As we (a small group of October’s Partnership Journey participants) walked along a dusty street in Parramos, Guatemala, with some members of the Estrellas Futuristas (Future Stars) Community Bank, one Mayan woman, Paula Cubol, was particularly energized. Drawing closer, we heard her speak excitedly about the growth she was experiencing in her two year-old business—selling “power breakfast” orange juice drinks in the village market.

Numbers were flying from her lips: “I use 2,000 oranges per week, about 360 chicken eggs and 30 or 40 turtle eggs. I charge 3 quetzals (40 cents; all remaining financial numbers in this article are in US currency) for a glass of plain orange juice, 47 cents for a juice with one egg and 53 cents with two eggs. The turtle egg juice sells for $1.07.”

“What’s so special about turtle eggs?”

Paula responded quickly with a mischievous gleam in her eye, “Extra vitamins!”

“I like to work because it’s for our three children. I do everything I can to put food on the table and send them to school.”

It seemed the time to pop the question that doesn’t always get a direct answer: “What is your profit?”

“If you mean how much money do I have left after I subtract all my costs, between $11 and $20 a day, depending on my sales.” (Guatemala is a country where 53% of the population lives on less that $1 per day.)

Stunned by her sure response to the question and the implications of her business achievement in the little village, we were unprepared for her next statement. “Of course, this is not my true profit because to compute that I must subtract the value of my labor. But either way, it is all money in the pocket for my family.”

Arriving at her home, the front room of which contained her juicing equipment, questions flew. “Paula, do you make the juice here?”

“No, no. Each morning, seven days a week, I load about 300 oranges, the eggs, my juicer, my glasses, straws, my dish-washing items and two tables onto my cart and get everything to the market and set up by 5:30 a.m. I do all the squeezing on the spot.” She motioned to one of our group. “Here, see how it works.”

Nydia, a younger member of our group, could barely mash an orange in the cast pot-iron squeezer. Paula gaily took over peeling and juicing four oranges in nothing flat. “Boom, boom, boom,” she laughed. “This is my third juicer in two years. I wore the other two out! You know, they’re gone after about 100,000 oranges!” That’s when one of us noticed the calluses on Paula’s hands. With hands, heart, and determination that wore out pot-iron on a predictable basis, what plans did Paula have for the future?

“I’m going to borrow more money from my bank, Future Stars.” Paula began ticking things off on her fingers. “With my first loan of $130 I purchased a squeezer, glasses, tables, pails and so on, you know, the basics. Then I borrowed another $130 and added it to the $120 I had accumulated in savings and installed electricity here. Now I want to borrow $260 and purchase a lockable stand that will sit permanently on the square. That way I can leave everything there and not have to carry all this stuff back and forth everyday. I am also going to add a line of soft drinks and extend my closing time from 11 a.m. to mid-afternoon.”

“But Paula, you’re already working so hard,” one of us sympathized.

“I like to work because it’s for our three children. I do everything I can to put food on the table and send them to school. Part of my profits I give to my husband and he uses it to buy seeds for planting corn and beans in our small family plot. We all work together.”

As we bid our farewells to Paula, a theme seems to waft through the air. “Strong hands. Big heart. And plenty of iron determination.”




Reprinted with permission from Katalysis. Paula Cubol is a client of Mujeres en Desarrollo (MUDE), one of eleven members of the Katalysis Central American Network of Microfinance Institutions.

To read another Global Envision article about how microfinance can change lives, see A Breath of New Life.