LATIN AMERICA

Elvira Murguía Zambrano (below) drinks from a nearly dry river after a hot morning's work planting maize with her father (described in the following story). She is a 27-year-old widow who lives in Ayuquililla, southern Mexico.  With her four children, Elvira shares a modes homestead with her parents, several younger siblings, and their children.  The entire family has only two hectares of land on which they grow maize and beans.  Yields are poor, so they must purchase additional food.  Murguía herself helps with farm work, makes tortillas to sell in the community, hand-stitches soccer balls (Ayuquililla's only "industry"), and participates in an association of women farmers.  Earnings from family members are communal and generally spent the same day on immediate needs like children's school lunches (one piece of fruit each).  A brother in the USA and sister in Mexico City sometimes send money.  Like countless women in remote, rural areas of Mexico and Central America, Murguía struggles to help run an resource a household dominated by children and the elderly.