Sisters of Maya

In the Yucatán jungles of Mexico, lives are changing for the better, thanks to a trailblazing farm where women dare to dream.

- IMOGEN LEPERE 

I’m sitting in the back of a pick-up truck with three Maya women and, although it’s so hot Mexico’s Yucatán jungle appears to be steaming, that isn’t the reason I’m blushing. They are telling some of the dirtiest jokes I’ve ever heard … and because I’m a fledgling Spanish speaker, they’re illustrating them with the help of the heritage vegetables piled under and around us.

The women are on their daily commute from the petite pueblo (village) of Espita to Mestiza de Indias, an agriculture project that supplies restaurants and hotels with rare fruit and vegetables, some so rare they are in danger of dying out. The project combines ancestral knowledge such as the ‘Three Sisters’ companion planting method – beans act as a natural fertiliser, squash maintains soil humidity and keeps other plants low so the corn can absorb maximum light – with regenerative techniques designed to combat increasingly severe weather conditions. And arguably the most progressive thing about the project is that it encourages Espita’s female residents to take on paid work.

“Although younger women regularly have jobs in tourism in [the city of] Valladolid or on the Riviera Maya, those in their forties and fifties see women’s place as in the house,” says Martha Elena Chan Tuz, who was born in the pueblo and co-owns the farming project alongside her Spanish husband, Gonzalo Samaranch Granados. “They perceive farming, in particular, as something men do. However, our workers are realising that earning their own wages gives them choices.”