A woman's daily work

She’s grinding corn by hand on the stone and when she finishes she will make tortillas for herself and her family. She sees her work as a sacrifice and hard because she has to get up very early to have the meal ready by the time her children wake up.

Her husband is working hard so that they can build a larger and better house for his children because the house they have now is made of wooden sticks that rot and tin roofing that rusts. They are from a recently established village. They worry a great deal about their and their children’s future because they don’t have the economic resources they need to better their life.

The women of the villages still grind corn by hand, on a stone. They wish that there were some other mode of working to make it go more quickly, so that the grinding would not be so much work. The women in the town of Chajul, on the other hand, go to the mill carrying the corn on their heads. This gives them more time for doing other household tasks.

The woman is preparing tortillas for her children. Waiting upon her husband and her children is very difficult for her as a housewife. The wood burns quickly and is costly, and the smoke bothers her and affects the children too. She hopes one day to have a stove or a formal kitchen which would make preparing the tortillas easier and more convenient.