Zinacantan men specialise in growing flowers and the women specialise in weaving. We visited a weaving workshop with a number of rooms covered wall-to-wall in bright coloured shawls and table runners and the women delighted in dressing us up in their traditional garments. Fiona wore a skirt, belt and a vibrant blouse that was soon covered beneath a bridal shawl. I was given a simple woollen shirt and a hat, beneath which my western clothes were clearly visible so that I felt half dressed.
One of the older women demonstrated how they weave using a hammock-like loom attached to the wall and looped behind her back. To my eye, it was exactly the same method that Bhutanese women use, though the patterns were different.
The walls of one room, in the middle of the workshop, were bare of displays. This room alone showed that the building was a real living space in the traditional style. Here, a younger worker was making tortillas over a fire pit, set up so the smoke could escape through holes in the roof. Rather than being made with government endorsed genetically modified corn, these tortillas were made with freshly grown high-quality local corn and we could taste the difference. We were offered a piece each, hot off the fire, and the bread was tasty enough that we didn’t need a filling to enjoy them.