So yesterday in class Joaquin had me read this article in English about the citizenship and rights of women and then he had me translate it to him in Spanish. It was a little hard for me to understand it in English so you can imagine how hard it was for me to put it into Spanish, but he said that I got the main ideas across. The article was in Spanish on the opposite page so he already knew what it said. But basically, it was about how women need to know what their rights are and what rights they need in order to fight for them. I don't fully understand the state of women's rights in Guatemala right now but from what Joaquin explained to me, it's the indigenous women that are really lacking rights. He said the only rights they have are to have kids, to have sex, and to clean their houses. What kind of rights are those? He also said that when they walk in the streets with their husbands they always walk behind them, not beside them or in front of them. From what I've heard, they don't even fully have to rights to have kids. They can be pregnant and deliver the baby but if their husband doesn't want another kid or doesn't want a daughter, then they have to abandon the child, unless they want to be abandoned or beaten by their husbands. They don't own their own property or earn their own money so they really have no control. I don't know how accurate all of my knowledge of this is, but I do know that Norma was telling me last week that it's common for women to abandon their babies at the hospitals out of fear of what their husbands will do to them. I've been told by two of my teachers now that it is common here for a girl my age to already have two kids by now! So you can imagine how dependent these women are on their families and how helpless they feel in that situation.
Yesterday we visited Trama, which is a factory and a store for handmade textile goods. This cooperative of women is important because it empowers the women by giving them jobs so that they can earn their own money and support their families without having to ask their husbands for money all of the time. Some of the women are war widows from the civil war and so the income is especially important to them for maintaining their families. We got to see the different steps of weaving and hear about the history of the organization and then we looked around the store. The prices are a little bit higher then what you would pay if you were bargaining in the market but you know that the prices are fair and the money is going to the women who actually made the products and really need the money. I was shocked to hear that it takes 10 hours to make one scarf! But I think that might be for someone who is new to weaving, because they were talking about how they offer lessons there. I'm sure the women who do it daily are faster then that.
Yesterday during class I was trying to say some word, I forget what it was, but it has the double R in it, which means you're supposed to roll the r, which I can not do. Joaquin had me put my pencil between my teeth and try to make the sound. Apparently that's supposed to help, but all it did was make me feel like a fool haha. He said if I do it every day for a few minutes, I'll have a perfect doble erray soon. I don't know about that though haha.
Yesterday I went back to the chocleteria and bought some chocolate covered grapes and they were so delicious. My sun burn has been feeling better too, it went from excruciating (like seriously the worst sunburn I've ever had) to painful and now its just irritating haha. We're having the graduation dinner tonight instead of tomorrow because a couple students are leaving early. I offered to bring pop this week so I don't have to worry about preparing anything again. Friday, there's no activity so Tim and I were thinking of heading back over to the mall and getting some Taco Bell :)
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