On
the shores of the beautiful Lake Atitlan in the district of Solola, Guatemala,
lies the small village of San Jorge La Laguna.
It is situated between the tourist and business towns of Panajachel and
Solola where most of the San Jorge Guatemaltecas must travel to work. A trip that can be treacherous in the rainy
season (May – Oct.) when the waterfalls
flood the roads and instead of hoping on a bus, these indigenous Mayan people
must trek over mountains and through forests on foot. San Jorge is a village of families and some
very enterprising women who do business right at home.
Artiesanas
Grupo Mujeres San Jorge is comprised of 13 women who have come together in a
collective to create beautiful jewelry that we are presenting to you in this
blog. Most of these women are mothers
and mostly work at a craft that they were taught some 20 years ago when a big
export company needed skilled artisans.
The company eventually left the area but the skills were not lost. These mujeres (women) of San Jorge continue
the tradition. They will tell you that they really like working at their craft
and you can see the dedication and focus in the quality that they
maintain. They are proud also of their
technique. Every piece of jewelry is
double threaded for durability. The
glass beads are of the very finest quality.
They will never lose their luster.
Each piece of jewelry, be it a bracelet, necklace, earring, or any of
their many designs is finished not by the mass produced process of burning the
edges of a line of beads but by turning the threads back-under with their
sewing skills.
These
mujeres of San Jorge will tell you that they work for very specific
reasons. First and foremost is for the education
of their children. In Guatemala
schooling is very costly. All uniforms,
books, classroom materials and schools fees for anything special like computers
(if there are any)...are not provided and must be paid for by the children's
families. Guatemala is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere and
education is very difficult to obtain for the children of even the most
motivated of mothers. Secondly, they
realize that to carry on a business, the costs of making their products and
saving for new materials is essential.
Beyond that maintaining and upgrading the comforts of their extremely
modest housing is always a concern. Life
in these highlands of Guate is hard.
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