GUATEMALA
Part I
On arrival, our small bus was immediately mobbed by a hundred smiling, waving, shouting, laughing kids. They were aged 5 to 9 and formed small groups to greet, surround, hug and escort each of us coming off the bus into the building, all the while continuing to laugh, smile and shout. It was eerily similar to the scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where Richard Dreyfuss is ushered up the ramp and into the spaceship by a covey of waist-high aliens.
I had made my way to a little village called San Martin Chiquito via a 5 hour drive from Guatemala City. There are countless similar remote villages throughout Guatemala, all lacking infrastructure, decent housing, healthcare, employment, education and water that is safe to drink. Many of the rural poor are descendants of ancient civilizations such as the Mayans, and communicate exclusively in one of the 23 dialects spoken in the country. Once you move outside the capital or tourist locations like Antigua, despite the 18 active political parties, there is little evidence that a government or any other means of public support exists. The folks in these towns have their family, the church and little else.
San Martin Chiquito is a little less desperate than the rest thanks to Leslie and Mel Dinkel who have spent 25 years managing Xela-Aid, a non-profit that has made life better for many of the local families and created a future for their children. Xela-Aid usually runs 6 tours a year that combine 4 days in the village sandwiched between time spent at spots of unparalleled beauty - Antigua and Lake Atitlan. After the initial 2 days in Antigua, whose beauty definitely draws its share of tourists, I boarded a bus and set off for San Martin Chiquito with a group of 20 unsuspecting artists who thought they were in for some plein air painting in a rustic setting. No one was remotely aware of, let alone prepared, for what was to follow.
Successive waves of ecstatic kids maneuvered us into the Xela-Aid facility which is staffed by locals who oversee year-round efforts to provide meals, medical attention, clean water, education and more to needy families in the village. The children were all from families in the village that rely on these services. As the next 4 days unfolded, the desperate living conditions we encountered combined with the precious children became emotionally overwhelming. Many of the group who had simply come to paint and shop responded to the heartbreaking scene with heart warming commitments to sponsor children they became acquainted with.
Sponsorship is merely one of many financial sources that permit Xela-Aid to operate. Sponsors stay in contact with the kids and families they support and many make annual visits. One of the benefits to a sponsored child is to have their education extended beyond age 8, where without a sponsor they would have to drop out of school to begin working in the fields to help support their family. There are many success stories including sponsored kids that have completed school (even college for some) and are now working on the Xela-Aid staff.
During the days spent in San Martine Chiquito I built and delivered chicken coops (including chickens) to the homes of families that had requested them. The chickens present no expense to the family as chickens can scrounge enough to eat on their own during the day when set loose in the yard. The coop helps protect them from dogs and the like at night and most importantly, chances are going a day without food will become a thing of the past. It was the first time I ever held a live chicken in my bare hands - nothing to it.
I also helped with a painting class given to 30 kids. There is no art in their regular school so it went over as a very big deal. After I saw such a positive response from the kids to the painting class, I spent all my free time drawing with kids.
Part II
Eventually we traveled on to Lake Atitlan but I've included no pictures of this place as no existing camera or lens can handle the optics. I know this because I looked at countless photos on the internet taken in an attempt to capture this scene and not one was worth the effort. When I was a kid I spent the night on top of Mount Whitney a couple of times in order to catch the sunrise. The sights of those mornings can't begin to match up with this place. Approaching the lake from the south, we came over a rise to find an impossibly huge expanse of water that spread left -to-right the full 180 degrees. The lake reached from the foreground below our clifftop vantage point to the distant horizon, along which ran a series of volcanoes. The massive scale of the lake and surrounding volcanic peaks was actually disorienting. It seemed as though you were looking at the edge of the planet and it very well just might be flat after all. We spent a day and a half at the lake during which we couldn't take our eyes off it.
Our hotel at the lake was built into a cliff, sat dangling over the water, and was totally isolated - reached only by boat. On the day before we left for home, I discovered there was a very small village adjacent to the hotel that was within walking distance. I saw this as a chance to see firsthand what things were like in a Guatemalan village without the support of a Xela-Aid. I climbed the steep set of staircases hewn from the cliff and made my way far above the hotel where I found a narrow path that led east. The path began a gradual descent across the face of the cliff until it approached the level of the lake and became a tunnel engulfed by foliage, wild flowers and banana trees. I emerged from the tunnel at a spot where an ancient footbridge crossed a ravine and reached the edge of the village. The village began at the edge of the lake and ran a half mile up a canyon. There were no streets or roads and thus no automobiles - just paths for foot traffic. The place was just as isolated as the hotel and reached only by boat.
I walked about a hundred yards and sat down to sketch a small yard featuring laundry on a clothesline, a sleeping dog and an intricate stone retaining wall. Five minutes later I was handing out materials to a group of kids that were eager to give it a go. We had no verbal means of communication but gestures, nods, and silly noises seemed to be all that was needed. Thirty minutes later we had several nice pieces which I had them sign and keep with some materials. A few of the kids insisted on dragging me over to the village playground where they wanted to continue drawing. Some kids stayed behind and others joined as we moved along, The playground had a single slide and save for a 10-foot square space was carpeted with dog shit.
It was at the playground that I learned the Spanish word for "pencil sharpener" is "sacapunta" which I still find fascinating. This all came about when 5-year old Fabrisio became fairly upset when 3 of the colored pencils I gave him needed sharpening and I had no sacapunta. Fabrisio proved to be a resourceful little guy. He got up, made his way across the playground avoiding the dog shit, and asked the old man constructing a concrete block building on an adjacent lot to sharpen the pencils with his pocket knife. He soon returned to the drawing circle quite pleased with himself.
When I got hungry the kids directed me to a flimsy looking taco stand that was set up in someone's front yard. I asked the lady who was obviously in charge, " Que es esto?" pointing to a bowl of what I assumed was meat of some kind. After several attempts to verbally communicate, she became somewhat frustrated, grabbed the side of my face QUITE HARD and pointed to the bowl. It was cheek and real tasty but I've been wondering ever since what would have happened had it been testicles. In addition, we had been through a daily harangue from the tour organizers warning us to never ever eat street food. I spent the remainder of the trip in total fear that at any moment my sphincter might tender its letter of resignation.
It was a Sunday and when I walked past a small chapel I decided to go in and sit down to catch part of the service in progress. The men sat separate from the women while a casually dressed speaker rattled off fire and brimstone using a hand-held microphone the size of a pineapple. He spoke in a combination of Spanish and the local dialect which produced a mesmerizing repetitive cadence.The drummer who was part of the 5-piece brass band that sat along side the speaker picked up on the pattern and perhaps unconsciously, began tapping it out on his knee with his drumsticks. When the band's turn came to play, an amplifier suitable for Burning Man sent out concussion waves that gave my chest muscles spasms. A handfull of toddlers were really bored and ignored by the adults, so I sat in a back pew with them and we all five doodled together on a single sheet of paper without exchanging a word.
After I left the chapel I came across some older kids fooling around with a soccer ball in a small courtyard. Without giving it much thought I joined in. They hardly took any notice and couldn't have cared less. However, I took notice of them. They all wore nearly identical clothes as well as similar road-runner-like hairdos. There was no shortage of machismo in the air and I began to think that these were M-13 wannabes. It seemed likely that if young kids lived in a simple and basic place, it would eventually become obvious that every day of there lives was going to be exactly the same as the day that preceded it. Any other option would certainly grab their attention, including the dark side.
Trying to walk off these depressing thoughts, I went down to the edge of the lake, took a seat half way out on a short pier, and started to sketch. After a while I looked up to see Fabrisio standing over me along with three other new kids. I used my vocabulary of gestures and sounds to get them to all collaborate on a single drawing. With their backs to the lake, I pointed out the waters edge, a rock wall, a veranda, a tree and finally the mountain at the top of the canyon in which sat the village. I put down a few outlines and handed out the colored pencils. The quartet of 5 to 7 year olds grew pretty intense, scratching away with plenty of effort and arguing over who was next in line for which color. They carried on for about 20 minutes at which point things slowed way down and there was sort of a simultaneous realization among them that the drawing was finished.
I then had them all stand at the end of the pier while I stood 15 feet away from them holding up their picture so they could compare it with the scene they had attempted to draw. Their eyes went back and forth several times from the drawing, up the canyon and back down to the drawing. I wanted a reaction from them so I yelled out, "EH?" which I think means the same thing in all languages. Standing 4 abreast with the vast lake and volcanoes as a backdrop, they shouted in unison with glee, flashed broad smiles and 8 thumbs up.
