Cooking a Typical Guatemalan Lunch

Silvia, one of the women who attended our first meeting yesterday, invited us today to join her and her family to learn how to cook "Pepian," a typical Guatemalan dish. We'll share the recipe that they taught us, but in the meantime enjoy these shots from the day.


After shopping at the butcher and a couple of vegetable markets, we started the cooking in their outdoor kitchen, a shack in which they have a wood-burning stove. All of the surfaces on which they cook are black ceramic, handmade in another region of Guatemala.

The pepian sauce has chilies, tomatoes, and onions which are blended after being cooked on the wooden stove.

We also participated in making (or trying to make!) tortillas, which could be clearly identified as the not perfectly round ones during lunch.


This is what the final dish looks like - rice (with carrots and peppers), beef rib which was cooked in water for hours with cilantro, and a lot of the pepian sauce.


It was wonderful to spend the day with the three generations of this family - they were all so welcoming and really made us feel at home (we started at 10:30 am and left at 2:30pm!)

Setting Goals

Although we were supposed to meet with the artisan women with whom we'll be working, a last minute invitation to them from the central government postponed our meeting for Wednesday. We used the time to meet as a team, debrief our conversation with San Antonio's mayor, and set goals for ourselves. On the left part of the image you can see the highlights from what was discussed with the mayor. And on the right, a proposed list of deliverables that our students are interested in pursuing, and which we believe align with what the mayor presented to us. The list on the right will probably be updated on an almost daily basis, as we get to the know the women, learn their needs, wants, and as we realize what resources we have (or don't have) to accomplish each item.

Reflections on collaborative development #1: Implications of "sweat aid"

I've been thinking a lot about the nature and impact of development initiatives since we left New York yesterday morning. My seating arrangement on the flight from Miami to Guatemala is what triggered my train of thought. I was sitting on 19A, surrounded by a group of 34 missionaries sent to Guatemala to do humanitarian work. Just on my flight I counted at least 60 people traveling to Guatemala for the summer to engage in some sort of humanitarian/development initiative.

It frightened me to realize the amount of volunteer "sweat" aid that Guatemala receives. Each initiative with its own vision, mission and program, each group co-opting the popular lingo from the field to promote their own agenda and approach.

How is the over-saturation of volunteer "sweat aid" affecting or benefiting Guatemala? What is the impact that these multiple interventions have on local communities and their local governments? What are the implications for communities when development/humanitarian initiatives are not part of a local strategic plan, but rather, are project-based, and continuously shifting based on the ideology and agenda of the visiting group?

How can we, as the visiting group, prevent the continuation of project based, isolated, non-coherent initiatives and engage with local actors to strengthen and contribute to their strategic plan. What if there isn't a strategic plan?

Day 1 - A Total Immersion

Today's day started with a typical breakfast (more on that later),


a stop to purchase a couple of inexpensive cellphones (the two major companies are Claro and Tigo) for our students,


and then a public bus ride from Antigua to San Antonio.

In a very nice first meeting with most of the students (one arrived later, in the afternoon) for this first part of our project, led to some great ideas, goals, priorities, and values that we set for ourselves. Some of the things that came up include cultural preservation, cultural tourism, capacity building, community inclusion, urban development, and mapping and networks. I was quite moved with the students' sensibilities which were guiding their desire to not "set the agenda" until we had actually met with our community partners.


After a yummy Guatemalan-style lunch we


waited to meet with the Mayor of the Municipality of San Antonio de Aguas Calientes (which includes the urban center of San Antonio and the small villages of Santiago Zamora and San Andres Ceballos.

The meeting with the mayor was definitely an eye-opening experience for anyone who has not been exposed to Latin American politics. Definitely more on that later, but the big take-away question for me is - how can local governments gain popularity via short-term solutions to big problems, but still pave a path for a sustainable long-term goal for poverty alleviation and the wellbeing of the citizens? A huge question, for which I can only hope that the work we do this summer will maybe help to answer (or even participate in the answering of) this development dilemma.

Our work day ended with a meeting with Veronica, the coordinator of the Women's Project for the municipality, and the person who oversees the project/work with which we will be connecting. There's currently not much structure to the program on the government side of things except that it seems that San Antonio is joining in on a Guatemalan trend of "community tourism" in which they are exploring this notion of preparing towns to "give" to tourists more than just a piece of cloth to buy, but a true local experience (making tortillas, grinding coffee beans, and learning how to weave were some of what they mentioned.)



What are you looking for when you book a trip? What would really make you want to come to San Antonio?

Back in Guatemala - faculty & students

We are happy to be back in Guatemala. This year we are doing things a bit differently. First, we are excited to be working with a new group of artisan women. We are partnering with the municipality of the town of San Antonio de Aguas Calientes and starting off by understanding their goals, the goals of the artisan women, and after a needs assessment, figure out how we want to best work together. The first group of students who are here have prepared workshops in leadership, group work, English, computers, and photography. Stay tuned to see what we end up working on!

In two weeks we will return to San Lucas Toliman to continue the work we have been doing with Ajkem'a Loy'a. This summer we have a specific goal of producing five finished products to bring back to New York for further market research (or even to present to retailers for orders.) We also want to be diligent about evaluating our work thus far, and deciding on a mid to future term long plan.

If this is the first time hearing about our work, please read this paper which serves as a trip report from last year, and outlines how this all started.

Thank you for reading, and we promise many more images and video entries in days to come!

In March 2009 I returned to San Lucas Toliman to continue working 

with the women of Ajkem'a Loy'a on the tracksuit we are developing for W139 , 

one of the main art spaces in Amsterdam.

click here for more information

In the days to come I will publish pictures and little video's that give insight into 

the process of weaving all the parts for the tracksuit.

The first prototype is the example we worked with, 

making little changes here and there, completing all the woven parts 

for the women's size tracksuit .

the first prototype tracksuit