The work in Santiago Zamora continued with the women taking us for a walk up to see Bernarda’s plot of land, which her family rents and she works on with her husband and sons. She led the way with her sharp machete through fields and fields of beautiful fertile land on which were planted corn, avocado trees, peanuts, and “jocote” trees.
The walk and our conversations were again documented in video by several of the women who took turns recording with two of our video cameras. After returning to Lucia’s home (our usual gathering place) we trained them to charge the camera’s battery and to change the video tapes, and we left one camera with them to continue capturing their lives.
It has been a challenge to get the women to really talk about their lives in front of the camera. Most of the stories they have shared on tape are ghost stories, or myths and legends from Santiago and San Antonio. We are hoping that leaving the cameras with them will encourage them to open up a bit and to share what they share with us off camera, for the media project.