El Chile’s Women's Cooperative

For several years, Kevin and I have been purchasing coin purses, wallets and bags from an Indigenous women’s cooperative in the community of El Chile.  I had made it my goal to get out to El Chile and visit the women and see their beautiful work.  Last month, my friend Ariane and I traveled out to the community of El Chile, which is north of Managua, outside of Matagalpa to see for ourselves firsthand the process of weaving.

We arrived on a Saturday afternoon and found four women working at the cooperative, all participating in different parts of the process.  One woman was weaving, two were working on the sewing machine to add zippers to the pieces and one woman was hand stitching.  They warmly welcomed us in to observe them in their work.  We spent an hour admiring the gorgeous, yet tedious process.  It was a lovely afternoon out in the rural hills of Nicaragua, one that I will not forget.