Una semana en los pueblos Maya: Capitulo 1

The past week has been a roller coaster.

Monday: pre-departure briefing
Tuesday: Antigua to Guate, then El Estor.
Wednesday: El Estor and the surrounding communities (Lote Ocho)
Thurday: El Estor to Rabinal
Friday: Rabinal
Saturday: Rabinal to Rio Negro
Sunday: Rio Negro to Guate, then back to Antigua

I'm going to have around three blog entries to try an recount my experience and my reflections on the past week.

A funny story. The best bakery in Antigua is Dona Luisa, and the banana bread is the main attraction. Mariah and I wanted to stock up on some snacks for the bus ride, and a loaf of banana bread was on the top of the list. I went shopping the night before to pick everything up, and had my food and clothing spread out over my bed. Mariah needed to walk over to a friends house to pick up her backpack, and I went with her. When we got back [less than 10 minutes] i walked back into my room, and the loaf of bread had been torn out of its wrapping. There was only one half eaten piece left. It took me a few seconds realise where it had gone...I was in shock. Whisky, one of the two emaciated pets that live with us had eaten his own weight in banana bread! I had to buy a new loaf the morning of the trip.

First of all, our bus was awesome. We chartered a 'chicken bus', driven by two hilarious guatemalans, Jose Martin and Haroldo. This bus was pimped to the nines....

Yes, that is a crucifix. It hangs beneath a large wooden plaque that reads "Dios Es Amor"...there is also a picture of Jesus in a plastic ball at the top of the shifter. Aside from religious paraphernalia, the bus seats were upholstered with a paisley pattern, and there was a sweet, sweet light set up. Blue neon in the back, and a red siren light in the front. It was the coolest bus I have ever seen. period.

We headed off to Guate. 'Guate' is short for Guatemala city...one can hear shouts of "GUATE! GUATE! GUATE!" as the northbound chicken busses pickup passengers through town. Our first stop was at one of the main public cemeteries. Why a cemetery? Over the 36 years of civil war and genocide, conservative estimates place the death toll somewhere over 200,000 killed. The other aspect of repression during the war was the phenomenon of clandestine graves full disappeared persons. It is suspected that more then 50,000 persons were disappeared during the conflict...

The cemetery in Guatemala City is quite normal at first glance. There are individual graves and family estates for the rich, and large mausoleums for the middle class...

In the picture above, you can see the slums in the near distance. The construction of their houses are little better than the homes of the dead. Garbage is scattered everywhere, and the graves are quite shallow, with mounds of earth as far as the eye can see. Then...we came up to this temporary structure...

This structure was the site of a FAGA mobile laboratory. The FAGA has been doing exhumations since the armistice was signed in 1996. The cemetery in question also provided a space for paupers, nameless persons, and the bodies of families who could not continue renting the graves in the nicer plots in the cemetery. To accommodate this high demand, the cemetery created four large pits measuring 4m across, and at least 30m deep.

During the war, the inflow of nameless bodies increased dramatically. Many of these 'Jon Doe' cases [XX in Guatemala] were in actuality, the bodies of the disappeared. The challenge for the FAGA today is try and provide truth, memory and a semblance of justice to the families of the disappeared.

Thousands of bodies, dumped in bags, filled each of these massive pits. Each of the cases is a criminal case in its own right, and serves as another piece of evidence against the material and intellectual authors of the violence and repression. Because they are ongoing cases, I cannot publicly distribute photos of the exhumations.

This is a picture of four sheets of paper from inside the lab. There were eight more sheets just like these, with each number corresponding to a different body...Never in my life have I felt so close to violence and massive death. Its' sights and smells impossible to forget...