Remember Erin Brockovich? It´s kind of like that.

In the last few weeks, I´ve settled into life in Sibinal and with the Zunums, my joyful, hardworking host family. Everyone has their chores, and there´s much to do on this family farm, which includes three pigs, two sheep, four geese, three ducks, four chickens, two dogs, five cats and about five hundred trout, as well as the crops on the land behind the house.

Just like my family at home, everyone jokingly rags on one another, hangs out in the kitchen, and fidgets in church together on Sunday morning. Plus, having four host brothers between the ages of eleven and seventeen makes me feel like I get to have my brother Seth at four different ages. I love the way Fernando hops on one leg to the dinner table, how Danny sings at the top of his lungs while he´s on the computer, how Napoleon has entire conversations with the cat and how Alexander loses his mind with high-pitched laughing when the others team up to tickle him. Just last week, there was a full-fledged water fight going on for well over two hours. The boys filled up old ketchup and maple syrup bottles to use as water guns. Poor Napo was trapped in the stand-alone bathroom while his brothers shot at him from the open windows. I, of course, was hiding out on the second floor, well out of range. These boys are so much fun.

I´ve also enjoyed my time "at the office." In reality workdays are super varied and the work takes place in many places. For example, a few weeks ago, I tagged along with Magui and Juan Pablo as they gave agro-ecology capacitations to the community cooperatives, each a few hours from the town of Sibinal. We spent hours riding in the backs of pickup trucks, rising and falling with the dusty roads and hiking up and down green, rocky mountainsides. Once there, the groups, each made up of about fifteen people, weathered, lined faces along with young, bright-eyed ones, learned how to make their own fertilizer, herbicide and insecticides out of cheap and accessible materials.

Since they were the last capacitations this year and because this was my introduction to the groups, many of the members explained to me what these meetings mean to them and why agro-ecology is important. Some mentioned the solidarity of the group setting for learning, the aspect of sharing the successes and of supporting one another. Many talked of returning to their roots, respecting the “mother earth,” and providing for their families. Finding ways not just to make their land produce, but to make it produce to meet most or all of their needs, in a way that does not harm the earth, is key for these farmers.

Why? One big reason is that their government has historically failed them. The people of Sibinal, along with 51% of Guatemala´s population, are descendants of Mayans who fled to the unwanted land of the highlands when the ancestral lowlands were taken, in order to live in peace. They are the people who were targeted during the 36-year-long civil war (1960-1996), not because of their involvement in the conflict, but as a tactic to starve out the guerrilla forces hiding in the mountains. Hundreds of thousands were massacred, kidnapped or raped by the soldiers who should have been protecting them. Today, rural Guatemalans are understandably disillusioned with the government. The disillusionment grows as they see large, multinational corporations given rights where theirs have been ignored, as mining companies and hydroelectric dams continue to move in where peasants have modestly farmed for centuries. These companies threaten the environment and the people, using and subsequently contaminating enormous amounts of water without any say from the communities who live around them, without any warning about the health risks they create.

Where´s Julia Roberts when you need her?

Fortunately, Sibinal is an area relatively untouched by mines and hydroelectric projects, although exploration projects are approaching more and more. I was recently warned not to go alone to a community for the threat of being chased out by villagers with pitchforks; since most of the companies are North-American or European, my gringo appearance arouses suspicion. The topic is controversial.

Hopefully, with the solidarity of the cooperatives and the resilience of improved family farms, this area can stay under the control of its people, not the highest bidder.

I write this update a little sheepishly, as I know it´s been about a month since I posted anything. Sorry, everyone! I promise to do better.

I have now been away from home for eight weeks. Seven of those weeks have been in the country of Guatemala. Four of those weeks have been in the city of Guatemala, the following two weeks were in the city of San Marcos, and the past week has been, well, all over.

After finally finishing up with Spanish classes, I was on my way to the town of Sibinal in the western highlands of Guatemala. However, after only two days with my host family, I was off again, this time to meet an MCC tour group that came to learn about migration: the journey migrants make, the context from which they come, and what people are doing here in Guatemala to create opportunites for people to stay home. This meant visits to the two cooperatives where I will be working places called La Vega del Volcán and La Linea, as well as a trip across the border to Chiapas, Mexico.

In La Vega del Volcán, I met many of the people I´ll be working with this year. Froilan Ramos (pictured above with his fish ponds) is the community expert on raising and reproducing trout, and was one of the first to take part in MCC-supported food security projects that include raising trout and flowers. In Vega and also in the cooperative in a place called La Linea, I met more small farmers who are taking leadership in their communities through agriculture and tourism initiatives.

After the energizing week with the MCC group I´ve been feeling inspired and anxious to begin serving and learning with the local team. This week, I was able to settle in with the host family, start planning with the local team and learn more of the context for the development work MCC has been involved in here in Sibinal. Sibinal is a small town less than 10 miles from the Mexican-Guatemalan border, and the fact is, migration is a way of life here. In fact, both of my host parents spent time in Georgia before returning to Guatemala. My host father, Elfego, often talks of how he enjoyed his time in Atlanta, working in contruction. Ultimately, he and his wife decided to return to Guatemala with their earnings and luckily, they were able to connect with one of the cooperatives supporting small farmers here in Sibinal. Now, they raise trout in ponds behind their house, which is the main source of earnings for the family. Elfego and Julia have been able to live a life with dignity in their own community. They are able to feed and educate their four sons, support Elfego´s aging parents, and serve as leaders in their church.

Many people here do not have such luck. As I mentioned above, migration is a way of life here in Sibinal, as many people cross the border to work long hours in Mexican coffee farms. More and more, this has not been enough to sustain families, and so people have made the perilous journey up through Mexico, to the United States. Sometimes they return and sometimes they don´t. Sometimes the money they earn makes it back to family members here and sometimes it doesn´t. More often than not, the migrant family member is gone for five years or more, and the family structure has suffered greatly. Many homes are missing fathers, mothers, sons and daughters. This happens because opportunity is missing here in Guatemala. The privileged elite have control over the  majority of the country´s resources, and use them to generate personal wealth. Very little of Guatemala´s rich resources is utilized to serve the poor majority.

The programs MCC has partnered with here in Sibinal, where I will be serving for the next ten months, have focused on capacity building and education for the peasant farmers here. They have taught the farmers the value of the resources to which they do have access and how to utilize them well in order to feed their families. This has taken the form of agricultural projects that teach farming methods and business skills, as well as community tourism initiatives that support the construction of restaurants, lodges and roads to bring in tourists from Mexico and the United States. The projects started small, but are ever growing as more and more people see what is possible within their own communities. Opportunity through farming trout, selling flowers or guiding bird watchers through the green mountains creates a way of life here in which migration is not the only way to survive. Fewer dangerous journeys can be made and more families can stay intact.

I have thus far been incredibly inspired by the leaders of these projects, who have created opportunity where things seemed so hopeless. The work is still slow going, as many have tended to mistrust the new ideas or are simply apprehensive about the risk of a new way of doing things. As I join the team in its work, I ask for prayers that God will open the hearts and minds of the communities here and that he will unite the people as they struggle against hunger and injustice.


Some pictures of my house:

The kitchen stands apart from the rest of the house.

Everything is made from scratch and cooked on a wood-burning stove.