July 29, 2006
I have been here just shy of three weeks and am finally in a position to sit and write about what has been happening here over the past 18 days.
The first week was spent trying to get the title change for the land purchase in Santiago for our Panabaj houses. As I assumed, it wasn’t as simple as everyone seemed to think it would be. Atun and I went to the Muni offices, had a meeting with the Mayor, Diego Esquina Mendoza, who hand wrote some sort of permission to apply for the change to title. While I was there I asked him about the water situation in Santiago. He confirmed that a group had come to his pueblo after the mudslides and had chlorinated the water supply. He also indicated that 75% of the people did not like it. I have no idea how he arrived at that figure, but "word on the street" corresponds to that dislike. I have been in touch with a couple of Rotary Groups in the U.S. who are eager to do something with the water supply for Santiago Atitlan. I am hoping this week to conclude the business on the land title change, now that I have all my documents translated as per the latest request by the Muni.
I left the following week for my trip to El Remate in The Peten where our next project has been confirmed. The Ayudamos Foundation is partnering with Proyecto Ix-Canaan and Grupo Femenino to build a co-operative work centre, kitchen, bathrooms, storage room, daycare and playground. Our on the ground partner is Anne Lossing, former Calgarian (via New Brunswick) who, along with her husband, Dr. Enrique Chapetón and Eduardo Cofiño, High Commissioner to The Peten, have built an environmental and social vision for the area and community of El Remate. Out new project will be funded partially by a Calgary group of donors, led by Dr. Bob Dickson, grant funds and personal donations. Construction is scheduled to begin October 1, 2006.
I have also met with an accomplished Indigenous Author and Human Rights worker, Julio Cochoy. He is set to publish his second book in the Fall of this year. His first book chronicles the stories of the victims of his pueblo, Santa Lucia Utatlan. He is an economist by trade but now works for the Procuraduria de los Derechos Humanos, a human rights group in Guatemala City. His second book deals with the immigration issues of Guatemalan workers in the United States.
Speaking of Human Rights, many of you have probably noticed the new Suggested Reading List on our web page, and the book, "Disappeared: A Journalist Silenced" which is the story of murdered journalist, Irma Flaquer. Her story is still being told because at the time of her kidnapping (and assumed murder), in October 1980, she was the first, white, middle class, Guatemalan female journalist who was "disappeared". Her eldest son, Fernando, was murdered during her kidnapping, her youngest son; Sergio, was 23 at the time and working on a kibbutz in Israel. He had been sent there for his safety after an earlier attempt on Irma’s life.
The government essentially admitted responsibility for her disappearance, or in the vernacular of the legal documents, 'failing to protect her and her rights' as well as failing to properly investigate the incident. It is widely accepted that the government and the military were responsible for this action, even though propaganda at the time tried to implicate the guerillas in the disappearance. (For further information go to https://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/cases/67-03.html to read the official legal documents.)
Through a series of happenstances I had the opportunity to meet with Sergio Valle Flaquer in Antigua, Irma’s surviving son, a broken but sweet-spirited man. The pain that surrounded his past 26 years was almost palpable. His life has been defined and swallowed by this tragedy. He was generous with his time and happy to talk with someone who knew his mother’s story. When I left our meeting I thought of the other estimated 260,000, families whose loved ones, either had disappeared or were found murdered and the exponential impact of a national catastrophe such as this.
Even though this country always moves me in many ways, through its beauty, its relaxed atmosphere and its sweet, gentle indigenous population, the pain is always nearby, just below the surface.
