Women’s Tea: a story sharing afternoon in Questa, November 16, 2019
Title
Women’s Tea: a story sharing afternoon in Questa, November 16, 2019
Description
On Saturday, Nov 16, 2019, Questa Stories hosted a “Women’s Tea: a story sharing afternoon” event from 2:00 - 4:00 PM at La Sala in Questa, NM. We collaborated with Esther Garcia as our event co-host; she is an active community member and former Mayor of Questa. (Although we had envisioned an event similar to this for some time, it was Esther who initiated it in this instance). Together, we selected a guest list that represented a variety of backgrounds and ages from within our community and created an appealing invitation. We then delivered them by hand, and by email and also made phone call invitations to women with this prompt: “tell a story about a moment, experience, or person that changed or shaped your life.” We introduced the gathering as part of Questa Stories and the Manitos Community Memory Gathering Project and explained the digital archive. Recording their stories was optional, but encouraged, and most women wanted to be recorded. We asked all present to sign release forms allowing us to record their voices, take their photo taken and for both to be uploaded to the digital archive and Questa Stories website (QuestaStories.org). The stories shared at the event were heartfelt and personal and united us as a group and also connected us to each other as individuals in a significant way. In some cases women in attendance were close friends, other acquaintances, and some met for the first time. This mix was intentional. We all left with a small but significant sense of connection to one another as a result of the gathering. One participant has since noted that since the event, when she has seen other women who were at the event in other contexts that she feels closer to them and gets the sense that they feel closer to her as well.
Kate was born and raised in Cerro, NM, went to school in Cerro, then Questa High School, was married at 18 and soon after became a mother of two children. She worked as a cashier for much of her life and then went into cooking, which she loves. She takes seriously her responsibilities as a mother and with her volunteer work in her community. At the time of the interview, she was the co-director of the North Central NM Food Pantry. In this interview she describes childhood memories and talks about her experiences with food growing up. She also talks about the communities of Questa and Cerro, then and now and how important she feels it is to be involved in the community.
Various photographs illustrating the setting of the Questa Stories' first Women's Tea, at La Sala, Questa, NM, November 16, 2019, co-hosted by Esther Garcia, Claire Cote and Gaea McGahee. A comfortable setting and appealing food and drink were important to setting the tone of the event.
Story-sharing and discussion at Questa Women's Tea, November 16, 2019: Loveida Cisneros - Woodcutting and picnic lunch; Monica Ortega – they had a way of sharing lessons without saying it directly; Judy Rutledge – details of stories important to share with our youth; Esther Garcia – Winter Bus Rides with Felix Quintana; Martha Rael Nimon – Memories of Esther’s dad driving the bus; Maria Gonzales – Memories of her Grandmother
Discussion and story sharing at Women's Tea at La Sala in Questa on November 16, 2019. Maria Gonzales, Martha Rael Nimon, Irma Cisneros and Esther Garcia share and discuss on a variety of topics including personal life experiences, spirituality and religion, ancestors (particularly female ancestors), Questa history and more.
Story Sharing from Gaea McGahee about her mother's pottery chickens (that Gaea was given), which had come from Guatemala, purchased by her mother (Dava Davy) when she was a 21 year old anthropology student in that country. The chickens we special objects to her mother and she held on to them even as they sometimes got damaged by her growing five children because all the people she had visited, the makers of the chicken pots, had died as a result of a volcanic eruption. These objects had become somewhat sacred to Dava, imbued with this memory.
