[Slideshow — Members Only] From 8/8 to 8/19, 2014, twenty Junior Friends (high school age) from North Pacific Yearly Meeting traveled to Guatemala for a learning and service trip. The itinerary in Guatemala was arranged by Miguel Angel Costop, director of the PROGRESA Guatemala Friends Scholarship Program in Parramos, Chimaltenango, Guatemala. The program, under the care of Redwood Forest Friends Meeting and the smaller Guatemala Friends Meeting, both of Pacific Yearly Meeting, has been providing financial aid to young people from the 22 Mayan language and ethnic groups in the western highlands since 1973.
Our introduction to Guatemala was a visit to the ruins of Iximché, the capital city of the Kak’chiquel Maya at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Included in this visit was participation in a Mayan spiritual ceremony explained and performed by a midwife and spiritual guide. After that dynamic start, we spent three days in the little town of Santa Cruz Balanyá working on a reforestation project where over 2,000 trees were planted in the mornings, and helping with English language education at the middle school in the afternoons. All this under the care and direction of members of a women’s co-op who provided the seedlings and fed us generously and deliciously each midday. Our connection to this group was through a scholarship recipient of PROGRESA. This segment culminated in an overnight home stay with a local family, the most dramatic experience of the journey for most of us. Deep friendships were made in this very short time.
There followed a day of travel which included visiting and participating in the very rich and busy weekly market in Chichicastenango, Quiché, and a visit to the fascinating yellow church in San Andrés Xecul, near Xela (Quetzaltenango) where we spent the next three nights. In Xela we visited a school for street children or those at risk of becoming street children, founded by another PROGRESA scholarship recipient, where we did a deep cleaning of the school, played futbol, and worked on cleaning and improving a piece of farmland neglected and damaged by climate change induced drought. The following day, we visited the nearby town of Momostenango where Gaby (Sandra Gabriela López López) one of the current PROGRESA scholarship recipients, shared with us her passion for and concerns about forestry in her region and showed us a section of forest ravaged by the pine bark beetle inadvertently imported from Canada by nearby furniture makers. After visiting a nearby 5th generation family hand weaving operation producing some of the woolen blankets and carpets for which Momos is famous, we were treated to lunch at Gaby’s house in a compound set up for families traumatized by the violence that reigned in Guatemala for so long. Her family had fled to Mexico after extreme violence to her grandfather and uncles and were repatriated in this area where 5 families are working together on organic plant production and preservation of traditional plant species used for food and medicine. We finished the day with a chance to see some local natural wonders, including a beautiful waterfall on a horribly polluted and trash laden river. We couldn’t clean up the river, but we at least (without any prompting from leaders) picked up all the trash from the trail leading to it.
After Xela we had another day of travel punctuated by a visit to the spectacularly beautiful Lake Atitlán with a boat ride from Panajachel to the pretty little town of Santa Catarina Palopó. The last day in Antigua Guatemala was given to relaxation and last minute preparations for travel home. All arrived safely to Portland, OR the following evening. During the course of the trip, we were able to meet with several students or graduates sponsored by PROGRESA and learn more about the hardships faced by indigenous Guatemalans, and their resourcefulness in overcoming them. We are grateful not only for the trip and the learning experience it provided for all, but for the fact that we were able to do it through a Quaker organization, PROGRESA, which means that much of the money spent on arrangements was plowed back into the indigenous communities rather than into the coffers of a for profit tour organization.
These are the descriptions in time and space. What is left out are the laughter and tears, exuberance and exhaustion, cooperation and community, deep places of worship and gratitude, and the life changing seeds that have been planted in many hearts.
More information about PROGRESA may be found at http://www.guatemalafriends.org/
Joe Snyder