put my chair in the corner, but it is up to me to move it -- both literally and politically speaking. We need political education. Otherwise, once we manage to get into those spaces for dialogue and they start talking to us about things like municipal budgets, it's like jumping out of a plane with no parachute. If they are talking about infrastructure, I have to know about infrastructure. If they are talking about territorial rights, I have to know about territorial rights. That is how you move the chair." Mrida Cacao joins Bertha and me. She is a communicator with the organization Ixqik in the Petn region of Guatemala. I ask her how she came to this work. "My father always said that women shouldn't study, but my mother wanted me to learn what she hadn't been able to. I started school at the age of nine, but left after two years. When I was 15, I told a friend that one day I wanted to know how to use a computer. He looked at me and laughed "You think you can learn that? It's impossible! You're a woman, and you're indigenous." I told him I would show him." "I started taking literacy classes and that sparked my interest in getting involved and learning things. It gave me the opportunity to be something. I went on to lead youth groups. It made me feel important when I came to a meeting and had lots of people listen to me.