Pandemic-era Guatemala -- the decision to travel

Three years have passed since my last visit to Guatemala. It seems a lifetime ago. When the pandemic began in early 2020, I knew that I wouldn't be traveling for a while. I often go to Guatemala during the winter break, and it's stretching back too far to remember when - well before the pandemic had really entered with force -- I decided that I wouldn't go to Guatemala during late 2019/early 2020. Perhaps I thought I would work on the interviews I'd conducted in the summer (I didn't really work on them). I'm not sure what the thought process was, but sometime in fall 2019, I had decided to postpone a trip until the following summer. And then, of course, that didn't happen.

For the first few months of the pandemic I wasn't traveling to Massachusetts, where I've worked with the Central American community in New Bedford for over a decade. My university had gone virtual and I was teaching remotely, and for a short while, Rhode Island wasn't allowing out-of-state travelers (or maybe it was specifically from New York, as during the early stages of the pandemic New York was the epicenter) and there was no easy way to get to New Bedford without passing through Rhode Island. 

However, sometime in May 2020, I think, I started to travel to New Bedford to work with the immigrant community. That is worth another couple of blog entries, but the TLDR version is that the organization I've worked with for well over a decade, Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (CCT), which is in essence focused on labor rights, had to pivot as did so many immigrant-serving organizations and start looking for resources to provide material aid to the local immigrant community, which was hit hard by the pandemic. Immigrant workers in New Bedford are clustered in several key industries -- principally seafood processing, recycling, garment/textile, and construction. These are not the kinds of jobs that lend themselves to working remotely (no one is going to drop off 100 lbs. of scallops in the shell at your apartment so you can shell them and classify them by size), and at least initially the company owners or supervisors weren't taking many sanitary measures (social distancing, thorough disinfecting, and providing masks and sanitizer for their employees). Many became sick; others had their hours cut as production dropped (the restaurants that purchased the finished product closed at least temporarily); others stayed home to care for their children when schools closed. So we began to look for funds to purchase food, gift cards, and provide some housing assistance. 

I started to formulate a research project about the impact of COVID on the immigrant community, and traveling to Guatemala was always part of the plan. But it had to be put on hold as the pandemic continued to rage through the U.S. and soon afterwards, in Guatemala. Although people I know from the U.S. did travel to Guatemala during this time (the first two years of the pandemic), I held off, feeling that prudence was the better part of valor. 

One thing I began to notice, several months into the pandemic, was that we were continuing to get new arrivals, principally from Guatemala. It might have been in the second summer, 2021, when we started to do vaccine awareness and promotion. When people came to get food bags, gift cards, and/or checks, we had a simple intake form. Although there was no question on the form that asked how long people had been in the U.S., we did ask people if they had been vaccinated, and a few people who said yes told me that they had been vaccinated at the border. I didn't get around to interviewing these new arrivals (I took a few phone numbers but never managed to follow up) but filed the information away -- not specific names, but the fact that New Bedford was continuing to receive new arrivals.

It seemed to me that in addition to conducting research in the community in New Bedford, I should look at the way that the pandemic was affecting the communities from which the immigrants had originally come -- and also to try and explore some of the dynamics that were prompting migration during the pandemic (spoiler alert: many people are leaving now for the same sorts of reasons that people migrated in earlier periods -- poverty, lack of job opportunities, violence, crop failures due in large part to global warming, lack of arable land due to the land grabs and other activities of mining, palm oil and other extractive industries). 

Finally, I decided that the time had come. Clearly the pandemic wasn't going away, either in the U.S. or in Guatemala. And although I haven't been reckless during the pandemic -- I've mostly masked when going into indoor locations and in crowds, and once we started having in-person classes in the 2021-2022 academic year, I taught with a mask most of the time (I very occasionally lowered it when I was well away from students and needed to emphasize something). But I know people who literally almost never went outside their homes and that wasn't me. I kept running (with a mask for the first several months but mostly alone), went to museums and movies once they opened, went to the opera, started running with groups again, participated in non-virtual races once those started happening again, participated in Black Lives Matter protests, did mutual aid food deliveries and so forth. So I had spent a fair amount of time with other people during the two years-plus of the pandemic. I had been fully vaccinated (two shots plus a booster -- and now the second booster shortly before my departure). And although I knew that Guatemala still had a lot of infections and a fairly low vaccination rate, I made up my mind to travel, thinking that it was important to look at the conditions in the communities from which most of the immigrants to New Bedford have come. The vast majority of the Central American population in New Bedford is from Guatemala, and most of the Guatemalans are indigenous Maya K'iche' people from the department of El Quiché -- a mostly rural, mountains, and extremely poor region in the northwest of the country. It's part of what is generally referred to as the altiplano occidental (western highlands), and the population is over 90% indigenous in most areas. 

To narrow it down even further, most of the Maya K'iche' migrants in New Bedford come from three specific municipalities (a municipality is the equivalent of a township): San Andrés Sajcabajá, Chinique de las Flores, and Zacualpa. There are a few from other municipalities but that's where the bulk of the migrants come from. People tend to migrate to places where they know someone -- a relative, a spouse, a friend, a neighbor. Someone who can put them up for a while, and who can help them find a job. Most of the jobs in the low-wage sector of the local economy are not advertised through any formal means but through word of mouth (or the temporary employment agencies that most immigrants work through -- "temporary" is kind of a joke as I know immigrants who have been at the same workplace for 15 or more years but are still employed through a temp agency). So, since this is a relatively short trip, I've limited myself to those three municipalities.

And so here I am.

Santa Maria Nebaj: Open Wounds

Well, friends, it's been nearly two years since I've written in the blog. Occasionally someone will send a note and say, "I've enjoyed your blog" and that brings with it a pang of guilt. Here's what I started to write in August 2019 during my last trip to Guatemala:

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After an only partially successful weekend in Zacualpa, I set out for Nebaj. The bus rides were uneventful and I arrived in the early afternoon. I went directly to the offices of the alcaldía indígena (inidgenous mayoralty) -- the traditional authorities -- which were located on the central square of the town (parque central). On one side stands the central cathedral -- although Evangelical Christianity has made substantial inroads throughout the entire country, including in rural areas, most of the town centers date from an era when the Catholic Church was the only ecclesiastical authority in town, and so the main Catholic church is always at the center of the town. Two sides of the square are filled with storefronts -- including one shiny new "centro commercial" (shopping center) that definitely hadn't been there when I visited Nebaj briefly in 2016. The center of the town was much more built up than I recalled; a colleague who has worked in the area for several years says that one of the nicknames is Nebaj-York. It's certainly the largest and most "developed" (a loaded word) of the three Ixil municipalities; both Cotzal and Chajul are much smaller and less "urbanized". Nebaj now seems to be at the center of a small but lively tourist industry -- there are a few hotels with signage in English.

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And that was all she wrote. It's hard now to reconstruct the trip. I don't know that I took especially good notes, head notes or written notes, or where they might be. I visited several rural communities always in the company of someone from the  alcaldía indígena. We reached most of these places on foot, starting out early and walking up into the mountains. Lots of time for talking and reflecting. One of my companions had been in the guerrilla; he'd left home when he was in his late teens and spent many years away from his family and home. I visited people who had been displaced by the war, who had lived in exile for many years, and then returned and tried to rebuild their lives. 

In one community, a mural that commemorated the armed conflict had recently been painted over, but we looked at the school wall where it had been. 

But right now I'm just going to post this rather than try to reconstruct a trip from two years ago. 

Zacualpa: reflecting back

I'm writing about Zacualpa two weeks after visiting there, and after having visited Nebaj, Rabinal and Comalapa, all of which are areas that are relatively "new" to me. I had visited Nebaj once before, but just for two days, and it wasn't really research. A friend had invited me to pass the New Year with her, so I squeezed in a short visit to Nebaj, but really only spent time with her and her family. We did attend the installation of the new auxiliary indigenous authorities, in a formal ceremony followed by a lavish meal at the home of one, who happened to be my friend's aunt. Granted, I had established a relationship with a important community leader in Nebaj, and that smoothed the way for my research. But I had never visited Rabinal or Comalapa before, and just established contacts there shortly before visiting. 

So the irony is, that I did not find anyone in Zacualpa -- a place I had visited on numerous previous occasions -- who was available to talk to me about anything -- that is, anyone who could give me any insight into the decision to preserve the chapels, to create a memory site in the church. To return to the narrative of my visit, I arrived at the cloister not having succeeded in making any advance contact. I walked in and talked to a very pleasant nun who told me that Juliana was out. I hadn't had any way of reaching Juliana before I arrived -- I had once had a phone number for her, many years ago, but that was on a cell phone that has long since been either lost, stolen or out of use. The nun told me that she didn't know when Juliana would be back and I said I would wait, and would use the time to look around the chapels. I took photographs and detailed notes. Then Juliana arrived, looking somewhat flustered. I greeted her and explained that I had wanted to talk with her and apologized for not having gotten in touch with her beforehand, and showing up unannounced, but said that I hadn't known how to reach her and no longer had her phone number. She said that she had lost her phone some time ago and hadn't replaced it (so I wouldn't have been in any better shape if I had had her phone number). But she didn't seem especially friendly or glad to see me. She told me she was busy, that she had to make up packages that had to be sent to Italy. I told her I would be happy to help her; she could just tell me what to do and I would follow her instructions and we could talk as we packed. But she demurred -- I don't remember precisely what she said but it was clear she didn't want my help. And she said she had to go out and get more materials for the packages.

I asked her when she thought she might be finished -- tomorrow? Another day? I said that I could come back to Zacualpa at another time. She gave a vague answer, she didn't know how long it would be. Next week sometime, I asked? She wouldn't say. I didn't want to keep her, so I apologized again. I asked her if there were someone else who could talk with me. She mentioned the name of one man and said that I could talk with him. I noted it down and thanked her.

Now, big caveat here. I know full well that when a researcher shows up unannounced, people have their everyday lives in full swing and they are not going to drop everything to accommodate my schedule. So I didn't expect to be greeted with a brass band. But this was someone I had known and spoken with during earlier visits. She had always greeted me with a warm smile, and had on some occasions gone out of her way to walk me over to the home of someone she thought I should meet. So, I would have expected her to at least express some pleasure at my presence (as had the nun whom I had never met before; she ushered me into her office, sat down and calmly heard me out; she made me feel very welcome, even though she was relatively new to the parish and was not even from Guatemala). But there was no warmth or pleasure from Juliana, and I left the parish with pages of notes on what I had seen, but without anyone providing some back story and context. Obviously she had many other things on her mind, on her plate, and I was just parachuting in for a quick stop, so perhaps I shouldn't have expected more.

The priest who had initiated (so I had been told) the project had died some years back. And most of the nuns who had been involved were no longer in this parish.

Somewhat disappointed, I left the parish and wandered through the market. Many years back I had befriended a young woman named Ana who had a small shop selling fabric and artisanal items, and I thought I could find my way by memory to her shop, and so I did. She was there, and pleasantly surprised to see me. We chatted a bit about family and so forth. returned to Doña Caty's home and told her what had happened. She was surprised. So we talked about who else could help me. She mentioned the same man that Juliana had mentioned, and told me that he lived about a block away. She gave me rough instructions about where to find his house, and told me that he was related in some way to Doña Caty, or at least that Doña Caty knew him.

I returned to Doña Caty's house and told her what had happened. She, too, thought it was strange that Juliana had not wanted to talk with me (that was how she put it; I preferred to view it "she was not able to talk with" but Doña Caty insisted that it was "didn't want to talk"). Not about to argue with my hostess. I told her about the man that both Juliana and Ana (my friend) had mentioned. Doña Caty said that he was related to her ex-husband and that she wasn't the person to introduce me to him because there was still bitterness, and that she thought he wouldn't be likely to want to talk in any case.

She thought a bit and then mentioned a woman whom she knew who had been active in the church, and could possibly talk with me. We walked to the store that the woman's family ran, but we were told that she was out selling at the market (by this time it was Sunday, market day in Zacualpa, and so all shops are open and many small shop keepers whose establishments are farther away from the market open up a stall in the market to take advantage of the opportunity to make some sales. 

So, we said we'd wait until the woman returned. She arrived in about 10 or 15 minutes, but seemed a bit flustered. "Ay, if you had told me in advance, I would have made some time", she said. "But I've just gotten back from the market and I'm tired." So we said goodbye and left. 

As we walked back to Doña Caty's house, she remarked "She didn't want to talk." She went on, "I'm not sure why no one wants to talk." I said I didn't understand either, since I wasn't asking anyone to talk about their experiences or their losses during the conflict, just how the parish set up the chapels and got the mural painted. 

So, I had to leave it at that. I saw what I could see, took notes, took photographs, and will have to interpret or describe as best I can on my own. 

Yes, I'm an outsider. Yes, I only came for a short time and we all know that in order to really do in depth fieldwork you need to spend a long time in the community. But Juliana is someone I know, or at least someone I knew. And, as I noted earlier, in the communities where I really had only contacted people for the first time a day or two in advance of my visit, they were much more welcoming. These other places were not communities where there was no conflict or contestation over history. As I will describe in another blog, the posters along the outside wall of the cemetery in Rabinal were torn up. Monuments installed in the cemetery were defaced and damaged. So the history of the war, and which narrative(s) get told, is still being debated in these other places. 

Zaculpa: las capillas

Returning to our trip around the cloister in Zacualpa, the cloister is a beautiful and tranquil space. It's hard to imagine what it must have looked and felt like during the conflict, when it was turned into a veritable charnel-house. There are a few small well-tended courtyards, flush with plants, and garden in the back. There are dormitories and classrooms, a kitchen and dining room for the nuns, along with their living quarters, and an office. I may be leaving something out, as I didn't poke into every nook and cranny. Within the cloister there are two small chapels, one of which was used for torture - -this is the one closest to the entrance. And the second chapel, farther back, was used as a mass grave. 

But before you get to the first chapel there are two more walls, after the mural, that illustrate some of the relevant history.  They contain framed or mounted photographs with captions, including ones that document some of the forensic work and exhumations that uncovered the remains of many of the victims.  The image on the left shows one wall of photographs and the image on the right is the first photograph. The caption describes the entire town being affected after the army occupied the church in 1981. The town was semi-deserted. "In the rural hamlets the population was razed to the ground, hundreds of men, women, children and old people were assassinated and displaced, their homes and crops destroyed."

Subsequent photographs show results of exhumations, with careful labels about the date and site. Some include human remains -- to the left is a skull and a good part of a human skeleton, with the label "Potrero Viejo" (one of the aldeas that is fairly close to the town center). "The ones who were kidnapped, disappeared, those that were buried alive, those who were killed, were located together with the evidence of the martyrdom that they were subjected to before dying."


Other photographs, in color, show some of the funeral processions. An important part of the process is the identification, more recently through DNA testing, of the remains. I was told that it sometimes takes up to 10 years for a positive identification to be made. Then the remains are returned to the families for reburial. In some cases victims were able to be identified by other means (fragments of clothing or jewelry, other forms of identification). Very often several sets of remains were returned at the same time and so there were group reburials, solemn and significant community events. 


Burial in one's home soil is very important to Mayans, whether they are Catholic, Evangelical or practice traditional Mayan spirituality (or some combination of Catholicism/Evangelical Christianity and Mayan spirituality). People regularly visit the graves of their deceased loved ones, not only on the Day of the Dead but at other times throughout the year (the person's birthday, the anniversary of his or her death if known). So even having a small part of a loved one's body or fragment of clothing means that their spirit can finally rest once it is buried. 

Along the wall facing the entrance, the wall that forms the outside of the Capilla de Tortura, the Chapel of Torture, are more photographs, these ones unframed and covered in plastic wrap, making it hard to photograph without some glare from the daylight.

The chapel itself has been changed somewhat since I was there several years ago. I have photographs from that time, and those are the images that are etched in my mind. When I first visited, there were bloody handprints visible on one of the walls. The nun who showed me the chapel, Sor Ana Maria, explained to me that some Italian volunteers had come to work on cleaning up the church and they had started to wash off the handprints. Someone from the church stopped them before they could eradicate them completely, explaining that it was important that the traces of the war be left for people to remember. There was a piece of the floor that had been turned into a lid or door, with a handle, covering up an area where bodies had been interred; the top was left  open and the bare earth left exposed. 

Now the chapel looks much "cleaner". The hole in the floor has been covered up. There is a carved and painted statue of a woman kneeling, wearing the traditional garments of Zacualpa. There is still one metal door handle on one of the rafters -- these were used to hang torture victims by their hands. And there is still an array of small wooden crosses made by victims' relatives, bearing names and dates (if known), hanging from the ceiling. But it somehow looked more sanitized, less hand-made, than it had years back. I am looking through some photographs but I cannot find the originals from 2009 or 2010 when I first visited, just images on powerpoint presentations that I cannot figure out how to copy.

The second chapel, La Capilla del Pozo (the chapel of the grave or tomb) is a darker, more reflective space. There are thirteen beautifully carved dark wooden chairs, the size usually considered "child-sized", lined around the perimeter of the room. I don't know if the number 13 was deliberate, or if that was simply an accident. There is a table on one side, a cross on the wall in the front, and an exposed patch of dirt in the middle. As you can see in the photograph on the right, it is round, ringed with flower petals, a ring of white and a ring of yellow petals, with a vase of flowers in the center of the ring. A cross made of flower petals extends below, forming the symbol for "woman". There was no one to talk with me and tell me how or why this came to be. Clearly, the candles and flowers are replenished every so often, but I am not clear on who precisely tends this chapel, whether it is just one of the duties rotated among the various nuns who are assigned to this parish, or whether it is a group of lay people from the community.

One final artifact in the cloister caught my eye: a small poster on an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, in a plastic sleeve, taped on a wall under a light switch, reading "Jesuit network with migrants Guatemala". The church has also houses a small office where volunteers have provided some advice and support to returned or deported migrants; I wasn't able to find out whether that office is still functioning but I did visit it on some of my earlier trips to Guatemala. 

Zacualpa lagniappe: Doña Caty

Doña Catarina, or Doña Caty, was more than generous in opening her home to me, and trying her best to provide me with contacts for people who might talk with me about the various markers and memory sites. At first, she hadn't quite understood what I was after -- she thought that I wanted to talk with people about the war itself. It took a few minutes of conversation face to face -- not over the phone or via WhatsApp messages -- to explain that I was really interested in the representation of the war more than people's experiences of the traumas. 

As we spent time together over the two days I was in Zacualpa, she told me a little of her own story. She was a mother with young children when the army attacked. She wasn't living in the house she currently occupies but in an aldea. She fled with her children, and joined people who had also fled to (relative) safety in the mountains and forests. I don't know whether she was technically living in what were considered Comunidades del Pueblo en Resistencia (Communities of People in Resistance) -- that term usually refers to settlements that were established by people who had to flee as longer-term refuges. When I was in Nebaj, I talked to people who had lived in the CPRs for 14, 15 or 16 years. It wasn't entirely clear in our conversation exactly how long Doña Caty stayed in the mountains with a group of people -- it seems like several months at least, possibly longer. 

She told me that she had trained as a comadrona -- a midwife. So while she and her children were in hiding, she attended to pregnant women who were giving birth in the mountains, as well as women with young children, since there were no other medical people around. I hadn't known she was a midwife, and I don't think she attends births any more, as she is very occupied with her work as a leader and organizer. 

She had been active as a local leader in CCDA, the Comité Campesino para el Desarrollo del Altiplano, when I first met her in 2011, and also worked with victims of domestic violence. On one of the two mornings I was there, I came back to the house at midday to find her downstairs "sala" (it means both "hall" and "living room") filled to overflowing with women (and about 3 men) who were gathered for a regional meeting of CCDA. Although the meeting was entirely in K'iche', she invited me to come in and explained who I was. I asked her if I could have a moment to tell them about the human rights delegation that I had been part of in 2018, since part of our mission was to talk with members of CCDA about the threats and assassinations that members of the organization had experienced. She agreed; I spoke for just a couple of minutes and then she translated (or summarized) into K'iche' for me. After that everyone wanted to take a picture with me. There were too many to fit into a single frame inside the cramped room so we took a couple (one of which is above).

Leaving the city: return to Zacualpa. The mural in the cloister.

While I wanted to speak to the people who had established the small museum on La Sexta, La Casa de la Memoria Kaji Tulam, I decided that I needed to get out of the city and visit what I had determined would be the three principal sites for the article that I plan to write (that I agreed to write). So I packed up and readied myself to travel back to the department of el Quiché, which I have not visited in several years. 

My original connection with El Quiché, and the reason I had chosen to live in the department when I did my Fulbright in 2011, was through the Mayan community in New Bedford. Nearly all of the Maya in New Bedford were from El Quiché, and most of them were from 3 or 4 towns clustered in one part of the department: Chinique, Zacualpa, and San Andres Sajcabajá. There were a few from other towns: Chichicastenango, Santa Cruz del Quiché, and the Ixcán. 

I had initially visited Zacualpa because several of the immigrants who were caught up in the 2007 ICE raid that resulted in 361 people being taken into detention were from Zacualpa, and I had come to visit their families. I had visited the parish hall several times during the years that I either lived in El Quiché or traveled there more regularly, but had never really systematically examined all the details and taken notes. 

I was hoping to be able to talk to someone in the parish who was familiar with the history of the establishment of the two chapels that have been turned into memory sites. The nun whom I had met when I first traveled to Zacualpa in 2009, Sor Ana Maria, who  had first shown me the chapel of torture, was no longer in Guatemala; I knew from her Facebook posts that she was doing mission work in Africa although I hadn't kept close tabs on her. Sor Ana Maria had taken me along with her in her jeep to visit some rural communities where she went to deliver messages against early marriage (families effectively selling off their 13 and 14-year old daughters). There was another woman I'd met at the church, named Juliana. She wasn't a nun but lived in the parish and worked there. People referred to her as Hermana (sister) Juliana, as distinguished from Sor -- which also means sister but refers specifically to a member of a religious order. She had always been very friendly to me, taking me to meet people in the community. Once she escorted me to the house of an older man who was involved in some of the parish's projects. I sometimes was invited to have tea or lunch with the nuns and Juliana.

But this was all years ago and I hadn't kept in touch with people in Zacualpa very much. One of the families of New Bedford migrants that I had visited many times ended up leaving Zacualpa and moving to another community because of threats; all the remaining members have now come to the United States.

So, I was trying to figure out how to re-establish some contact with someone there. There was a woman I'd met through the women's organization that I'd volunteered with, Asociación por Nosotras Ixmukané, named Doña Catarina Hernández or Doña Caty as most people called her. She was very active with a number of organizations, not just Ixmukané. She was a local leader with a national peasant rights organization, CCDA (the Comité Campesina para el Desarrollo del Altiplano), and a women's rights advocate. I'd been in touch with her a few times around 2012 and 2013because she had been helping someone I knew who was a victim of gender-based violence. We'd re-established contact through Facebook and I knew that she had become active in one of the small leftist political parties, Winaq (this was the party that had fielded Rigoberta Menchú for president in 2011). The word "winaq" means both "people" or "person" and the number 20 in K'iche'. I was taught that the reason the same word stands for both "person" and "20" is that we have 20 digits (10 toes, 10 fingers), so it's symbolic in Mayan mathematics.

I'd reached out to Doña Caty and explained (I thought) my project and asked if she could help find people in the parish who could talk with me. I'd specifically asked to see if she could find Juliana, because I'd read a description of the chapels However, she'd been very busy traveling around at meetings and workshops and the one time she'd been able to stop by the parish 

Most of the times I've traveled to el Quiché it's been in my own vehicle, so I've had the freedom to leave when I wanted.. but also the necessity of dealing with asshole drivers (which abound in this country) and maneuvering in what is sometimes treacherous and endless traffic. Lines that snake and barely move for what seems like (and sometimes is) literally hours on end. There is often construction on some part of the Inter-American highway, the main roadway that runs roughly northwest from the capital. It just skirts the edge of El Quiché, at an intersection called Los Encuentros (the encounters) and then heads off towards Quetzaltenango, Huehuetenango, and the border will Mexico at a place called La Mesilla. There is a fork in the road at Los Encuentros; all sides of the intersection are lined with small food stands selling sausages, grilled corn, grilled meats, and other quick bites. The highway that continues on to the Mexican border is a four-lane road for part of the way, and then dwindles back to two lanes (I don't know what it does after Huehuetenango since I've never traveled farther north). But the road going into El Quiché is full of speed bumps and hairpin turns that wind up and down mountains. I think I once counted all the speed bumps between Los Encuentros and Chichicastenango, which is about 18 kilometers north, and there were over 60. 

I packed my bags and got an Uber to take me to the bus "terminal" (basically just an area where a lot of buses line up in seeming chaos, and men roam around shouting out the names of destinations and hustling passengers onto the appropriate (one hopes) buses. I managed to get myself onto a bus to Los Encuentros, and aside from the always-interminable traffic leaving the city, the trip was uneventful. Well, and aside from the fact that the bus "jockey" whom I asked about buses to Zacualpa gave me incorrect information -- not surprising.  Everyone around the bus terminal is being paid by drivers for one or another bus company -- there are countless small bus companies, all unregulated. We stopped and asked for the name of a particular company that Doña Caty had told me about, but were told that there weren't any more buses that day leaving directly from the capital. Because it was so chaotic at the terminal, and I had a large suitcase, and didn't want to go traipsing back and forth asking multiple times about buses, I agreed to get on a bus to Los Encuentros and change buses there. I was successfully deposited off the bus at Los Encuentros, made my way across the busy intersection to the road that heads off into El Quiché, only to see the exact bus that I had been looking for in the capital come by about 15 minutes later and take on passengers (one of whom was me). Fortunately, Doña Caty lives right along the bus route. I called her when I was getting close to Zacualpa and she asked to speak to the driver or the ayudante, saying "I travel on those buses all the time and I know all the drivers." So I passed the phone to the ayudante and she told him where to drop me (I had been to her house before, but traveling with a group so I hadn't had to really take note of exactly where it was situated along the main road). 

Duly delivered at my destination, I then set out to see if I could talk with anyone at the parroquia. Doña Caty told me that she hadn't been able to get there until one evening that week, and by the time she arrived there really wasn't anyone around for her to talk with. So I decided that the best plan was just to walk over and see if I could talk to anyone, and if not, just take note of what I found.

The cloister where the nuns live is directly to the left as you face the main church building, which lies at one end of the central plaza of the town. There is a courtyard as you enter, with a large white cross in the center of the courtyard with the word "Martires" (Martyrs) spelled out in metal letters emanating from the top of the cross. The cross was added more recently, I think in 2012 or 2013 -- it definitely wasn't there when I visited Zacualpa numerous times in 2011. More recent additions include a slide and some swings for children who accompany their parents to church or market.

One side of the courtyard (to the right in this photo) is the external wall of the church). Straight ahead, the "back walls" of some of the rooms of the cloister. The other two sides contain offices and meeting rooms for various sub-entities of the parish, with a covered walkway (portico or colonnade, if you want to get all architectural) that provides shade, and also a place for people to sit as they wait -- either to be attended in one of the offices, or simply to have a place to rest. On market days (Sundays) the courtyard is usually pretty crowded with people seeking shade and seating. 

I rang the buzzer at the entrance to the cloister and a pleasant-faced nun answered. I explained what I was there for, that I had been to the church many times before, and had known Sor Ana Maria, and had spoken to Hermana Juliana in the past. She told me that she had only been at the parish for two years, and that Juliana had gone out and she wasn't sure when she would be back.

Therefore, I decided to use my time by just looking at the facilities and taking detailed notes. The first wall after you enter the cloister is covered with the mural that you see on the right. The legend at the top reads, "When everything (or everyone) came to light, that revived (or resuscitated) my people (or my town)." 

The trajectory of the mural is similar to the much larger ones I saw at the Police Archives and later in Comalapa. You "read" the murals from left to right, and they start either with the "before" (before the invasion, before the war) or the "during", and then end with the aftermath and the future.

This one begins with the "during", with hamlets ablaze, people fleeing. Soldiers with automatic weapons loom over the scene of disaster, and one menacing  helmeted soldier peers over. In the center is the church building with smoke coming out of the roof, followed by figures of priests and nuns. At the very center is the figure of Monseñor Juan Gerardi, the Archbishop of Guatemala City, who initiated the massive church-sponsored project of gathering testimonies about what happened in the armed conflict, La Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica (The Recovery of Historical Memory, colloquially referred to as REMHI). I've written about Msr. Gerardi before but am repeating it here in case anyone is just starting with this blog entry -- he was killed just two days after the publication of the REMHI report. 

Behind him, scales of justice, and then the process of unearthing the dead. Women bearing wooden coffins on their heads, faces of the dead etched into the hillsides, corn planted among the crosses bearing the names of victims (one says "Mama", another "Papa" and so on). Behind them, a Mayan priest or guía espiritual (spiritual guide) indicated by the flowing red scarf around his head. He and others are gathered around a sacred fire -- a constant element of Mayan ceremoniality.

We then move onto the possibilities for the future: a woman kneels grieving at a grave site, while another woman is reaching out either to comfort her or to guide her away from the gravesite. They are both facing the past, although the second woman has one foot angled away from the past. A man clad in white with a red belt (traditional garments -- while most Mayan women in Zacualpa wear güipils and cortes, I've yet to see a man or boy wearing them except in the context of a ceremony or a dance performance) has his arm on the second woman, and one leg pointing to the viewer (the present). His other leg is angled towards the future, as he is following a heavily pregnant woman, who walks in front of him, signaling that new life and new possibilities await. Overlooking this all is a white-robed (and dark skinned) angel, with arms outspread. 

"Safe third country"?

In the background of all my meanderings and musings about history has been the unfolding drama about the "safe third country" agreement that the U.S. was trying to force down Guatemala's throat. At the same time, I've continued to receive requests for expert testimony from lawyers representing Guatemalans, including some families who had been separated at the border. Yup, still going on, folks.

People here have been pissed off at President Morales pretty much since he was elected, since he rode into office on the coattails of a massive protest movement that went on for months and toppled the government of his predecessor, former  general (and probably war criminal, as he was a military commander of the notorious G-2 in the Ixil region, where numerous massacres took place during the conflict) Otto Pérez Molina. Like Trump, Morales had no prior political experience and was an entertainer (known for his blackface performances and equally offensive caricatured portrayals of indigenous Guatemalans). He was supported by the military and has continued the same sorts of policies as Pérez Molina -- more privatization, more encouragement of foreign transnationals tearing up the environment against the wishes of the community, more criminal prosecutions (or attempted prosecutions) of indigenous and peasant leaders who have protested land grabs, energy rate hikes and the imposition of extractivist mega projects. There has also been a steep rise in the assassinations of indigenous and peasant leaders during his watch -- although the army and the police are not necessarily the ones who have pulled the triggers, but the government has been notoriously sluggish in its response to these assassinations. Swift to bring charges against those who protest, but foot-dragging in the extreme to investigate attacks, threats and assassinations of those protestors and protest organizers. 19 women leaders have been assassinated thus far in 2019 -- or at least that was the statistic on July 31. I don't have a figure offhand for men leaders who have suffered a similar fate but I'd wager that it's at least as high.  

In addition, Guatemala has some of the highest rates in the hemisphere of chronic and extreme malnutrition, particularly of children. This is concentrated in some of the more remote and mostly rural departments with predominantly indigenous populations. We're talking about the kind of malnutrition that leads to permanent cognitive damage, not just hunger and distended bellies. Maternal mortality is high, as well as infant mortality. Schools in rural areas are inadequately funded, and in most areas in order to obtain an education beyond sixth grade (the end of primary school), it's necessary to travel to another town (walking for hours) because most rural areas don't offer anything beyond sixth grade. That implies expenses even if public schools are nominally free. You need shoes, you need books, you need a backpack, you need other supplies (since the schools usually don't have them). Poor families in areas with no running water, or limited potable water, scratching out a meager subsistence on hilly, rocky land, often need the labor of every family member -- water has to be carried, clothes have to be washed, crops planted, tended and gathered, firewood has to be gathered so that food can be cooked.... 

Extreme poverty -- as defined by the United Nations -- also characterizes these rural areas. There is little paid employment, and wages for agricultural work (people who don't have land of their own to farm, or insufficient land, hire themselves out to their neighbors) are extremely low. Because of years of drought, there have been crop failures in many areas. I traveled through areas where the corn - the staple of most people's diet -- had all withered. What do people do when they have nothing to eat? They can go into debt -- mortgaging their homes or their lands, taking out loans at usurious rates of interest. Many money lenders charge 10% compounded monthly. Yup, you got that right. The debt load increases exponentially. People borrow money to migrate in order to repay the debts they have already incurred.

A few days ago a feminist colleague here posted a statistic about unwanted pregnancies among girls: over 100,000 in 2018 alone (this from a report published on the Human Rights Ombudsman's webpage). The overwhelming majority of pregnancies among girls under the age of 15 or 16 is rape or incest and often both -- young girls are subject to sexual assault by their older brothers, cousins, uncles, fathers, stepfathers. I was stunned by the statistic. I work on sexual assault asylum cases and I've read the affidavits of women and girls who have detailed how their male relatives abused them, often threatening them with physical harm if they told any. Other relatives often discredit the girls' accounts if they do dare to "tell". So the girls learn to hide their pain and keep their stories of rape and violence to themselves. When they become pregnant -- as many obviously do; no one is using condoms when they rape a child and clearly no child is in a position to demand that one be used, presuming that she even knows the basics of human reproduction -- they are sometimes kicked out by their families.

The case of the 43 girls who died in the Hogar Seguro (ironically, "Safe Home") fire -- a shelter for abandoned, runaway, or "problem" girls -- on International Women's Day in 2017 is another instance of the state being incapable or unwilling to protect its citizens, including the most vulnerable. Short history: the shelter was notorious for poor treatment of the girls and boys interned there(lack of recreation and educational facilities -- it is supposed to be a shelter, not a prison), and there were numerous complaints of sexual abuse, dating back at least to 2013. None of the residents had criminal charges against them, but were in the facility for a variety of reasons. Some of the young people staged a breakout on March 7. They were captured and returned; the staff locked some of the girls into a very small space known as "the school" as punishment and to prevent another breakout. The facility's staff called President Morales to inform him of the situation. On March 8, International Women's Day, the residents had planned to protest the physical and sexual abuse but a fire broke out. The firefighters were not able to gain access because there were locked doors. Several girls were already dead by the time authorities were able to get in, and others died in the hospital from burns and CO2 poisoning. 

The tragedy led to a series of protests, since many hold the state accountable for what happened -- for not investigating several years' worth of complaints about sexual abuse and other mistreatment of minors in its tutelage, for not holding the facility's staff accountable (which contributed to a climate that gave license to the staff to lock the girls into a small space, which they somehow were then unable to unlock when a fire broke out???). #FueElEstado (it was the state) was the slogan of the subsequent protests.

So, if the state cannot protect its own citizens, if it cannot provide potable water, education, health care, employment and security to its own citizens, what can it possibly provide to Hondurans and Salvadorans escaping similar situations in their own countries?