Facing Reality

by Global Ministries | published on Oct 10, 2014

Paul Pitcher – Guatemala

I had started to write my reflections for September about watching from the outside as the destructive forces of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita reeked havoc upon the United States but this last week, those thoughts have been swept away by the torrential rains that, seemingly overnight, have transformed Guatemala into the scenes of the southern states that I watched on CNN.

Paul Pitcher – Guatemala

One day in early October, I stepped with my fingers crossed onto a bus to travel from my home in Quiché to Antigua. I had my fingers crossed because the massive mudslides, falling boulders, and flooding had knocked out the Interamerican highway in many places and that’s the road I had to take to get to Antigua. If I had tried to make the trip one day earlier I would not have made it and as we crept further and further away from Quiché, down the mountains and out into the country I saw why. The images from the Guatemalan news agencies in the paper and on the television were every bit as horrifying as what I saw though I know that I passed nowhere near the worst parts. About every kilometer there was another enormous mudslide, some of the heights of the brown masses coming close to, if not exceeding the height of the bus where I sat packed in with around 80 other people since the buses are running very infrequently now. Out of the mud poked roots, treetops, and huge branches randomly positioned like pins stuck in a pin cushion. In some places erosion caused by the rains has taken pieces of the road down the mountains and our passage was treacherous as we came within inches of a 1000 foot drop off. Rivers race down the mountains where there was nothing before, carving new paths in the land. Existing rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, all bodies of water are now bursting at the seams and flooding the countryside, especially the lowlands. At one point we looked down into a valley where pieces of houses were strewn everywhere, a huge truck was stuck on its side in a big pool of mud in the middle of a river, flipped over buses just lay by the side of the road. Droves of people just stand by the sides of the highway, looking at the destruction.

It’s hard to know which news agencies to believe right now. The numbers and reports are very different from the Guatemalan press to the International Press. Though, unfortunately, many of us here think that the numbers are going to be even higher than what the international press is currently reporting and we may never know the true total. A friend of mine wrote after visiting the heavily hit community of Panabaj that, “It has been said that of the 500 houses in Panabaj, about 200 are still standing. About 300 households have disappeared completely under the mud. That could mean that about 1500 people have died, if 5 persons would be the average number of a household. However this high number of disappeared in only the village of Panabaj has never been mentioned in the newspapers. Why is this? You might ask…Well, Guatemala’s economy depends heavily on tourism….”
The relief efforts continue to be hindered by our poor roadways, which where swept away and destroyed by the mudslides, collapses, and rain. The Guatemalan press reported that over 1400 kilometers of paved roads and 1600 kilometers of unpaved roads along with around 20 of the major bridges that connect the country, sometimes over huge ravines, were damaged leaving many communities, in the way it has been described in the paper, “isolated and abandoned.”

One of the effects besides the huge loss of life and damages to properties is the damage done to the harvest, which, in many communities, were set to begin in a few weeks. There have been incredible and immeasurable losses in the fields, especially the corn fields that are the life blood of the people here. Wherever I have gone in the last week I have seen the usually tall and proud cornstalks bent and broken. This, in a way, represents to me how a piece of the future looks for many families, bent and broken. Usually here as November comes knocking on the door families are finishing up the last of the corn that they had stored away from last years harvest and now there will be no new corn to replenish their storerooms. I was talking with Luis, the director of ACG, yesterday and he informed me that the price of a 100 pound bag of corn has now skyrocketed from the usual Q120 ($16) to Q200 ($26). On that same note, the corruption in the market place has some vendors selling basic items needed by the families for an increase of sometimes 200%, taking advantage of the disaster and the need.

We read in the paper about the aid pouring in from other countries to help the victims but this happened during the earthquake of 1976 and hurricane Mitch in 1998 as well. The problem in those cases again was that corruption and the needs of the rich overwhelmed those of the poor with, as I was informed by Mateo (the office historian), only 5 to 10 percent of the donations actually reaching the people who needed it the most. Currently we watch as much of the aid is concentrated on the southern coast where many of the interests of the rich lie. This is why ACG with the help of Global Ministries has been active in raising funds to give directly to the people and coordinating donations from ACG’s member communities.

Personally I didn’t stop to take a minute and think at the beginning of the friends who I have spent time and worked with out in the affected areas. Little by little I am receiving information about how communities where I know people are being affected. The news today reported about a cemetery being washed away in San Martin Sacatepéquez where I have worked with a clinic and come into contact with 100’s of the families there.
It’s amazing how, in some ways, when I am not directly affected by a disaster that it can be easy to watch it on the television and read about it in the news with a sort of detached presence or, if I choose, keep away from it entirely. I missed the first few days of the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina and was detached even days later since it seemed so far away. But when tragedy strikes home, in any country, first, second, or third world, everything becomes clearer and the despair that hangs in the air threatens to descend. In the case of Guatemala, since it is such a poor country, the havoc reeked by a disaster of this magnitude is almost unimaginable. In this country where the basic homes are made of adobe or sticks bundled together and placed on the slopes of mountains where families also have their farm plots, rain is an enemy with no limits.

It would be so easy to let the despair overcome us but, once again, my friends and family here in Guatemala won’t let that happen. We continue to work, to find ways to assist in this tragedy and plan for the future. A wonderful example of the solidarity from our international partners can be seen in the delegation from North Carolina that spent a week in October on ACG’s organic farm working on a fish project that will benefit our communities. They arrived during this catastrophic time in Guatemala’s history yet chose to continue their work and walk together with the Guatemalan’s, even as plans have to get rearranged and transportation is even more of an adventure than usual. And of course, Global Ministries and all those who have made donations through them. There are no words to express the solidarity that we personally have felt and hopefully, we will be able to carry that down with us as we, ACG, go to bring a little assistance to the people who have lost so much.

Pablo

Paul Pitcher is a missionary with the Christian Action of Guatemala (ACG). He serves as a communication and youth worker with ACG.