The Dump - Year 1


On Mondays we generally went into Guatemala city to study history and culture, and to do this in a Christian context with CASAS (a training arm of the Mennonite seminary closeby). This week we did a study in contrasts...visiting the main dump, the city cemetery and then a wealthy area of the city.
600 families live in the city of Guatemala's dump. Once here they will likely spend the rest of their lives here.

	Cesar Flores, director of CASAS led us through the day. He explained to us how the tragedy of winding up in the dump was almost always preceded by a tragedy in the home village. (In Guatemala over 3/4 of the population is still rural) Over 20 years of bitter, vicious civil war has caused scars that will never heal.
The visual impact on students was very strong (as was the overpowering aroma). Here MaryJane, Rus, Guido, Kendra and Andrew watch people line up to dig through the piles of rubbish pouring out of the back of the trucks. As you can well understand, it was for us a personal and introspective experience.
Without any legal papers or ID, many people will never venture out of the dump, their homes built right into their workplace. Here they would live, marry, work and die.
Recently found on the web: Click the picture to the right for a recent photographic essay on the Guatemala city dump
The cemetery as well was full of contrasts. To the left is a burial chamber shared by an Arabian Family or group. Just beyond it and pictured to the right is the burial chamber of the common people. These are rented. The empty holes are testimony to the actions taken when rent is not paid. We saw rows upon rows, each several blocks long, stacked 8 high, stretching down the paved roads of this huge cemetery.

Another Cultural Experience. This time in San Antonio, where we visited an Indigenous co-op. We ate lunch prepared in their kitchen (below left) and then Tanjalee, Steve and Clarisse modeled some of the clothing worn by those living in this area. Steve and Tanjalee are in wedding attire.

indiginous cloth.jpg (8117 bytes) The intensity of the colors in the hand-woven Guatemalan garments is quite amazing.

Trevor on the other hand (or in this case...arm) was most impressed by the bird life.

Meanwhile, language study continues each morning.

This finger just got 6 stitches. A pin pushed through the nail gives relief to the pressure. But whose finger?

soccer2.jpg (6209 bytes) TheWave.jpg (7774 bytes) A soccer game between teachers and students.

	OK. So this one day and night at the Hotel del Lago was totally out of character with the rest of this trip. But what a weekend it was!
The food was so delicious.	Our most serious problem here was the peeling skin of previous sunburn.
Then it was off to one of the best markets in Guatemala at Quezaltenango or"Chichi"

Al Doerksen dropped in from Canada to do a two day seminar on food, drawing from world politics, scripture and local home family economics.

We did service in the village in which we lived... building gardens, teaching English, and building retaining walls. It's been good to give something back to the community that has been caring for us.

The local school provides much opportunity for service. Here students can learn to teach English as well as do some fairly strenuous physical work.

Click here for an excelent site by Habitat for Humanity (Guatemala).

We ran into a few technical troubles in that our digital camera lost its digit or something. So the visuals ended here in Guatemala. The final weeks involved an incredible experience building houses with Habitat for Humanity followed by Easter week in Antigua. We visited the incredible Mayan city of Tikal and adventured in Livingston (I presume) on the Caribbean Sea. We returned to Concord College for the final 2 weeks to make sense of the year and bring closure to a life giving experience.