Guatemala is just south of Mexico. Although the official language is Spanish, there is a large Mayan population. The tension between the western European and the native inhabitents has a long history of oppression and violence.
About a 5 hr bus ride through the mountians north and west of Guatemala City sits the village of Tamahu (accent is on the last syllable). There, in St Paul's church, the Missionaries of Charity have set up a mission. Considering that Missionaries of Charity specifically search out the "poorest of the poor," you can begin to imagine the level of poverty in Tamahu.
For the past four years, St Thomas Aquinas parish in College Station has made it there business to organize and recrute for a medical team to visit Tamahu. This year, several of us seminarians joined them, bring the group to a total of 30 members. Our luggage was heavy: each of us carried at least two 50lbs crates stuffed with medicine (not quite 3000 lbs of medicine, but pretty close). By the end of the week we had serviced approximately 2300 families, usually several people per family.
The usual schedule for the day was to rise early for holy hour and mass, have breakfast (usually cold cereal, instant coffee or coke to drink, and either beans & tortillas or flat pancakes). Then began the work for the day: arranging the pharmacy with all our medecine, setting up work areas for all the nurses and doctors, and organizing the mass of people who had quickly arrived to recieve the free medical treatment.
My job was a runner, fetching medicine from the pharmacy for the doctors/nurses meeting with their patients. In many ways, it looked liek a typical doctors office: lots of waiting for the doctor to see you, a brief visit with the medic, and then more waiting while they filled the prescription. We even gave the kids candies after the visit. The big different was the sets of translators needed. Remember that I mentioned that large portions of the population is Mayan? Well, they have their own language that they use in outlying districts like Tamahu. Thus, we had to translate from Spanish to their dialect and then back to english for the doctors--all this while trying to communicate delicate medical information. That got old real fast, but it was all part of the job.
My favorite day was the day ten of us went to a village way up in the mountains. It took us over an hour to climb to teh site (the truck could only go so far). But it was marvelous getting out into the countryside, with the sunny weather and the smell of growing things all around. They view from up there was marvelous. My legs burned for a good part of the hike, but it was great anyway.
Every evening we would have dinner together back at the village. Usually it was the big meal of the day, They had meat for us almost every day, but I got the impression that was uncommon for them. After dinner we would have a short talk by one of the preists on a spiritual topic. Oh, by the way, their coffee is terrible. If anyone ever offers you coffee, made Guaetemalan style, firmly and politely excuse yourself.
This was the basic day-to-day run from Mon-Fri. The last night we spent in Tamahu we had a fiesta. They killed a pig for us, and offered most of it to us cooked in one form or another. I admit that I avoided some of their more, um, creative dishes. But still, the dinner was good and they had a few local dances for us after dinner. One of them was an adorable duet between two young children dancing. The little boy used a flower to tap on the girls shoulder but she resolutely ignored him until the end and then they danced off arm in arm.
At this point in my story I should finish with a deep insight that I took away from the trip which I can now all share with you. Sadly, I have no deep insight. I was not inspired to work for the poor. Nor was I inclined to believe that they are more "spiritually rich" than us decedant and affluent Americans. I did not find it touching or tragically romantic. They are just people, not terribly good people or bad people. They've got a tough life, and probably a short life, and that may be all they'll ever know. I'm sure that we did some good, but giving them a few vitamins and tylenol once a year can't make huge difference in their lives. I'm sure that all the expenses for me to simply go on the trip is more than they will make and live off from for several months.
The moral to the story--I don't know. If you come up with one, feel free to make a post to let me know.
Anyway, it is more trouble than it is worth trying to coordinate this much text and the pictures, so the pictures are all below. Enjoy
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Travelogue from Guatemala Spring Break Trip
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
"They are just people" - isn't that realization enough? It's easy enough to expect something else, dealing with different cultures or wealth levels or other differences, to want to always make them out as so much greater or so much less than ourselves. When really, we can't idolize other cultures or act as though they're worthless - just think of them as people, and treat them as such. Meaning do what we can by bringing miniscule relief in the form of medicine once a year.
So that's my sleepy Friday morning interpretation of a moral, take it or leave it as you will.
I like the pictures - the countryside itself looks very beautiful, though of course, anything involving mountains..! I still wish you'd brought me back pictures of Mayan ruins though. ;-) Your description of the children and the cameras reminds me of Amelia and the dresser/closet.. except I imagine she'll have a lot more experience with digital cameras by the time she's the age of these kids.
Hmm, Matthew. I agree with Miss Myth. Maybe not all the big journeys leave us with an overwhelming sense of epiphany. Does it make such people less if it isn't given to us to see what their crosses and virtues are? I mean, if they're human they must have them... I ramble. Providence often looks prodigal. At least you were there, and you're not gonna in this world know how much a difference your group made.
Post a Comment