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.