Founding Women of La Manzanilla - Dia Internacional de La Mujer 2012

   This March 8th is International Women's Day according to the UN, this year the delegates in Mexico have decided to focus on the empowerment of rural and indigenous women of our country.
 
Rural women represent a very important part in the economy of both developing and first world countries, they contribute in the agricultural process, they ensure food safety and help reduce the levels of poverty in their communities.
 
 Lin Magali Loza who majored in Psychology decided to interview some of those rural strong women in our small society of La Manzanilla, these four women help shape our town in to what it has become today.

Maria de Jesus Gomez Gutierrez 

   Maria arrived to La Manzanilla around the 50's, she recalls all the houses made of sticks, she worked in the field handling dry coconut like most men, women and children who lived here at the time, they would break it and shipped it to Cihuatlan were it was turned in to soap. Marian and her friend Margarita worked together to sell the coconuts. 

   She says they mainly ate fish, beans, nopales, quelite, jocoque, coco de aceite, wild spinach, eggs and in special occasions chicken or meat. They made coffee from the Mojote trees as well as patties. She washed her clothes with the rest of the women at the river using fig leaves and a type of grass "zacate avellana" that would bubble up as they soaked their clothes. She also recalls going to "la noria" to fetch water, this is a shallow well that people in town got together to build across from the elementary school.

Adela Parra Lomeli

   Adela was born in 1932 in La Manzanilla, she proudly remembers working for all the Centros de Salud in town, she helped vaccinate everyone from children to dogs! She was part of the anti dengue campaigns, she also remembers working as a child in the coconut trade, breaking coco de aceite for the people in Cihuatlan; another place Adela worked at was "el saladero" were they filleted sharks and cured and dried the meat in salt.   

   In the afternoons Adela would join the other women at the beach were they cached chocolopas in the sandy shore for dinner. She says some of the dishes she prepared quite often were jocoque de coco de aceite, mojote patties, fried fish, soups, soy, caldillos, beans and turtle eggs. Everything was cooked with firewood and no electricity, they used gasoline operating devices for light.

   Adela was crowned beauty queen for the third age pageant division in the Municipio of La Huerta!

Victoria Pineda 

   Living her childhood with her grandparents Victoria was born in L. Manz. in 1932, she describes the town back then as hills covered in Manzanilla trees and palm trees. She never worked in the coconut trade, she was left behind to full fill domestic labors like cooking, cleaning, washing clothes and carrying water to drink from the "noria".
   When Victoria got married her mother handed her down their store, around that same time the road to P.V. was built and more and more people started showing up in town, since before you could only go by horse to Melaque or Cihuatlan. Victoria ran the first bus station in town.
   She recalls the first woman to sell fried fish was Elena Lepe and her partner; these people had to leave town after committing a murder of one of Dona Linda Garcia's sons! As she recalls the name Garcia she remembers Maria Garcia and her husband Poli who came from Tequestitlan, Maria Garcia was a teacher and she was the first one to organize the kids in town and put up a small school! The children who attended only got to learn how to wright their names because she soon moved away.

Sofia Rodriguez Estrada "Dona Chofi"

   Last but not least Sofia; she does not remember much since she is 90 years old, she says she worked washing peoples laundry since around the 50's and she also says she ate a lot of beans and remembers that everyone worked in the coconut business.

"El feminismo es la noción radical de que las mujeres sean personas..."

Special Thanks to: Lin Magali Loza and the four Mujeres 

who were interviewed.

Feliz Dia Internacional de La Mujer!