Adding to basket
Doña María, 40 years old and married, has been a homemaker and grower from a very early age, seeing as it was her parents who taught her to work. With her husband, she has had 5 children, the two youngest of whom are school in different grades. The three eldest help out with the various daily tasks that come up in the fields to make sure that their coffee, corn, and bean crops stay healthy and free from disease and other problems that can diminish output. María was in school through the 4th grade due to the many obstacles, primarily financial, that kept her from being able to go on studying and finish grade school.
For more than 12 years, she and her husband have fought to develop and increase production of their crops, because at the end of every harvest these crops (plantings of corn, beans, and coffee) account for her family's food and make up the principal source of income, covering costs such as clothing, medicine, and her younger children's education costs. The land that she, her husband, and her children work is their own, and is located 10 minutes from her house, which she can get to and from easily on foot.
Her goals and hopes are that, through this financing, she will be able to buy the supplies necessary for attending to her crops, which are her means of generating income that she can reinvest and use to go on building up her children's inheritance so that some day they will have land where they can work, build up a life for themselves, and feed their children.
Translated from Spanish by Kiva volunteer Jacob Bintliff. View original language description.
