Pete Sears Trip to Santiago, Atitlan Guatemala

My trip to Santiago, Atitlan, Guatemala with Jeannette

4-1-2006

Santiago/Panabaj, Atitlan, Guatemala
Sponsor a Mother/Child program. $25/mo. to ensure the health of pregnant T'zutujil women and their infants.

Information on the www.puebloapueblo.org web-site.
Or telephone: (202) 302-0622

(2-14-2006)

www.puebloapueblo.org

This (link) is the hospital that had just reopened after being closed due to the civil war in the eighties. It had taken a lot of effort and donated time by doctors and nurses in Guatemala City as well as the international volunteer community.

It was the only clinic in the Santiago, Panabaj area and a good friend of mine who is Mayan lost his baby daughter to measles just before they had managed to reopen it. She died from a high fever which probably could have been controlled if there had been medical help available. Since the disaster, they have managed to retrieve medical equipment from the abandoned hospital and reopen temporarily in a rented house on the other side of Santiago. It is being manned by volunteer doctors and nurses, many from the States who call it a working vacation.

These are quality people who are willing to rough it out in pretty funky conditions as far as hospitals go, but are getting the job done and helping people. The local Mayas are extremely grateful for the help, although it can sometimes be a little difficult for doctors to diagnose as the Mayas are quite vague regarding their symptoms. They don't like to complain.

They also speak their own language, Tzutujil, and many older Mayas don't speak Spanish.

One doctor told me he was thrilled because he had diagnosed a gall bladder problem without any diagnostic equipment at his disposal, just using his knowledge and making an educated guess. Like they did in the old days. Turns out he had guessed correctly. Sort of like an old time family doctor.

They are trying to raise money to purchase a new site for the hospital. Losing the old building just after it had reopened has been very demoralizing for them, but they are determined people and I know they will succeed.

Geologists are telling the community it is too dangerous to re-inhabit the site of the mudslide as a heavy rain could very easily cause another disaster.

These are very poor people, but also very proud. I paddled a small canoe out into the middle of the lake (it is a very large lake) around sunset and looked back at the volcano, there were still a few Mayan fishermen dressed in their typical clothing, floating gently in their old wooden canoes trying for a few more lake bass before dark.

The wind blows heavily in the afternoons, making the lake quite rough, but usually dies down in the late afternoon. It was a spectacular sunset over the twin volcanoes, and there were still a few women from Santiago, dressed in their colorful hand woven Huipil's (Wee-peels), washing their families' clothing on the lake-side rocks.

I could plainly see a massive gash where the slide originated just below the peak of the volcano, it must have been an unbelievable amount of earth, along with boulders and trees that tore through the sleeping village of Panabaj that night. So much sorrow.

Other villages, including San Marcus across the lake, were also hit hard, I watched them trying to dig out their village square.

The people of Santiago and the surrounding villages are a determined and resilient people, they were the last to make a stand against the invading conquistadors back when.

Jeannette and I met many wonderful people down there. Puts things in perspective.

My best to you all,
Pete

Interesting site on local weaving.
www.anthro.fsu.edu/wovenvoices/villages/santiago.html

Great place to stay in Santiago, Atitlan, Guatemala.
www.posadadesantiago.com

My trip to Santiago, Atitlan, Guatemala with Jeannette (2.13.06)

Viewed the recent mudslide damage done to a school we were helping to raise funds for. There were three slides from different directions.

The first hit around 2am, the others followed at 3am and 4am, altogether burying about eight hundred Mayas alive, including ninety little children who attended the school in Panabaj.

It is difficult to comprehend the tremendous volume of liquid mud, boulders and trees that came pouring down from the Volcano while people slept. The liquid mud apparently solidifies very fast into solid earth.

The whole community came together to help each other out that night. Many heroic stories. The mud is about twelve feet deep in parts, covering the entire village of Panabaj.

The hospital that had only just reopened through help from Guatemalan doctors and the international community is now unusable, as is the school building next door.

Jeannette's brother is building temporary housing for Mayan families, and her sister-in-law is donating weaving looms and thread to the women who lost houses and loved ones during the slide.

They also sheltered Indigenous people and relief workers in their beautiful Posada and cottages. The looms and thread are important to the Mayas not only because they weave their own clothing, but as a means of preserving their cultural identity and emotional health after the disaster.

The project is being partly funded by Oxfam. It's pretty moving, as they decided not to dig up the bodies, but to make it a memorial site and leave it as is.

Geologists are advising not to rebuild in the same spot as it could very likely happen there again, but so far nobody has come up with an alternative site to rebuild the village. The Lake Atitlan area can be wild and a bit dangerous, and you have to be careful where you hike due to the possibility of bandits.

The country is still recovering from the bloody civil war of the eighties, when US backed Guatemalan army units and right wing death squads wiped out over four hundred and forty Mayan villages in an attempt to cut off any possible aid to the rebel armies.

The US claimed that the Guatemalan government was fighting communism, which is bloody ridiculous, as most people at the time were a mixture of Catholic and their own pagan religion. Many of the Mayas surrounding Lake Atitlan don't even speak Spanish, but their own localized dialect.

It is one of the most beautiful spots on earth, with volcanoes surrounding a giant pristine mountain lake along with many Indian villages. Aldus Huxley once said that Lake Atitlan was the most beautiful spot on earth.

Most gringos you meet down there are the best humankind has to offer: Doctors, nurses, geologists, chemists, water purification specialists, engineers, relief workers, pollution specialists--people of all nationalities who are doing the best they can to help heal our ailing planet.

Update April 2008: “Jeannette's brother David is building temporary housing for Mayan families, and her sister-in-law Suzie is donating weaving looms and thread to the women who lost houses and loved ones during the slide”.

See you soon.
Pete