Our First "Campaña"

On Saturday, our team did our first campaign with Ana, a local "entrepreneur" who works with SolCom, in a pretty small and very rural town called Xexuxcap (actually an Ixil word pronounced with lots of "sh" sounds). We had come into Xexuxcap on Wednesday to do publicity for the campaign - which basically was going to find the mayor of the town, getting his permission, finding a spot, and walking around all the streets of the town putting up posters and talking to people and passing out flyers.

Basically campaigns are one of the biggest focuses of our work here - its where we actually go into a smaller "aldea" (village) and bring products, and the entrepreneur sells them. We gave free eye exams, and then sold reading glasses, as well as water filters, seeds, water purifying drops, and some other things. Since our village was pretty small, we sold a little under the average - but it was really awesome to be able to out in a really remote part of the country and interacting with people and giving them things that people really need. When we{re just talking about the products, there{s a disconnect that makes the products seem kind of uninteresting - but when youre out helping an entrepreneur, you can really see how needed everything is. We sell eyedrops (kind of like Visine I think), and since everyone is always really exposed to dust and dirt and lots of sun, peoples eyes are actually really irritated, and people actually came with bright red eyes, which I guess I wasn{t really expecting.

Also we{re testing out a new solar light, which back in Antigua in the discussion phase, I thought was kind of small and wouldn{t actually be popular. But when you take the product out to the aldea, people went crazy for them, because a lot of people spend money each day on multiple candles to light their house. So it was really awesome to get to connect discussion with actual practical use.

We just got back from Nebaj, and now Im back in Magdalena, the town I live in outside of Antigua. Im glad to be back in Antigua with my original family - Ive missed their food! Also, Ive missed their (warm) bucket showers (never thought I would say that!), but cold real showers are much worse!