While we conversed, looked at each other and laughed, each one of us made a clay dish with our hands:

(01) María de Jesús, (02) Monse, (03) Soledad, (04) Margarita Paula, (05) Mónica, (06) Epifanía, (07) Fernanda, (08) María Francisca, (09) Maj and (10) Valvina.

Under the shade of a tree

A community is made of and is held by a net of interpersonal relationships and affections, which in many cases emerge by necessity and with the aim of organizing or solving something practical and specific, but the casual encounters and curiosity also exist.

I propose a series of visits and conversations with some of the elder women from the towns of

Agua Zarca, Cacalote and El Venado. The reasons, leading me to this intent of sharing experiences and distension, are personal. But thinking about those women, what can we call beneficial, if the starting point, in this case, is my longing for sharing moments with them?

The aim is to talk with them about their age, about the changes in the town, about their memoires, about migration, the communication with those who are far away, the help they receive from their sons and daughters, their habits, and so on. How can we find then women willing and wishing to dialogue and relate with someone foreign to their environment? How can we build in such a short time a space of trust for interacting?

Asking about their mothers, their aunts and their grandmothers to those with whom, day after day, I meet and get to know, I discovered Margarita Paula, Valvina, Epifania, María Francisca and Fernanda. Simultaneously, Monse, Soledad, María de Jesús and Mónica found us, and they, who in spite of being (much) younger, joined the group in an organic and spontaneous way. Two of them were related with the first group; the other two simply came by sheer curiosity.

This is how while I was searching, a net of relationships was woven, made from brief encounters, and consequently not less significant. We conversed, we looked at each other, we laughed and we made a clay dish with out hands.