variety of topics to help their clients in running and improving their businesses, Friday’s training session was on the proper care of livestock—specifically, chickens. The Génesis trainer utilized popular education methodology in engaging the women on the topic, building on the base of what they already know, and encouraging their active participation in a variety of ways. Paper and markers were handed out for the members to draw how they house, feed or handle their chickens. The trainer spoke in their primary tongue of K’iche’ rather than in Spanish. And to top it all off, rather than simply lecturing about how to give vaccines to chickens to prevent life-threatening illnesses, he instead gathered several chickens, a syringe and some vaccine. He then had the women gather around and take turns themselves at giving the injections.
 It was absolutely incredible. This was not a drab, detached lecturer who came in from the big city to tell these communal bank members what to do in a way that would put them all to sleep or be difficult to understand. Rather, he traveled to their community from the local branch office, spoke to them in their own language, created a context where they would be teaching each other, and he provided opportunities to learn by doing.
 At the end of the meeting we had a lot of fun with an extended photo session. On our PartnerTrips we customarily travel with a Polaroid camera and a bunch of instant film. Since we had plenty of film left, we offered to take a photo of every single bank member and family member who was there to keep as a memento of our visit. (For most of the microloan recipients we visit on our PartnerTrips, the opportunity to have pictures of themselves is a rare one.) There was lots of giggling as each woman decided who they wanted to pose with for their picture and as the Polaroid images started to appear.
 It was a great conclusion to a very full week meeting so many women and men in Guatemala who are using microloans for the benefit of their entire families. The last stop on our trip was a day of sightseeing and craft shopping in the historic city of Antigua on Saturday. During our final dinner together, our travelers all agreed that a PartnerTrip is a journey well worth taking. If you’d like to learn more about joining us on a future trip—such as our upcoming PartnerTrip to Peru in April, please give me a call at 206.652.8717 or cmegargee@globalpartnerships.org. In the meantime, thanks so much for following along through these postings.
Saludos,
Chris
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Thursday, November 20
 Here we are in Panajachel, a town located on the north shore of Lake Atitlan, a lake which English novelist Aldous Huxley called “the most beautiful lake in the world.” After spending the past two days here, I can see why he felt that way. It is truly breathtaking. Formed long ago by volcanic activity, the lake is set against three volcanoes on its south shore. Yesterday afternoon we boarded a small motorboat and crossed the lake to arrive on the south shore where we spent time exploring the town of Santiago Atitlan with our excellent guide, Humberto.
 Santiago Atitlan is populated by Mayan people who speak the Tz’utujil language, and it is a place which continues to heal from losses suffered during Guatemala’s 36 year long civil war. The war, which ended in 1996, took the lives of 200,000 Guatemalans, especially among the Mayan populace, and it took a particularly difficult toll here. We explored the historic church, learned about the blending of both Mayan and Catholic spiritual practices, did some shopping among the many vendors of colorful textiles, and admired the many women and men who wear traditional Mayan clothes as they go about their daily life.
Our boat ride back across the lake was a bit more adventurous than we’d thought it would be when a strong wind picked up and gave us quite a time on some choppy waters. But we arrived back to the north shore safe and sound, albeit a bit wet and very ready for hot showers back at the hotel!
 Having thus done some good bonding with the culture, the people, and with mother nature on Wednesday, we awoke this morning to drive up the steep hillsides to the town of Sololá to visit the branch office of Génesis located there. A Global Partnerships partner organization, Génesis is the microfinance institution in Guatemala with the greatest number of clients and branches in the country, working in all 22 departments of Guatemala. (Departments are akin to states in the U.S.) Members of their national leadership team traveled to Sololá to meet with us first thing this morning, and they provided an excellent overview of their work. Many of our travelers on this trip work professionally in fields of finance and business, and it was great for them to have the opportunity to ask questions and to discuss the nitty-gritty details of how Génesis operates.
We were particularly impressed to learn of some of the unique services that they offer in addition to traditional microloans, including both home improvement loans and financing for community development projects to help bring potable water and electricity into rural communities. As Génesis works to grow their client base, they are clearly committed to the market they serve, providing small loans to people living in poverty, especially women. In fact, 82 percent of their clients are women. In rural areas of Guatemala, women are the majority of the population due both to the losses caused by the war as well as the departure of many men in search of employment elsewhere. Genesis recognizes that women are truly a foundation for building better futures for poor families throughout the countryside.
 As we left the branch office to go meet some of those women who are benefiting from Génesis’ services, I popped in on a meeting of the members of a communal bank who were receiving a new loan together and attending the training session that Genesis provides to all their clients upon receiving new loans. The entire room was filled with proud Mayan women along with toddlers and babes in arms. From our visits this week, we repeatedly hear that it is for those children’s futures that these women are accessing microloans and running their businesses. It was a beautiful sight.
 While we met many clients in the course of the day, one who particularly stood out for us today was Isabel Coj Cortez. After visiting Isabel in the small, well-stocked and neatly organized corner grocery store that she runs, we all decided she must be Panajachel’s most eligible bachelorette. She was beautiful, confident, and the owner of a very successful business at age 22. She is using her loan of 7,000 quetzales (just over $900) to add to her inventory, and as her business grows she is hoping to buy the space that she currently rents for her store. With the profits from her business she is helping to support her mother and father.
At the end of a day visiting people who are sharing so much of themselves with us, I could easily write pages in an effort to share all of that with you in these reflections. Yet given our plans to attend a full meeting of a village bank in the morning, I’ll head to sleep now as the crickets chirp, dogs bark and the winds are blowing here on the shores of Lake Atitlan. ¡Hasta la proxima!
--Chris
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Tuesday, November 18
 Greetings from the western highlands of Guatemala. As I write the first posting in this new PartnerTrip travelogue, it is late Tuesday night in the city of Quetzaltenango. Our group of eight PartnerTrip participants arrived into Guatemala City this past weekend, and after rich discussions Monday morning to provide context on what we would be experiencing this week, we drove west that afternoon to arrive here in “Xela” (as Quetzaltenango is often called) on Monday evening.
 I’m reflecting now on a very full day spent with one of Global Partnerships' microfinance partners here in Guatemala, FONDESOL. We began our day this morning by driving about 30 km north to visit the FONDESOL branch office located in the town of Totonicapán. As we arrived at the branch, the posse of motorcycles out front was an indicator of what we learned to be true: this institution is working at the grassroots level of microfinance, traveling rutted dirt roads by motorbike and by foot, reaching poor clients in small communities to help them access capital to expand their various businesses. And we had the thrill of walking along some of those same paths today to visit small businesses tucked away among homes in these hills.
As with much of Guatemala, this region is heavily Mayan, with most people speaking both Spanish and K’iche’, one of the 23 indigenous dialects alive in the country today. As we chatted with the FONDESOL staff about their work, we learned that they too speak both Spanish and K’iche’ in order to better serve their clients.
 Here in the highlands, the air was cool as we headed out from the branch office to visit some of FONDESOL’s clients. Our first stop was at the home of Maria Simiona Say Batz and her husband, Guillermo Obispo Tohom Poncio. Married for 30 years, we were all charmed by the weaving business in which they collaborate. They proudly demonstrated their wooden looms and spinning wheels along with their beautiful finished products. Their loans have allowed them to buy more fabric to increase production, and they truly work wonders with the manual looms and spools of vibrant thread. Many in our group became customers by the time the conversation was complete, carrying away some impromptu souvenirs that truly have a great story behind them.
 We also were impressed with the handiwork of Diego Tohom, another FONDESOL client we met today who has used his loans to purchase raw materials. Diego and his grown son work together crafting earthenware pots. They walked us through the entire fabrication process—all done by hand. From Diego as well as other microentrepreneurs we met this afternoon (including a furniture maker and two tailors), we learned that although there are various microfinance providers in the area, they have turned to FONDESOL because of FONDESOL’s commitment to supporting their clients’ success, their ability to process loan requests quickly, and the competitive interest rates they offer.
After a drive through “downtown” Totonicapan, we returned here to Xela tonight to a wonderful dinner and to even better conversation together about what we’d seen today and the questions that it raised—questions we look forward to exploring further during the course of our week. Our time here in Quetzaltenango was too short, but we’re excited to move on to see new sights and meet new people at our next stop. I hope you’ll check back for our next update from this complex and beautiful country.
--Chris
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