San Juan La Laguna Homestay

Hola Amigos,

    I have just returned from San Juan La Laguna. This town is close to Panajachel and borders Lake Atitlan as well. I spent a week exchanging fiber art techniques with the family of a woman who is beginning to work with FTM. Her daughters, were all incredible artists in their own right. They also were my teachers, as these women have many jobs. The woman I stayed with is a curandera (healer), comadrona (midwife), and sells the fruits of coffee. She would always leave in the afternoon to buy coffee or give aid to someone sick in the village. Some days she would leave in the morning for business negotiations for her weaving cooperative.Thus her daughters were more often my teachers.

The first part of the day was dedicated to my learning and the second part to my teaching. With this family I learned about local and non local plants used for natural dyeing, wove a scarf with two sides, and shared food, laughter, music, and stories. Every day we started with breakfast, which often comprised of tortillas and fish in a tomato sauce, and then slowly made our way to the days work. My first morning we visited some of the members of the cooperative "Mujeres Tejadoras: La Voz de Tz'utujiles" or Weaving Women: The Voice of Tz'utujiles.

Pictured here is the husband of one of the weavers, and their family own a foot loom. He has been weaving for 15 years and his wife has been learning and working with him.This is very progressive because throughout Guatemala, it is only the men who use the machines in weaving and sewing, and make jaspe (or Ikat). The association is a group of 36 differs from the norm because 3 women sew, 10 women dye jaspe, and 1 woman uses the foot loom.

Pictured right is another woman I met. She struggled to find significant work and left her other cooperative to join La Voz. This is often the story of the women in San Juan and is a common thread for the women I was staying with as well. She left a group because of its lack of work and her desire to focus solely on natural dyes. With 15 years of experience and the tutorial of her grandmother, she wanted to continue on the tradition of natural dyeing. This art was not appreciated for many years until now. She told me of how she would try to sell her work on the streets of Panajachel, but tourists preferred the brighter colors of the synthetically dyed work. Now people come to San Juan just to see the naturally dyed textiles.

The people of San Juan belong to an indigenous group of Maya that is smaller than the Quiche and Kaqchikel, which are the predominant groups living around the lake. The language has some similarities to Quiche, but the language itself is rather unique. The woman I stayed with do not speak much Spanish. However, her daughters spoke Spanish, some English, French, and had interest in learning more Quiche and Kaqchikel. This did not stop them from communicating with me. They always made an attempt to speak with me, whether with words, laughter, or gentle encouragement. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this family and in one of the daughters, found a fellow inspired fiber enthusiast. Her work was amazingly beautiful and I hope to continue teaching felting to this family and learning about natural dyes from them.