July, Dandelion Seeds

This project has been complicated, working with so many counterparts without stepping on any has been a real challenge. One priority has been to safeguard the students, pushing them forward against their generational attitudes, yet managing to keep them a few feet away from encountering with situations that might be too large for (not only them but) anyone, to deal with.

On the other side, indigenous artisans, heartbroken from so many projects where they have been used and abused, have a logic of the immediate, which automatically sets their interests on two essential things: Being offered to eat and trying to get overpaid since work is so scarce in the region.

Intermediaries on this process are also the radio station which launched the program, the main coordinator of the artisans and finally the people that come between the college and the artisans. Whoa. All these intermediaries serve so many different purposes to each community and they, as well, are trying to keep everyone satisfied.

So, to anyone that believes that working with indigenous communities is easy, take a step back. No one is saving anyone, not even if strategies work out. This will become (to those who dare to work in them), a real long journey of negotiations and sometimes drama around the most stupid things that are usually narrowed down to money or time. Who will pay for the water that will be used at the small, improvised workshop-primary school? Are the prototypes, designed by the students and elaborated by the artisans, paid under the global fair wages? Who will bring the materials to El Saucito? Can the college help us pay the transportation for the students?

The journey is to keep pushing: Against the students millennial frustrations, claims of artisans that demand getting fed or paid more, wondering if something will be required and you will need to open your very slim wallet... Again and again just to make it happen. And that which happens is but a small floating dandelion seed moved by everyone's actions fluttering in the wind. Will it land where it may grow? Will it be stomped upon, once it becomes a fragile stem? Will there be enough rain to keep it moist?