Paco Santiago & Josefina

Francisco (Paco) Santiago Bautista serves as Manos Zapotecas’ order and shipping manager in Teotitlán, and is the fourth generation of weavers in his family. His siblings Maria Luisa and brother Omar and his wife Rocío  are also part of the Manos Zapotecas group of weavers.

Paco and his wife Josefina, a talented weaver and seamstress, live with their four children in the curve of the road entering town, across the street from the compound where his parents and several other siblings live. Their front door view is one of fields and mountains, and everyone who enters Teotitlán drives past their house and shop, named for youngest daughter María José.

Paco is the oldest of seven children, and first learned to weave about the age of 11 (he remembers that his first rug was striped, the simplest of designs to weave), and one of his first more complicated designs was the classic corn goddess. “I enjoy the whole weaving process – each part has its beauty,” he says. “When you are about to pick the colors to dye, it’s really fun;  then when you finally start to weave a design you’ve chosen, that’s special too. At the end, when you’re cutting a piece of cloth out of the loom, you feel proud to say, ‘I made that!’”

Josefina, who has been married to Paco for more than 20 years, came from a family of farmers (her brother, Jose Luis, is married to Paco’s sister Maria Luisa) and began to weave when she married. “I forget the world when I begin to dye the colors,” she says. “The colors are never the same and it’s interesting every time.”

Josefina also loves to sew and create purses, cosmetic bags and pillow covers, as well as weave in wool. Once a secretary in a governmental agency, she dreams of someday being a successful businesswoman in her own right and creating her own line of purses and pillow covers. Paco, who began studies as a medical school student before he realized it wasn’t his true calling, weaves, has a hand in shipping and exporting, is head of the town’s transportation committee and often serves as emcee at public events.

Paco and Josefina are the parents of four children: Jessy, Paco, Porfirio and María José, who at six just started school this year. The couple hopes that their children will be happy according to what each has been given; the whole family gives loving attention to son Paco, who is mentally disabled. “Having a son with disabilities,” says Josefina, “has taught us unconditional love.”