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.