Trabajadores y un poco Historia

Wednesday, I again arrived at the school sans notebook and pen only to find that the trip had again been canceled and that it would possibly be rescheduled for Friday. Again disappointed and a little frustrated, I sat down with my teacher for that days lesson. About hour into the lesson, we learn that we may be going to the village after all. After about half an hour of uncertainty, we learn that we are in fact going and we all pile into a mini-van for the trip.

The village we are going to is one that the school was working with in the past, providing school scholarships to students to purchase uniforms, books and school supplies. During the hurricane, the village which was situated in a valley surrounded by mountains, was flooded and completely destroyed. The people took what they could and moved to an area of land on top of one of the surrounding mountains and went about constructing a new village. Apparently, the government had promised to provide funding for new construction, but the village has yet to receive any assistance, while other villages which were not as affected, but voted for the current government, have received help (or so I have been told).

A previous student in the medical program at the school who was hear during the hurricane last October, has returned with his family to provide for their medical needs and to help with reconstruction. We rode with this family (three brothers and their parents) through smaller villages and finally up into the mountains, where we could see mountain top after mountain top in the distance.

When we neared the area of the village, we began to see other villages, made up of cinder block houses and populated by people in brightly colored clothing going about their daily chores. We rode past women walking along the side of the road pulling along reluctant sheep; and other women carrying loads of fire wood and baskets laden with other things on their head. When we pulled up in the village we were to be working in, the difference between those we had just past and the one we were now in was made immediately apparent by the lean-to structures of plywood and corrugated metal roofs in place of cinder-block houses, as well as the existence of a large US AID tent. Dogs, cats, goats and turkeys roamed free between the homes and we immediately acquainted ourselves with the outhouse on the side of the road.

When we reached the road down to where they were building the school, we found that a truck had gotten stuck in the soft dirt and there were about six men pulling a rope attached to the grill with another three in the back pushing as the drive gunned the engine. After few minutes of trial and error, one of the men from the states asked us if we wouldn´t mind sitting in the back, because the last time the truck had gotten stuck on the incline they were able to get it to move by weighing down the back with people. We all agreed and climbed aboard the back of the truck, which, with a new load and a few more infusions of gas, roared up the hill to the top.

After congratulating the men for their success, we made our way down the road to a flat area of land where they were going to build the school. The previous week, they had rented a tractor to clear the land, but they had been unable to get another one and were planning to clear what they could by hand until they could get another tractor.

They handed out hoes and shovels and we got to work. At first I wasn´t really sure what we were supposed to be doing, but after asking around, I learned that they had a lot more land to clear and anything we could dig out and cart away would be a great help. Faced with a six foot wall of dirt, I went to work with the hoe, chopping and shoveling the dirt towards me and away from the wall. One volunteer, got a shovel and began to shovel the dirt in and cart it away. After just a few minutes, I realized just how much more work could be done with only a few extra wheelbarrows and I was delighted with about ten minutes later, two local men arrived with four more.

We worked for a few hours, during which the blisters on my hands formed, broke and began to form again, but I was thrilled to actually be doing something tangible and enjoyed being outside and feeling the strain of manual labor. Unfortunately, we did not have long to work because some of the teachers had to be back for their afternoon students and, it seemed, soon after we began, we were told to stop and we packed up for the trip back to Xela.

That afternoon at five we had a speaker come to talk about the current socio-political situation in Guatemala. Before coming, I had read a little about Guatemalan history and how they had years of strife followed by a brief reprieve of real democracy that was summarily quashed by the US government in the interest of the United Fruit Company, followed by years of military rule and devastating civil war. None of this information was new to me, but it was still hard to hear, again, how the US has managed to make things worse for people around the world in the name of capitalism. He also talked about the current oligarchy of 35 families that rule Guatemala and his belief that they only thing that will ever change things is another revolution. It was a very interesting discussion and only made me want to know more, and of course, feel terrible for the people of Guatemala.