Port of Call LAST UPDATE February 1, 2007
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January 15, 2007 Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala – Homestay in Triunfo, A Guatemalan Village of Sorrow, Strength, and Hope
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After decades of war and homeless, these Mayans now have a safe community, but still struggle with poverty and cultural loss
When Spain invaded Guatemala half a millennium ago, colonizers appropriated the best part of the land from the indigenous Maya people and started developing it for commercial gain. Since then, land in Guatemala—as well and profits from its mineral and agricultural bounty—has largely remained in the hands of a few while much of the rest of the population has lived in poverty.
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In Triunfo, houses are little more than shacks that are easily damaged by harsh weather
In the 1950s, a crackdown on people's demand for more equitable distribution led to a 36-year war waged largely against indigenous people by the country's powerful oligarchy. Threats, selective killings of community leaders, and then full scale massacres by the military forced thousands of people to flee their homes and leave behind what little land they already had.
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A Mayan family poses with a Peace Boat participant and their two greatest material possessions—a bag of salt and a CD player
In 1996, a peace treaty was finally signed that brought an end to the killings and armed conflict. It has not, however, brought about significant land reform, equality, or support for indigenous culture according to CEIBA, an NGO in Guatemala that is continuing to fight for justice in the country. CEIBA helped Peace Boat organize a Homestay Study Programme to Triunfo, a village comprised of indigenous people from various tribes who were forcibly removed from their original villages by the military in the 1980s. Left homeless after the war, they demanded and finally received from the government a former cotton plantation on which to establish a new community. When Peace Boat called in Guatemala in mid-January, participants had a chance to stay with some of the 227 families that live in Triunfo and learn more about their lives.
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Names of family members killed by the army are listed on a stone memorial in the village
One of the first places villagers led participants to was a stone memorial on which the names of more than 400 loved ones who had been killed during the war was engraved. “We will never be able to forget what happened to us. We still cry, we still remember how the planes came to bomb our village,” said one. Moreover, many villagers have not been able to forget the temperate climates of their former villages compared to the tract of land they were given, which tends to have long dry spells punctuated by hurricanes. “Soon after we arrived here, there was a hurricane,” recalled one village. “We were cooking in the mud and practically sleeping in the mud.”
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A Peace Boat participant plays with children in one of the many mango trees planted by CEIBA
While villagers could grow a variety of fruits, vegetables, and medicinal herbs in their former villages, they can grow mostly only corn in Triunfo, and must import other produce from more fertile regions. Because of this, noted CEIBA representative Alfonso Morales, villagers now rely heavily on Western medicine aid and are in danger of losing their knowledge of medicinal plants, native corn, and organic farming techniques. To counter this, CEIBA is carrying out projects within Triunfo to reteach people these skills. Various other aid organizations, however, provide villagers with genetically modified corn seeds, which require heavy chemical use and thereby thwart the recovery of the villager's organic farming techniques. To help make the village more self sufficient, CEIBA has also donated livestock to the village and planted a mango orchard that has so far survived the parched conditions.
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A Mayan girl shows off some of the chicks that are kept in a basket under her family's bed
Despite the hardships villagers have endured in the past, and despite the challenges they still face, they left many Peace Boat participants enormously impressed by their warmth, kindness, and generosity. Children grabbed the hands of participants and eagerly showed them everything from the baby chickens living with them in their homes to the drawings and homework assignments they had completed. Host families also offered participants the best sleeping accommodations they had to offer—rough wooden planks balanced on concrete blocks. “I woke up in the morning, only to realize that my elderly hosts had given me their bed and were sleeping on the floor--and yet they made no big deal out of it,” said one participant. “Their humility and hospitality are so strong. This homestay made me think about the excesses in my own life.”