By Mary Richardson

Sometimes you have to be hit over the head to be grateful. That happened to me when I was in Guatemala with my husband, Joe. It was our first trip to Central America and the scenery was stunning. However, we also saw a great deal of poverty. It would have been easy for us to think of Guatemalans with pity.

However, we were lucky. We were able to see beyond the poverty because of conversations with several Guatemalan artisans through our friends of more than 40 years — Randy and Tina Carter. Randy and Tina have started a business importing Mayan clothing and decorative arts, plus an educational non-profit. They introduced us to some of their Guatemalan friends and business partners, and each conversation was a lesson in gratitude.

Tina and Randy

Randy and Tina had both retired from teaching math and medical statistics at various universities around the world, when, by a strange twist of fate, they found themselves helping a young Guatemalan woman. Elsa Ortiz had traveled to the Mexican border with her young son in 2018. Without papers, her son was taken from her within days, and she was deported without him. In a story that involves determination — and immense amounts of coincidence and luck — the Carters helped Elsa reunite with her son.

Elsa now had her son, but she didn’t have a job. The idea of a business selling Mayan products came from the Carters’ desire to provide an income for Elsa. They hired her as their buyer. Elsa traveled to the Mayan Highlands to buy woven textiles, and then sent them to be sold by the Carters, who live in New Mexico. (One of the first sales took place at Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Lake Charles.) The benefits compounded. First Elsa’s family was able to improve their home, adding electricity and water. Then proceeds from the sales enabled her family and relatives to attend schools, and get jobs. Everything improved.

Today, Elsa Ortiz Online sells hand-crafted Mayan clothing, textiles, pottery, and art to upscale stores, at fairs and markets, and online. All profits go back to Guatemala and to the Carters’ educational not-for-profit, called “Give It up for Guate,” which provides tuition for young people who have no other means to obtain an education, and also provides supplies to schools. The business flourished, and Randy and Tina’s work expanded. “Never in my wildest dreams,” says Tina, “did I ever think I would be running a business supporting Mayan artisans!”

We connected with the Carters in a Mayan village on the beautiful Lake Atitlán when they were on a month-long buying trip. They were meeting with many of the artisans they purchase products from — and also delivering 10 computers to the middle school — and they took us along. Here are four of the stories I heard.

The Women        Weavers Co-Op

My first understanding of the business of Mayan textiles came from a visit to La Cooperativa de Mujeres Tejedoras (Women Weavers Co-op), located in a village near Antigua. We traveled through narrow streets, past coffee shops and tamale stands, to finally arrive at a cement block building filled with beautiful, hand-woven fabrics. The women inside spoke no English, and through an interpreter I heard their story:

Twenty years ago, María Filomena Hernández Zamora found herself with three small children and no prospects. Her husband, like many men in the community, suffered from alcoholism. The children were not in school. They could not speak Spanish, only their Mayan language. She felt hopeless, an emotion she shared with the other women in the community.

Filomena decided to make a change. She knew that all the women shared one particular skill. They could weave. She told the women to bring their weavings to her, and she would sell them. At the same time, a German woman with connections to the tourist industry had moved nearby. That woman saw the high quality of the women’s work, and arranged tours for people to visit Filomena’s co-op — and, most importantly, buy their products — which they did, in abundance.

From the beginning, Filomena had made a deal with the weavers. Twenty percent of all profits would go to an educational fund. That first year, 20 children went to school with the proceeds from the co-op. This year, more than 400 children attend elementary school with the co-op’s assistance. The men — the same men who at first mightily resisted the co-op — are now proud of their wives’ work. And Filomena? She puts her hand on her heart and says she is grateful for all the changes, both in her own life and for her community.

The Potter

Back in the 1990s, Roberto was a teenager hanging out on the streets of San Antonio Palopó on Lake Atitlán. He had no prospects of work or future education. Then an old man moved to town. The old man brought two things — a kiln for pottery and a stash of games, including Nintendo.

The man was Ken Edwards, famed potter from Mexico, who, in his advancing age, was looking for a new adventure. He and his wife had moved to San Antonio Palopó with no particular goal in mind. Then he noticed that many young men didn’t have jobs or go to school. He decided to fire up the kiln and look for boys who seemed curious about how to make pottery. Roberto was one of the curious ones, “but I also wanted to play Nintendo!” he said.

Edwards’ experiment paid off; the boys became potters. One by one, with Edwards’ help, they started their own workshops. Then Roberto decided he, too, wanted to strike out on his own. Edwards helped him with financing and Roberto named his shop after his benefactor. When Edwards was well into his 90s, he became ill. Roberto and his wife cared for him until the end.

Tina and Randy met Ken Edwards and learned the story of the young men. When they met Roberto, they were impressed with the quality of his ceramics and his beautiful, hand-drawn artwork of hummingbirds, owls, and Mayan motifs. They found a ready market for Roberto’s ceramics in the United States.

Today Roberto has a thriving studio and employs many artists. He has a beautiful storefront on the main street in San Antonio Palopo, and his work is known throughout Guatemala. But he is still the grateful boy who first entered Ken Edwards’ studio to play Nintendo. A huge portrait of his mentor hangs in his studio, and he is emotional when talking about him. He says he owes everything to this man. He is grateful.

A Family with Flowers

We were in the Mayan village of Santa Catarina when I noticed a Mayan family carrying many pails of flowers to a sandy place on the shore of Lake Atitlán. The entire family was there — grandparents to babies. Over the next hour, I watched them create what looked like a shrine. They invited me over and Tina translated.

They lived about two hours away, up on the side of the volcano, and had come to the lake to make this creation of flowers — simply to express gratitude. Tina asked what they grateful for. The mother of the smallest children answered. She was grateful for life. She was grateful for the mountains. She was grateful for the air. She was giving thanks to God, to the many gods.

The whole family took part in placing the petals. They knew that what they created would soon be blown away by the wind. The flowers expressing their gratitude would fly up in the sky, over the mountains, into the universe.

The Tuk-Tuk Driver

Tina and Randy met Manuel by chance when they hired a Tuk-Tuk (gasoline powered, 3- wheeled, no-street-too-narrow type vehicle) in the Mayan village of San Juan la Laguna. Over the years, they became friends. On this visit, Manuel invited us all to his home.

He steered the Tuk-Tuk up the mountain roads, through a coffee plantation, and onto the newly cut dirt road to his house. Banana trees make a canopy over a two-bedroom cement block house, with a roof that extends over a dirt-floored area used for outdoor cooking. Another metal roof covers a sink for washing clothes, and an outhouse is tucked away in the palms.

Only three years earlier, Manuel, his wife and their three boys had been living in a squalid house with a dirt floor. Then the government helped him qualify for a loan to build this house, which has running water. He shares an electric line with his neighbors. His wife was weaving a bright red cloth inside the house that she would soon sell. She said she can also roast and sell the coffee beans that grow on their lot. Manuel’s dream is to own a car. He said he didn’t expect it would happen in his lifetime, but he dreams it will happen for his children.

Manuel told us he had prayed to God to help them find a good place to live, and that God had answered him, beyond measure. The day was perfect. The sky was blue. There was a cool, gentle breeze coming off the beautiful mountain. The chickens clucked and songbirds sang. “Now,” he said, looking around him, “we live in a paradise.”

“Estoy agradecido,” he said — the now familiar words for “I am grateful.”

I shared his feeling. I was happy to be in this beautiful country with Tina and Randy’s friends, people who give thanks for everything, every day. I, too, feel grateful.

If You Go

Our two-week journey in February was planned by the travel company KimKim, which creates individual tours for people through local tour companies. Our contact in Guatemala was

Chris Gwinner, an expat who has lived in Guatemala for decades and is the general manager of Old Town Outfitters Shop in Arugula. We saw the extreme beauty of the country through tours arranged by him, especially the gasp-worthy sight of the pyramids and temples in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Tikal. With Tina and Randy Carter, we explored the Mayan villages around the deep blue, volcano-rimmed Lake Atitlán.

For more information about the work Tina and Randy are doing, and personal stories about individuals helped by their non-profit, check out “donorbox.org/give_it_up_for_guate.”

To see the Mayan products that the Carters are exporting to the United States, see “Elsa Ortiz Online LLC” or www.buymayan.com.