Reflections from the Field

Sharon Cho, BUILD '09

Another event stands out in my memory...on my third day of work, I was assigned to a woman named Doña Vilma. During our water break, she told us a brief account of her experience in the war as a woman. Further interested in what she had to say, we asked Doña Vilma for a more comprehensive interview after work. We met with her later that week. We asked her questions about her family background and how she became involved in the guerrilla. As Doña Vilma related to us her story, she described the atrocities she witnessed during the war – the brutal murders of pregnant women to the massacres of children and infants. I was moved by her openness to share with us memories of her past that were most intimate and painful. As I sat on the cold floor of Doña Vilma’s small cement house, listening to her soft voice telling the most gruesome and dreadful stories of human atrocity, I came to another revelation: whatever decisions or incidents may have led us to Santa Anita, our lives have now crossed. The members of Santa Anita trusted us and shared with us their buried pasts. Now, we are responsible and obliged to take what we have learned, to take their stories to better the community.

Jeff Prevost, BUILD '09

As time passed, though, I began to see the order in what I had first perceived as chaos. The more engaged I became in the community the more I was able to see it for what it was, and not what the shock of leaving another comfort zone portrayed it as. Working with families every morning, conducting interviews every afternoon, and exploring in my free time all helped to show me how the community functioned. Their homes and facilities were not necessarily as well constructed as the ones I was used to back home, but they worked. They did not have the same opportunities that many other people I knew had, but they got on. It of course was not a situation they wished to remain in, indeed my purpose there was to help them improve their livelihoods even more, but one had to realize that they were not a community clinging to bleak hopes of survival. There was nothing to be repulsed by; it would be understandable for one to initially dismiss the community’s state as incompatible with a good life, but to remain dismissive would be ignorant and an injustice to the people. My point is not that the community does not need help; it does. However, to see them as unable to function without the help of some outside group is to horribly underestimate their ability to cope, and is a terrible attack and misconception of their spirit.

It did not take long for me to feel at ease in the community. Part of that was because I knew I was there to help; I was not an ordinary tourist, there to enjoy the sights and beauties without participating in the hard work that managed them. The biggest thing that helped me, though? The people. In living with them and talking with them, I saw in each one a familiar personality, something that was not quite new to me. Their socioeconomic situation was different, but the people at Santa Anita were the exact same kind of people I would find anywhere else. This is something that would seem obvious enough, but one look at the racism that plagues this world demonstrates not enough people understand it.

Mike Niconchuk, BUILD '08-'09

Each time I set foot in Guatemala, I find myself leaving a larger portion of my heart in that country that serves as both homeland and research location. Few students have the luxury of visiting family while on a research trip; however, I promise you that what I have just called a “luxury” is a bittersweet feeling at best. In a country like Guatemala, that has suffered so much and has such massive structural problems that render minor improvements laughable, there is no such thing as a baseline social fabric. People speak of “reweaving” the fabric of society, but in reality there is no healthy precedent, no standard to which the people can return, for the entire history of the country was a progressive decline, a descent into violence that still continues in various manifestations. Narcotrafficking is the new land reform, and gangs are the new guerrilla. My own family bore witness to the 1980s of Guatemala--an era of secrecy, massacres, and oddly quotidian normalcy for the privileged. What happened in that decade and the years preceding it labeled indelibly, for many, the guerrilla as a source of torment, of fear, and of anger. So, here I am, almost thirty years removed, working with a resettled guerrilla population, unable to detach myself from the suspicion and disapproval of some whom I love dearly. Brainwashed. Naïve. Removed from the reality. I know what fears have been thrown around, and what conversations have surely taken place when I leave the room. None of my words can erase their memories and traumas, and none of my actions can prove that I understand the depth of the situation. Some in the country understand and share with me the sentiments of reconciliation and transparency; they, too, want to see a Guatemala that can began not to “reweave,” but to weave for the first time a social fabric based on merit and opportunity. Clearly the “Peace” of the 21st century (or what was hailed a “Peace” but the UN and other groups eager to publicize their newest case study) is fundamentally flawed, seeing as people refuse to drive at night and consider a police pull-over a death sentence. So much is wrong in this land that has the potential for so much right.

Just as I cannot attempt to erase the memories of my family’s past, I can neither attempt to fathom or feign an understanding of the pain suffered by the men and women of Santa Anita. Some of the men have visible reminders--missing fingers, scars, or glazed stares that only hint at the inner machinations and stress pent up for years and cathartically expressed in what resulted in a stalemate in 1996--that reinforce our awareness of their lives in la montaña. In some of their houses, you will find a few wall decorations, perhaps a Mayan calendar, perhaps a print of the Virgin Mary. With eerie frequency, next to the Catholic propaganda are some lovely newlywed photos, camouflage-clad lovers with their hands and AKs both intertwined. Love in the guerrilla. An interesting anthropology challenge I’m sure. Looking away from the war-era photos you often will see the same faces, or the tired farm-worker version of those same faces, serving breakfast or getting to know the group’s names.