Written by Indigo J. Eriksen
Indigo is also a volunteer with BVS-GMP (Brethren Volunteer Service and Global Mission Partnerships). She spent 8 months in a small town in Guatemala, San Lucas Tolíman, where she worked with a US-based parish.
My return to Guatemala was complicated. It was several parts of my heart pushed together and then broken. It was an intensely emotional and exhausting experience. Although is was only two months ago that I ventured back, I feel a hundred lifetimes away from the experience. Originally, I planed to return in order to renew my visa, but after Hurricane Stan swept through and turned everything literally upside down I wanted, needed, to go back to see whom and what were left standing. While I was there I sank down deep in so many moments that are best described vaguely as “learning experiences”. When I returned to Mexico I was thoroughly empty, sad, frustrated, entirely worn out, and confused. I have been avoiding writing this reflection but finally here it is.
The bus didn’t go into San Lucas Tolíman at night anymore. I don’t know why but I figured it must have had something to do with the hurricane. I attributed any irregularity on this trip to the hurricane even though Guatemala is always changing and irregularities are the only things that are, well, regular.
We left Xela later in the day than I had wanted, but I was trying to learn how to “flow” since I was traveling with Victor and that is the only way he does. Victor seemed a little more distracted than normal and his feet became heavier with each step towards the bus. He didn’t want to go to San Lucas but I couldn’t wait to get on the bus. I had to stop my legs from racing to my former home.
San Lucas. I thought I was going home. I only lived there for eight months but I think when a person suffers from incurable wanderlust, eight months can seem like a lifetime. I have been roaming my way through the world for years and since I have homes spread throughout the United States I have always been a bit vague on what defines a “home.” In the past I defined it as the place I was headed, but later I realized that where you are in the moment is probably more of a home than where you are headed in the future. Thomas Wolfe said you can’t go home again, so I guess home is not where I was last. And if home is where the heart is then I have too many to count. I still don’t know where “home” is, perhaps that is because I carry home around inside of me. Before going back I thought San Lucas might have qualified.
I didn’t know that San Lucas had stayed so snugly in my heart until Stan wept out his torrents of rain and spilled his furious winds onto Central America and Southern Mexico. I don’t know why I am describing the hurricane as something angry and mean, Stan was not a drunken soldier out to ravage and maim. He was more so the overly emotional child of technology and the Western World than anything else. He is not to blame for the destruction that followed in his wake. The responsibility for that lies with the human population. We as a human family are changing the climate, wreaking havoc on the balance that would exist if we respected Nature and her rules and natural rhythms. We are daring the Earth to fight back. So Stan was more or less an invited guest to the crazy dinner party thrown by all of us and I should not think poorly of him for behaving as any hurricane would. But I also can’t help wondering why it is the poor and oppressed who continue to suffer the consequences of decisions made by the rich and powerful. Regardless of why Stan came rushing through, he was yet another powerful reminder that despite our technological advances, we humans are not in control of everything.
Stan did not just tear through Central America and Southern Mexico; he also tore through my heart and showed me that Guatemala is still there nestled inside me. When Stan charged through I couldn’t stop thinking about the people losing their homes, crops, and loved ones. I didn’t know my heart was still so strongly attached to Guatemala, but there it was, bits of it breaking off as I read the accounts my friends sent me of bridges and highways crumbling, of mountains sliding down onto people, of entire communities without water, food, medicine or electricity. My heart screamed at me to go back, to go home.
When I first arrived in San Lucas almost two years ago, the people welcomed me with gentle handshakes, palms barely touching. They were kind but reserved, waiting to see who I was before sharing their hearts. After 36 years of war, people tend to develop a bit of distance when interacting with strangers. I learned to understand this and so it was with great surprise and joy when I went back in March and was greeted with warm smiles, sparkling eyes, and a hug.
The significance of a hug changed for me in Guatemala. When a 50-year-old man who has lived nearly his entire life inside a violent war gives me a hug and introduces me as his best friend I cannot help but feel as though I have been given a very special gift of friendship. In that moment six months ago I felt like I had come home.
When I left Mexico this time I felt again like I was heading back home. I’d received almost no replies to my concerned emails and I wanted more than ever to be back with my old friends and see what Stan had left behind. I was worried and nervous, but also happy to be going back. “I care,” I wanted to shout. “I’m coming back because I was worried and because I love you.”
I emailed my mom to see if she had heard about the hurricane. She responded with a mountain of concern from her and our friends in Virginia. Her questions poured out, about Toribio, Andres, Chico, Father Greg, of the communities Nuevo Providencia, and San Lucas. When I decided to go back to San Lucas my pockets were full with donations from people all over the states and my heart was stuffed tight with their messages of love, concern and hope.
As Victor and I waited for the bus in Xela my head was dizzy with these thoughts. My shoulders were tense with the responsibility of the donated money, my fingers busy making invisible lists of all the people and groups I needed to talk to, and my feet twitched, ready to carry me up and down the cobblestone streets of San Lucas.
It was a relief to trail behind Victor, eyes open but not seeing, as we walked down the line of buses. Men ran at us shouting out the names of destinations in the form of a question: “¡¿Pana!?”, “¡¿Huehue?!”, “¡¿Guate?!” I took advantage of the fact that I was traveling with a man, and a native Spanish speaker at that, and looked at the ground pretending to have no idea what was going on.
When I first came to Latin America I hardly had the confidence to speak Spanish out loud, and when I did venture a question (where is this bus going?) the ayudantes (an ayudante is the assistant to the bus driver who shouts the destination of the bus, crams three people to a seat-children not included-, squeezes over and around everyone to collect the money, climbs to the top of the moving bus to arrange the belongs stowed up top, and generally runs the show on the journey between towns) would take one look at my white skin and tell me the bus was going wherever I needed to go. But with Victor as my traveling companion life was suddenly different. Not only could I drift away in my daydreams but I also didn’t have to wonder which bus was really going where I needed. For this I had Victor. The ayudantes would sometimes halfheartedly ask me where I was going but they didn’t linger when I ignored them and instead they hounded Victor.
It was in this way that we found ourselves talking to the driver of the only bus that went directly to Panajachel, a popular tourist destination on Lake Atitlan. Our driver told us that Pana had been hit hard by Stan, which had caused a serious decline in tourism from which everyone was hurting. Then he told us that although Pana had been seriously affected by Stan, another town on the lake was nearly destroyed. The driver didn’t know this destruction was the reason for our trip to Lake Atitlan. He didn’t realize I once sat on the grassy shores of Santiago Atitlan’s beach and watched the beautiful volcanoes, or that my home was 30 minutes from the devastation. He assumed Victor and I were tourists, out to enjoy whatever remained in Pana.
The ride from Xela to Pana is usually a very beautiful one through green mountains, small towns, and the occasional old man, mother, or young boy using his/her mecapal to carry a giant load of firewood on their back. The people on the bus usually doze, dream, or look out the windows appreciating the beauty without really seeing it. But on this trip all eyes were alert as we passed by mudslides covering villages, fields completely destroyed and fallen trees protruding from new mountainsides. The journey was slower than normal because the highway no longer existed in many places, having split and fallen away. Instead, the bus used new dirt roads, built through people's fields which placed us eye level with the blacktop of the former highway. Imagine yourself as an ant walking along an old sidewalk cracked from frost heave. Imagine this scenario on a much larger scale and you may have an idea of what I experienced.
Finally we arrived in Solola, the town a few kilometers above Pana. Here we realized our bus wasn’t the direct one to Pana, as there were no buses at all Pan. The hurricane had wiped out the bridge to Panajachel and while a new emergency bridge had been erected, buses were too heavy to cross. So Victor and I jumped onto a pickup filled with people and coasted downhill to Pana. At the bridge everyone had to hop out and cross on foot. When I walked over the bridge I was stunned by the debris below. Giant trees now lay helter skelter among boulders, trash and organic matter. The ride down to Pana was slow as we maneuvered around more tree trunks and boulders. The road had been washed out in some spots so that we had an intimate view of the cliff on our right, our tires inches from a dramatic precipice.
Once we arrived in Pana I headed to the ATM, took out a ridiculous sum of money and then Victor and I were off to catch another pickup, a bus and then another pickup to San Lucas. On the cold ride there Victor became a heavy thing pulling me down. I was tired, cold, hungry, and nervous.
We were only in San Lucas for a couple of days but I had a lot of work to do. In the morning on our second day I got up early and headed to the Parish to talk to the men who meet there everyday. Walking down the old cobblestone street I tried to shake the fuzziness out of my head and shake off my own personal preoccupations. I wanted to use my time in San Lucas to focus solely on San Lucas.
When I walked into the Parish I was greeted by familiar faces. I finally saw with my own eyes that everyone was fine. Only one person died because of Stan in San Lucas. But San Lucas, like all the other towns on the lake, had been cut off from the outside world for eight days. There was no water or electricity, and neither food nor supplies could enter the town. So while the residents did not lose their homes, they were still suffering in the wake of the hurricane. They had been without running water until the night Victor and I arrived.
Before I arrived in San Lucas I had not really been able to communicate with anyone in there, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The day before I got there I received an email from one of my friends who told me that San Lucas was fine, Santiago Atitlan was destroyed, and there were no efforts by the Parish to do anything. When I received this information I was confused and saddened, and didn’t really believe it. When I got to San Lucas people were carrying on with their normal lives. However I did find that some people were working on water projects around the area, which included Santiago Atitlan, and a local group was doing direct action in Santiago, responding to sanitation and water needs. But other than this, I found nothing.
I felt foolish for running back to San Lucas thinking there would be something I could do. I felt silly that I went though nobody told me to come. I was hoping to connect to the local group doing sanitation work but something happened during our correspondence and the final details never solidified. Before arriving I thought I would be able to join onto a project already in progress. I felt sure there would be something to work on, but there wasn’t. As a result, I felt lost and stupid. The only hurricane relief work I could find was shoveling dirt from the highway but I didn’t think this was a good use of my diminishing energy reserves. And I still had all sorts of money to give to someone. But to whom? I wanted to leave all the money in San Lucas with someone who had a clear plan for hurricane relief but as the days passed I just wanted to rid myself of the responsibility of the donations. I would have liked to have tossed it to any relief group, but I had already had a bad experience with donations. Instead I decided to continue investigating potential groups, and wait for the right one to surface.
At this point, Victor and I headed to Santiago Atitlan. We had been warned that to enter the town one had to get an injection to protect against diseases that tend to linger around dead bodies and unclean water supplies. But when we arrived we discovered these were optional vaccinations and since both Victor and I both already had them, we didn’t have to stand in line on the makeshift wooden platform to get our shots.
We finally entered Santiago in a massive cloud of dust. Despite hiding our faces behind my scarf, we were able to see people shoveling piles of dirt from the road. But other than this, the town did not initially appear much different because the major destruction occurred farther into town.
Most of the destruction around the Atitlan area occurred because of landslides. During the Guatemalan Civil War (1960-1996) the government employed a “scorched earth” policy destroying forested areas that could have served as hiding places for the revolutionaries. This policy, combined with people cutting down trees for firewood, to build homes, or to clear graze land for cattle in, has led to widespread deforestation.
Stan’s effect on these deforested areas demonstrates the critical role forests play in maintaining a stable and healthy ecosystem. The root network provided by trees keeps water in the soil, helps to channel it to natural underground wells, prevents flash flooding, maintains soil stability, and generally protects the health of the ecosystem and the surrounding area. When there are no longer forests there are landslides, flash floods, water shortages, and other problems. Stan brought a lot of rain and because of deforestation, extremely powerful destruction ensued.
In Santiago there was a huge landslide. It was so large that it covered a village just outside of town. The municipal government had to declare the entire area a cemetery because so many people were buried alive. At first people came to gather the bodies but this led to the spread of diseases as the remains continued to decompose. The severe lack of potable water obviously magnified the problem dramatically.
When we walked into this part of town it felt like stepping into a ghost town. The windows and doors of the concrete buildings had been ripped away. Homes were filled with dirt and debris. The entire area was covered in a white powder, presumably lye or lime. I felt tall walking among the houses because we were walking on the second story level. At one point Victor stopped and said, “We are walking on top of people.” He was right. Who knew how many families were lying beneath our feet? Slipping between barbed wire and ignoring the skull and cross bones signs posted as warnings, we entered the area declared a cemetery. We found ourselves walking in an enormous scar, a space devoid of trees and houses. I felt like I was walking in a river of trees and boulders, but without water. I felt like that because that is exactly where I was….in a vast river created by the landslide. A few other people were wandering around as well, but there was a sort of humming silence, like the moment of silence before a collective gasp. That was Santiago.
When Victor and I returned to San Lucas I collapsed onto my bed. I was so overwhelmed I couldn't do much more than lay there for the moment. I spent my remaining time in San Lucas searching for projects, talking to people, and just being there. It was a good experience, but not one without difficulty. The Parish was different. I felt like a stranger. My Guatemalan friends were still my friends but something was different. Evidently I hadn’t gone home. I felt stressed, weary and still had to decide what to do with the donations
I finally decided to leave the money I had in cash for another BVS-GMP volunteer, Rebecca. Her community, Union Victoria is only 85 families, and while it only lost one house as a result of the hurricane, many of its residents are dealing with tremendous crop damage. Like Union Victoria, many communities will continue to suffer the effects of Stan for years. Approximately 90 communities were still totally isolated when I left. But after these communities regain their mobility, after the immediate needs of water, housing and food are met, and after the family members are buried and funerals are held, these people will still be struggling. They had little before the hurricane and now have even less. The extent of crop and land damage will decide whether people live or die for years to come.
Sitting here in this comfortable house, I wonder if we will remember the Guatemalans in a month or a year, when whatever harvest exists will be life-threateningly insufficient, compounded by crop prices so low that farmers will be unable to make a profit.
I still have about two-thirds of my donations. I have been waiting to find the right place to send the money and after seeing the lack of coordination between NGOs and people wanting to help, I feel particularly cautious and jaded. I don’t want this money to be wasted because it is going to be sorely needed. I talked to my boss Tom Benevento, the director of the Latin America BVS-GMP program who knows of several communities in need that are going unnoticed. The remaining money will be sent to such a community that has ties to BVS-GMP through Tom.
Santiago Atitlan has a great deal of international attention and aid. San Lucas is okay and Union Victoria, thanks to the efforts of Tom and Rebecca, has some funding. To all of you who sent your donations to me, thank you so much, and don’t worry, your donations are going to people who need them very much.
I am now back in Mexico carrying on with my work. I recovered from the physical and emotional tension that enveloped me for a time, but my thoughts are still with Guatemala. I continue to wrestle with the privileges I find in my life that are lacking in the lives of others. I suppose that is part of the point of me being here.
In Guatemala people often ask, “How is your heart?” My heart is finally back where it belongs, with me. I am surrounded by people who love and care about me. I finally woke up and can breathe again. My heart is lucky and my life is beautiful, so for this I give you my thanks and love.
