Some preliminary observations about the pandemic in Guatemala

 By now (August 2), I've interviewed public health personnel in each of my three target municipalities, as well as members of the alcaldías indígenas. In addition to formal interviews, I've had informal conversations with people in stores as I have made minor purchases. Because these towns do not see a lot of foreign visitors, even if I'm just purchasing a bottle of sparkling water, the person behind the counter will often ask me where I am from and what I am doing in their town, and I am happy to oblige. In fact I am happy to tell them the specific object of my research (not just "I'm a researcher from the U.S." but "I'm here to look at the impact of the pandemic on rural indigenous communities" -- that's the short version), which sometimes leads to their sharing their observations and experiences.

So here are some threads that have run through my research:

• There is a fair amount of disbelief that the coronavirus exists, that the pandemic is not just a plot cooked up by the Guatemalan government. Several times, people said things like "Ellos dicen que hay una pandemia pero no sabemos si es verdad o no ("they - meaning the government -- say that there is a pandemic but we don't know if that is true"). I heard some variation of this in each of the towns I visited. This suspicion of government pronouncements needs to be placed in historical context -- there is a long history of the government-sponsored health care system neglecting or mistreating indigenous people. When I was here in 2011, Maya women reported that when they went to hospitals to give birth, if they had been attended by a midwife, the medical staff berated them for having worked with a midwife and only coming to the hospital when there were complications (i.e. if you had come to us from the beginning you wouldn't be in this situation). The public health system is underfunded and under-resourced and has been for a long time. There is a long, sordid history of government corruption --for example public funds that are designated for a particular purpose being diverted elsewhere or going into private hands. The U.S. Congress publishes a list of corrupt government officials in Central America (and also private sector actors) called the Engel list (named after former Congressman Elliot Engel) and this year's list includes the current Mayor of Joyabaj (a nearby town in El Quiché) as well as former president Alvaro Colóm, some Guatemalan congress people, and others. The annual State Department reports on Guatemala dating back well over a decade detail corruption in the government. So people have reason to distrust what the government says.
• There is widespread agreement -- among both pandemic deniers and those who believe that the pandemic is real -- that government has handled the pandemic very badly. We can argue about whether the toque de queda (order to stay inside) made sense from a public health standpoint. I will leave that aside. But the toque de queda was imposed in a very militarized fashion, and the fines for violating the curfew were extremely high (Q6,000 was what I was told). This was well beyond the means of all but the wealthiest Guatemalans, who were not the ones most likely to have violated it. The National Civilian Police (Policia Nacional Civil, who usually can't be bothered to do much in rural communities (like come quickly when there is an emergency), were patrolling in remote aldeas and handing out fines.
• The toque de queda had a disproportionate effect on the poorest Guatemalans -- mostly indigenous people in rural areas. The town marketplaces were closed. This meant that people who rely upon selling their surplus (or goods that they cultivate specifically in order to sell) were left without a source of income and the ability to buy what they need. After all, if you are growing radishes to sell at the market, so that you can buy something you don't grow, you can't really survive on radishes. Some ended up donating some of the food that they couldn't sell, while others profiteered by selling necessary items at inflated prices.
• The human rights situation has deteriorated. People in the communities we visited with the human rights delegation told us that the situation was the worst that it had been since the end of the armed conflict. One told us "We thought Jimmy Morales was the worst president but Giammattei is even worse." I'll write more about this later, but just wanted to mention it in this brief summary. Many communities have been subjected to forced evictions from their land to make way for various "development" or extractive projects. Additionally, there has been a closing of what remained of democratic space. Journalists are persecuted, as well as judges and prosecutors. In just the last week a well-known journalist from a major publication who is critical of the government was arrested on charges of influence peddling, blackmail, and money laundering.  The extent to which the pandemic has contributed to the human rights abuses is something I am still working out.
• Guatemala has some of the lowest vaccination rates in the region, and the situation is much worse in rural areas, where the population is largely if not almost exclusively indigenous. People are openly hostile to public health workers who have gone door to door in rural villages and hamlets to try and encourage people to get vaccinated. Every public health worker I spoke to told me of people refusing to open their doors, or opening them armed with machetes and axes, telling the health workers to go away and not come back. In Zacualpa the vaccination rate for the entire municipality is around 20%, but that in some villages it's as low as 2%. 
• The low vaccination rates result from several factors. One is the historic distrust of anything the government says or does. For centuries, ignoring or avoiding the government has been a survival strategy for indigenous communities. People have long historical memories. The government robbed them of their land, forced indigenous men to perform unpaid labor, carried out a genocidal war, and in the post-war period it has encouraged extractive industries, failed to abide by rulings from its own courts or international bodies like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alternating between ignoring indigenous communities and intervening militarily (current and past governments have frequently declared states of siege when a community has opposed an extractive project or otherwise protested government policies). Another is fraud, corruption and/or poor planning on the vaccine roll-out. Health workers told me that they often received large batches of vaccines that were expired -- perhaps a lack of planning for getting the vaccines to rural areas in a timely fashion. So people who wanted to get vaccinated were sometimes unable to do so. It is widely believed that the government misappropriated a lot of the funding that was intended for vaccine purchases or promotion.
• Additionally, there is a lot of false information and many rumors floating about. For example, that people who have received the vaccine have died in large numbers, and that people who did not get the vaccine are doing well. Several people (including people who are in leadership positions, and a few whom I know personally, not just random market vendors) that people who were vaccinated died soon after getting the vaccine.
• Despite the fact that vaccination is voluntary and not mandatory, nonetheless the government issues vaccination quotas for each Centro de Salud. As one health worker told me, "If they send you 5000 doses, you are expected to give 5000 vaccinations." 
• Economic inequality has increased during the pandemic. I don't think that needs a whole lot of explanation.
• The impact on education has been catastrophic in rural areas. Access to education was already a challenge in rural areas the government has historically under invested in public education, where people are poor and often have large families and schools. Even public school requires expenditures from families for books and school supplies. A young woman I met told me she was only able to attend school through fourth grade because she is one of 10 children, her father drinks to excess, and her mother couldn't provide the necessities for all 10 children to be educated.  When the pandemic hit and schools were closed, virtual instruction posed a challenge -- not just in terms of teachers retooling their pedagogy. Many rural families do not have electricity, let alone internet or smartphones. Even those who have smart phones find it hard to connect as the signal is often weak or non-existent in rural areas, especially in the mountainous regions of the altiplano. Parents who cannot read and write are not going to be able to help children with their lessons. Teachers did what they could (including traveling to rural communities to hand-deliver copies of lessons and worksheets). And so a generation of children has lost nearly two years of schooling.
• Migration has continued, and perhaps in some areas it has increased, during the pandemic. As the economic situation has worsened in rural areas, and there are fewer jobs, there is very little incentive for young people to stay. During at least a few of my interviews, the people I was interviewing told me they were seriously considering migrating to the U.S.

Back on track: getting started in Chinique

 

On Monday, July 11, I traveled to Chinique, as I've previously recounted. I arrived in the early afternoon, but I had already set up one meeting with the relative of a recent migrant -- Don Roberto, the father of Ken, of my key collaborators for this trip. Ken had given me Don Roberto's phone number before I'd left the U.S. in my hurried preparations, and I'd written to him on WhatsApp. WhatsApp is extremely popular in Guatemala; the major cell phone companies often throw in free access to WhatsApp and Facebook (also popular) when one purchases airtime, which means that people often use WhatsApp to make phone calls rather than using their limited minutes. So I shouldn't have been surprised when Don Roberto called me back instead of texting me -- while those of us privileged to have had enough education that writing comes easily find texting a good way to communicate, those who aren't so privileged (which would include about 70% of the 35+ rural indigenous population in Guatemala, where most people have had only a few years of primary school; people in their 50s or older would have had few opportunities to study as the 36-year long armed conflict would have interrupted what little and inadequate rural education there was) would prefer to call, finding texting difficult.

Don Roberto had been very eager to talk with me, and so I called him again when I'd arrived in Guatemala and he said that he would come into Chinique from the rural village of La Puerta; he assured me that he had a little Torito (little bull), which is the name of one of the brands of motor-taxis known as Tuk-tuks. When he arrived, I told him that I hadn't yet eaten lunch, and so I allowed him to choose a comedor for me. He drove me in the tuk-tuk (I could easily have walked but it would have been rude to not accept the ride) and he parked on a patch of cobblestone behind the parroquia (the parish church), which I recalled was where the fireworks took place during the patron saint feast. The comedor was one that has been there for a long time, and I think I'd eaten there once or twice before. I told him to order whatever he wanted but he had already had lunch so he just had a soft drink. The comedor had a small sign on the wall advertising pizza, but the proprietor told me it would take 45 minutes, so I nixed that idea.  I had scrambled eggs with tomatoes and onion (a safe bet and one of the few reliable options for a semi-vegetarian), and then we set off for La Puerta..

I had been to La Puerta exactly once, for the consulta comunitaria in 2012, and I hadn't remember much if anything about the trip to the village. All I remembered was the assembled residents of the community standing in neat rows in a large field that had a row of buildings on one side -- perhaps the school, or some offices of local institutions. One of the community leaders -- I think the head teacher at the school -- stood before the crowd, explained the process of the consulta, and then held the vote. Some communities used paper ballots, while others, like La Puerta, did it by a show of hands. 

So I hadn't remembered how far it was, or how steep the road. The Torito climbed and climbed, and then climbed some more, over roads that were paved in parts and dirt and rocks in others. Finally Don Roberto stopped and pointed to a house across a few fields. "That's our house", he told me, and then parked the in a small shed alongside the road. After securing his vehicle, he led me across a narrow path that went through his neighbor's fields, and then his own, and finally to the house. We entered through the back (that is the side facing away from the road) and stepped into a small courtyard where his wife was waiting. She pulled out a chair for me and I gladly accepted the seat. She spoke less Spanish than her husband, who occasionally had to translate for us. I admired the flowers and the view (the photo that accompanies this paragraph is looking out back from the house) and gave her the small present I'd brought. The women in the collective house where I'd stayed in the capital made soaps and other toiletries, and so I'd bought 10 soaps as small gifts for people. Although it is often customary for anthropologists to pay people for participating in interviews, I knew that this might be seen as offensive and so I decided upon small gifts. I thought about purchasing coffee but that is heavier and bulkier to carry around.

Don Roberto said that his son had not told him or his wife that he was leaving Guatemala. Ken had had several jobs working with NGOs and often traveled. He was not living in his parents' home at that time. He had told his parents that he was going to attend a training workshop (I think in Xela but I'd have to check the recording), and that he would not be reachable for a while. His parents accepted this (adult sons are given a fair amount of autonomy) and only learned that he was in the U.S. when he called after he had arrived. Don Roberto said that he understood why Ken had done that; he didn't want to upset his mother. He (Don Roberto) accepted what his son had done and said that he would have supported his decision if he'd known about it. 

The mother chimed in at this point (I don't remember her name so I don't have to invent a pseudonym for her) and started to cry as she spoke; it was clear that Ken's departure was still a sore spot for her, although almost exactly a year had passed.  I took some photographs and send them to him via WhatsApp while I was in his parents' home. I was trying to remember if he called or I called, but looking at this picture, it seems that his mother is talking on her phone, which means that he must have called her.

What struck me was the remoteness of the locale and the ruggedness of the terrain. I began to appreciate anew the challenges that people in rural areas face in obtaining an education. La Puerta has an elementary school, but anyone who aspires to complete the ciclo básico (the equivalent of JHS) or diversificado (the equivalent of HS) needs to travel at the very least to Chinique, which was easily 20-25 minutes away by tuk-tuk -- this is assuming that one can afford a tuk-tuk. On foot it would take at least 45 minutes going downhill, and a fair amount longer walking up. There is now a high school in Chinique -- when I was there in 2011, students had to travel to Santa Cruz del Quiché to attend a diversificado, which put it beyond the means of most. Even if one attends a public school, there are costs. In addition to school supplies and books, students would have to pay for the bus, as well as meals. The major universities offer extension programs in El Quiché, but they offer a limited range of majors (carreras or careers). Usually it's education, social work, and agronomy (or something along those lines). If one wants to study law, for example, they would have to go to a major city, which implies additional costs (housing, for example). 

We talked a little more, and then I walked around the house and looked at the surrounding mountains and fields. They gave me some oranges from one of the trees that are on their property, and then Don Roberto drove me back towards town. I asked him to leave me near the house of my friends Catarino and Sandy, with whom I'd promised to have dinner. I've already written about seeing their children, the older ones nearly all grown up. They've worked on their house, and so the kitchen is much bigger, and they have a gas stove in addition to plancha. Verónica has her own bedroom (as befitting her status as an older teenaged girl) and they've added a wicket and a little path to the front of the house from the main path onto the property (there are three houses belonging to family members along this path, and theirs is the third). 

Catarino had told me that Sandy had started to attend adult education classes. Like many indigenous women who marry relatively young and start having children, her education was interrupted. She is one of at least 10 children and her parents are agricultores (agriculturalists) -- people who work the land. That seems to be the favored term for subsistence farmers. But I was a little surprised to see a group of people standing around a computer in the outdoor covered patio of the house. The instructor at the center was explaining how to set up an email account. Catarino told me that this was an adult education class. On another occasion, Sandy told me that she was completing her high school and then wanted to go on to a university degree; I hope she is able to do so. 

Sometimes it pays not to prepare

AUGUST 1 , ZACUALPA:

Okay, this is completely out of order, but I wanted to write this before I forgot. As I write this I am close to the end of my trip here. My first fieldwork (after a weekend in the capital) was in Chinique, and then I went to Xela for the weekend, and spent part of the second week in San Andrés Sajcabajá. I then spent a week with a human rights delegation, and when that ended, I spent a weekend in Cobán. My last bit of fieldwork was to be in Zacualpa, the third town in the department of El Quiché which is heavily represented in the New Bedford Mayan community, and so I arrived on Monday, August 1, without having done a huge amount of preparation. I had contacted the alcaldía indígena -- I knew someone from the alcaldía indígena in Chinique and he was able to give me names and phone numbers for contacts in the other two towns. And I had contacted a friend with whom I'd stayed the last time I was here in 2019, a woman I'd met in 2011 and with whom I'd intermittently been in touch. I had wanted to find someone in the local Centro de Salud -- the state-sponsored health center. I'd gotten the statistics about reported infections and deaths for the entire department from one of the staff in the departmental office in Santa Cruz del Quiché, so I didn't need someone to talk about that. But I did want to talk to someone about the experience of health workers on the ground during the pandemic

I have a friend who works for the health workers' union in Santa Cruz del Quiché, and so I hurriedly texted her while I was on a long, long series of bus rides from Cobán to Zacualpa (there's no direct route so I ended up on three separate buses). Although I'd asked her about the health center, when she responded, she told me about people I could talk to about migration (those were contacts I already had). I asked again about the Centro de Salud and she said she didn't think anyone there was very interested in giving information.

When I got to Zacualpa, after leaving my bag with Doña Caty, my hostess, and chatting a bit with her, I decided to walk around and re-familiarize myself with the town. Like everywhere else, there is a lot that is new -- even since my visit in 2019. The municipal building was rebuilt after residents burned it down in 2015, dissatisfied with the elections of that year. But there were other, newer buildings -- some as high as 4 stories. I walked out on a road that I didn't know, just to stretch my legs a bit, and then when I returned to the town center, I decided on a whim to go to the Centro de Salud and see if I could make an appointment to talk with someone tomorrow (Tuesday). Thanks to Google Maps I was able to find the Centro pretty easily (I'd never been there before). There was someone at the gate, having what sounded like a complicated phone conversation. She paused her conversation to ask what i wanted and I told her it was a little complicated and I would wait. It was after 5 and so I didn't have very high hopes. When she finished her call (having ushered in a pregnant woman accompanied by an older woman, presumably her mother), I briefly explained that I wasn't looking for a medical consultation but that I was doing research about the pandemic in indigenous communities, and wanted to know if there was someone who could talk to me. She took me inside and led me to another woman, explained what I wanted, and the second woman looked into an office of the district nursing officer and said that he was in, and told him that someone wanted to see him. I cautiously entered, and explained again (this time in a little more detail) what I wanted, I apologized for intruding saying that I assumed that he wouldn't be able to talk with me but that I had just come to see if I could make an appointment for Tuesday or Wednesday. He explained that he had a report to turn in tomorrow, so I suggested Wednesday. Then he said, "Why don't we talk right now?" which was not what I had expected, and I pulled out my phone (which is what I usually use to record interviews) and notebook. 

I won't go into all the details -- I'll ave those for when I get through the more chronological narration, but it was a productive interview. Really as much a conversation as an interview, as I told him what I knew about the pandemic and the immigrant community. And then he took me around the Centro, pointing out the delivery rooms, which included one that was set up to accommodate women who came in with a midwife. This room had a regular bed (no stirrups) covered with a bedspread woven in a traditional Zacualpan pattern and a mat on the floor. On either side, there were two other more standard delivery rooms.

So, sometimes even if you're not especially well prepared, things can turn out fine. 

Revisiting the past

Another little detour here. My last post about traveling to El Quiché was mostly about the mechanics of the journey. But there's an emotional or psychic side as well. When we go back to place that we haven't seen for a while, there's always a mixture of anticipation and fear. Will the people I liked and cared about still be there? Maybe some of them have moved away, or perhaps a few have died. Will I recognize the place? And perhaps more importantly, will the place recognize me? Will the people among whom I lived many years ago -- but with only a very few of whom I have stayed in touch -- remember me? Will they still like me?

After I walked around and looked at my old house, I went into the small store that was owned by the grandparents of a friend in New Bedford. The grandmother -- I think her name is Doña Adela -- was still holding it down, and a young woman I did not recognize was keeping her company (and probably helping out). I went over to her and told her who I was -- that I'd lived in Chinique for a year, that I had been to her store several times, and that we had spent the evening together during the fiesta patronal. She looked at me somewhat blankly, not really blankly, but it was clear that she didn't really remember me. She must have been at least 65 in 2011, so she's undoubtedly close to 80 now, and it has been a long time. So that was a small disappointment. I snapped the photo above on my phone and sent it to the granddaughter in New Bedford, who immediately responded and asked me why I hadn't yet been to see her mother, Doña Chenta. I explained that I had literally just arrived and the place I was staying was right across the street from her grandmother's store and Doña Chenta's place was a little farther way, but I promised to go and say hello. 

Willy, however, the owner of the garage, remembered me well when I finally located him later that day. Of course, I lived across the street from his garage and therefore saw him at least in passing several times a week (Doña Adela's shop was about 2 blocks away). His brother had moved to Zacualpa so was no longer in the shop with him. 

We don't, of course, expect time to stand still. The adults we knew are often grayer, more bald, fatter, or thinner than they were in the past. Their faces are more careworn and show the effect of the passing years -- not just the literal time that has elapsed, but the troubles (familial, economic, political) that have beset them. Some of them are no longer with us. Children who were small are small no longer. Chubby little toddlers have become lanky adolescents.  

The children of my good friends Catarino and Sandy were, of course, not the small children I remembered, and they have had a third child in the interim, whom I had only seen in photos. Their daughter, Verónica, who was a sweet grade schooler, is now finishing up secondary school and is a huge fan of K-pop (see photo on the right). Brandon, who never spoke much when he was young but would throw himself around me and virtually smother me with hugs, is now that lanky and somewhat serious teenager, hardly recognizable. The baby - no longer an actual baby - looks very much like Brandon did when he was that age, but of course since he hasn't been accustomed to seeing me at his parents' kitchen table, he's not about to throw himself at me. 

The second day in Chinique, I went to the Centro de Salud to see if I could meet with the director, or someone who could give me a local perspective on the pandemic and its impact in the community. When I got there, the waiting room was full, mostly with women and children. There were people waiting outside as well, and one of the clinic workers was clearly giving some kind of educational talk. I could see that she wore glasses and was on crutches. I sat down, since I didn't want to disturb the talk, and waited until it was over, and then went in and asked for the director. As I was shown to his office, I recognized Doña Lola, the sister of my friend and collaborator Adrián, whom I knew worked there, and we quickly embraced. But then the woman who had been giving the talk looked at me and said, "Lisa? No me reconoces?" It was Naty, whose house I had stayed in when I first arrived in Chinique in 2011 for my Fulbright residency, and needed a place to stay while I looked for a place to rent. I hadn't recognized her at first -- she'd gained weight, and I don't think I'd seen her in her work uniform (although I knew she worked at the Centro de Salud). She asked where I was staying, and insisted that I come and stay at her house rather than paying for a lodging, I gladly accepted because it meant I'd be with friends rather than alone, and that I'd be able to cook. While I'm a very adaptable traveler in many ways, I like to drink my coffee the way I like to make it (or a good latte). I actually travel with an Aeropress coffee maker and for this trip I splurged and bought a travel model (yes, I know, a little obsessive -- so sue me). And I like having the option of not having eggs for breakfast every single day of my stay (that's what you get at most restaurants -- I've described a desayuno chapín in other posts). So I usually make one of my first stops at a supermarket, and buy the darkest roast ground coffee I can find, powdered whole milk (I don't know why we don't have this in the U.S.; powdered milk is really convenient when you travel and non-fat milk is too gross for coffee -- apologies to any vegans or skim milk fans), old-fashioned oats and carry them around with me. So staying with Naty (and her husband Oscar) meant that I could feed myself as I pleased for at least several days. I didn't move until the next day -- I felt that I needed to give notice to the person from whom I'd rented a room, and it was already mid-afternoon. 

Naty's house had grown since I was there last -- they'd added a second story, and moved the kitchen. Her daughter Jocelyn is now an adult and has a room upstairs (unmarried children, especially female, usually stay in their parents' homes until they marry and sometimes after). The last time I'd seen Oscar was by sheer coincidence -- I was at the bus station in the city of Huehuetenango waiting for a bus to Santa Eulalia, and Oscar called out to me. At that time -- this was maybe 2017? -- he was driving a microbus between Santa Cruz del Quiché and Huehuetenango; when we'd met in 2011 he was a health promoter. And now, 2022, he was working in construction, part of the crew that was constructing a new municipal building in Chinique.

I received some affectionate chiding for not having stayed in touch and for not having contacted them in advance. I told Naty that I didn't have her phone number any longer -- I've gone through a couple of telephones in Guatemala and each time I've had to get a new phone, I lose phone numbers from earlier trips. 

Another day I went to see Dona Chenta, the daughter of Doña Adela, with whom I had visited fairly often when I lived in Chinique. Doña Chenta has several children living in the U.S., and while I don't keep in close touch with them, her daughter and I follow each other on social media. I remembered very generally where her house was -- in a part of Chinique called La Cruz (because there is a large cross at the intersection of the main road out of town and a smaller, unpaved road that comes in at an sharp angle (what Guatemalans would call a cuchillo -- literally, a knife). The road that Doña Chenta lives on was still unpaved, but there were several new stores and eating places around this intersection, which  used to have nothing other than the cross, a kind of sad and dilapidated-looking gas station across the road, and maybe one small store. The gas station had gotten renovated and the whole intersection seemed more lively.. But I misremembered which side of the road her house was on, and I walked into someone else's house -- or rather onto their property, not literally into the house. I opened the gate and called out hello, and asked if it was Doña Chenta's house. The woman who lived there pointed me in the right direction and off I went. 

Doña Chenta remembered who I was and was glad to see me. I sat with her for a while as she and a helper sorted through large baskets of wild mushrooms. I asked her if she was going to sell them in the market, and she told me that she cleaned them and sent them off to sell in the capital. She didn't pick them herself but bought them from people who gathered them up in the surrounding mountains. I started to help her. As if to illustrate a point, while we were working, an old man came in bearing mushrooms he had gathered. Doña Chenta pulled out a scale, and put the mushrooms into the tray on top of the scale, and then told the man what she would pay for them. About 10 minutes after he left a woman came in, also bearing mushrooms to sell. While we were there I called her daughter on FaceBook or WhatsApp (I no longer remember) and let her speak to her mother a bit. She made her mother promise to cook me a dinner and we agreed upon the date, and that the meal would contain some of these delicious-looking mushrooms.