“God willing, my goal is to build my oven.”
Hermelinda is known by those in her community of Maraxcó as a hardworking woman and a kind neighbor. She has known profound joys, like the joy of being an abuela, and deep sorrows, including the murder of her husband, a security guard, and the deaths of several children.
To sustain her household Hermelinda started her own food business. She knows how to make everything: tamales, cornbread, egg bread, milk cakes, banana cakes, and corn cakes. For years, she sold breads and cakes from her home and traveled selling milk in jugs and making cheese. However, inflation and the rising cost of supplies left her exhausted with little profit.
When Hermelinda joined the Candle on the Road women’s group, a group supported by RSWR since 2024, she received financial training and learned to analyze the profitability of her efforts. “They put us around a big table to look at the balance sheets… And I said, ‘No, this isn’t paying off, I’m wearing myself out for almost nothing,’” she recalls.
She restructured her finances. She let go of some parts of her business and focused on making empanadas, chicken and fries, which she sells directly from her home.
When asked about her dreams, Hermelinda didn’t hesitate. Her first goal is to improve her home by laying a stronger foundation and building a terrace roof. Her second goal is to rebuild her adobe oven. The oven that sustained her work for fourteen years has completely collapsed. Rebuilding it in brick requires a significant amount of capital that she doesn’t currently have. “I’m going to pay off the loan I have here and take out another one. God willing, my goal is to build my oven”.
