Artisan - Angelica Maria Vazquez Perez
San Pedro Chenalhó, Mexico

Since I was a little girl my mother taught me to weave the backstrap loom and with time I got better and better. I got married very young and had my children, but when they were little a conflict broke out where 42 people were killed, and it was not longer save for us to live there so we were displaced from our home to a shelter in San Cristobal, where all our family went. Those were difficult times because at that time nobody would buy our work until we went to Chenalhó and there we began to get ahead. For some time now I have been selling my products and that has helped me to have some income but the customers don't want to pay the price as it is, they always bargain. Leaving my community in order to sell it is very difficult, so sometimes we have to sell it locally at a low price.