The first meeting....

The women´s group that I mentioned in this blog about 2 months ago, finally had their first meeting a couple of days ago! Although many of you may be thinking, ¨what the heck was this girl doing for 2 months?¨ I will just remind you all once again, that I am working in Latin America. Enough said (I say that not as a slam against them, just a mere fact. All the Hondurans I know, at least, would agree whole-heartedly).

Well, this meeting went exceptionally well, considering about half the women were invited just the day before, and the other half had to walk at least an hour on foot to get there! The group of people that came to help out the women did a lot more than I expected. When I went to talk to the man, he gave me an already prepared talk about the recycling projects that he worked with in his town. I expected him only to come and give us a talk about that. However, they came instead, to talk about their organization, the importance of woman leadership in Honduras, as well as the roles of men and women in the household.

At one point, one of the women from the organization got up and did an example of the typical day of a Honduran man, and of a Honduran woman. The women had to give examples of what they and their husbands did in their daily routine. The room filled with laughter as some of the women started shouting in detail all the work they did in a day, and others began imitating their husbands asking for dinner while lying in a hammock. At the end, we could all see that the man´s day, which started at 5 am, and ended at 2 in the afternoon (the rest of the day is spent in the hammock), consisted of much less work than that of a woman, who´s day usually started at 3, sometimes 2 in the morning (she had to get up and prepare the lunch for the man to bring to work!), and ended at around 8 at night!

After the illustration, the woman very tactfully told the women, that this was meant for the women to go back to their homes and shout at their husbands, telling them how much more work they did then the men. It was simply to help the women realize that it´s okay sometimes to tell their husband that they have other work to do (like this cooperative), and don´t have time to make dinner. Or that they aren´t feeling very well, and can´t get up to clean after them. In a kind and loving way. Some of the women that I know in my town, I don´t think would ever think twice to say something like that to their husbands because they are too shameful, or don´t know anything different. But I was extremely happy to see another Honduran woman get up and empower these women. It is something that I, in the role that I am in, and the fact that I come from a different culture completely, could not do quite as effectively.

The next step of the cooperative is coming up with an idea, with what type of business we would like to have. When we think of that, we will meet again with this organization, and they will bring us through the process, step by step, to help us get the project off the ground. It is exciting to see, and I really hope it will continue to work!