Villa Nuevo — Blog — ANNA FAWCUS

Marcaria Velasques

Villa Nuevo, Guatemala

Marcaria Velasques is 68 years old. She lives in a small village on the outskirts of Guatemala City. In the morning, she wakes up at 4am to go to the market in Guatemala City by bus. This is the closest local market that she can buy produce from and be able to re-sell it with some kind of a profit. She mostly buys mangoes and plantain chips, which she sells for Q2 and Q1 respectively. On a good day, she earns a total of Q20 (US$2.50). Marcaria lives in a very modest home at the bottom of the town. When she returns from market, she loads up her wheelbar row, and pushes it 10 blocks to where she sells, near the local school. The wheelbarrow is very heavy, it would be heavy for a strong fit person, let alone an elderly woman, yet still every day, she sweats in the heat of the sun to get to where she is able to sell her goods. Marcaria lives alone, as her husband died many many years ago. When she talked about how lonely she is, we had to stop the voice recording as she was crying so much. She works 7 days a week, returning home when the sun goes down to spend several hours on chores in the home.