La Escuela de la Montaña -- by Cassidy

We spent the last week in the rural satellite school affiliated with our main language school. Called "The School of the Mountain", it is located an hour and a half north of Xela, as the chicken bus flies.

We arrived late Sunday night, just in time to be taken to our host families for dinner. One sleeps and has classes at the school compound, but has breakfast, lunch and dinner with a host family in the nearby villages of Fatima and Nueve San Jose. I was fortunate to be placed with Roselia, a very kind widow who tolerated my spastic Spanish. She runs the newly opened community health clinic in the village, and we enjoyed discussing public health and medicine. Rather, she enjoyed telling me about it while I nodded and pretended that I understood more than the 10% that I actually did.

The food was simple, but well flavored and delicious. Variety was a little lacking; I usually got two of three things: rice, vegetables, or beans. On special occasions I got all three. Every meal was accompanied by hot tortillas, brought to the table as they were made, and a mug of hot water -- they had been instructed to boil the gringo's water thoroughly.

We had Spanish lessons in the morning, and naps or activities in the afternoon and evening. Our Spanish instructors were incredibly good, and again we both got lucky. Misael, my teacher, did three years of medical school (which is seven years long in Guatemala) before dropping out due to financial restraints. And Rony, Sarah´s instructor, had completed six years of law school!

In addition, we had some excellent arranged chats with interesting locals. One man, Enrique, had attempted to immigrate to the United States three different times. Each time he was caught crossing the desert into Arizona, and sent back to Guatemala. After the third time, he gave up trying. He said he could not try again because each time had been so hard on his soul, especially the weeks spent in detention centers in the US. He also now has massive debts incurred to pay the coyote, the man who arranges the migration. He described how they would travel packed in a van with no ventilation, how they went without food and water for days at a time, and how he nearly died crossing the desert for three days with only a gallon of water.

We also had the opportunity to talk to Sergio, a former guerrilla of the ORPA (The Revolutionary Organization of People in Arms). The guerilla movement formed in response to the CIA-backed coup of the democratically elected government and the atrocities that followed. Sergio told us of the guerrillas' first action, in which they took control of the local finca (plantation). This was the first of many actions, later they would attack military bases and transports. In response, the military began a scorched earth policy, in which they razed local villages and tortured and killed civilians to eliminate supposed support for the guerrillas. After 36 years and hundreds of thousands of deaths, the civil war in Guatemala ended with the signing of the 1996 Peace Accords.

However, it seemed to us that the guerrillas gained few of things they were fighting for -- land redistribution, greater indigenous rights and autonomy, a socialist society. In the end, the guerrillas got a little land for themselves, and indigenous rights were written into the Constitution. But these rights are not enforced, and vast inequalities are still the rule in Guatemala. These two pacifists have sincere doubts about the efficacy of armed resistance.

In the latter half of the week, we went on field trips with our Spanish teachers. We did a hike about the local finca, a once booming coffee plantation that has fallen into disrepair since the crash of coffee prices. They now grow a few avocados and flowers for export, but weeds are beginning to take over.

Roselia, my host mother, gave us a tour of the community health clinic, a remarkable public health enterprise. The regional hospital has trained a pair of women from each of the 17 surrounding villages. One learns the diagnosis of common community illnesses, the other learns the pharmaceutical therapy for those illnesses. The pair thus provides basic health care to the village, with a fairly impressive pharmaceutical armamentarium. The clinic is only in its second month and it will be interesting to see if it works -- I worry about continued funding and politics. If it goes as intended, however, it would be a triumph of community-based public health.

Finally we went to Columbo, the big village near our little village, to watch the Independence Day parade. Every school in town organized a procession of its children, decked out in truly resplendent costumes.

On Friday afternoon we returned to Xela, sad to leave our little community, but happy to get away from mosquitoes and low-protein diets.

Pictures of the week available at:
http://picasaweb.google.com/cassidy.claassen/EscuelaDeLaMontaA
http://picasaweb.google.com/cassidy.claassen/FloresDeLaMontaA

Photos by me, captions by Sarah.