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Dateline ACT
Guatemala 01/05
ACT Appeal LACE52 (Revision 1) - Assistance to Flood& Volcano Affected
‘We can’t sow on stony ground’
By Linda Nordahl Jakobsen, ACT International
Solola, Guatemala, November 10, 2005—From a distance, Lake Atitlan in the western department of Solola looks like a picturesque postcard with its green, glittering waters surrounded by high volcanoes and green mountain slopes. It’s one of the most visited places in Guatemala, a place where tourists from all over the world pour in year round to enjoy Mayan culture, handicrafts, local markets and the easy way of life at the lake.
On the main road to the tourist hotels and markets in Panajachel, you’ll see nothing but some piles of mud, stones and rocks here and there, most of which has already been cleared. But cross part of the lake by boat and walk up the steep mountainsides to some of the indigenous villages like San Marcos and San Pablo, and the picture changes dramatically.
Because of the continuous rains caused by Hurricane Stan in early October, huge landslides with tons of rocks, stones, mud and sand have created furrows hundreds of meters deep on the steep sides of volcanoes. On their way down, the landslides swept away crops, trees, coffee plants, domestic animals, irrigation systems, water pipes and homes. Much of this property and infrastructure were the only means of earning an income for many farmers who were already living life on the edge and who are now in a more precarious situation.
Changed landscapes, changed lives
In the outskirts of San Pablo, which sprawl across the western slopes surrounding Lake Atitlan and where 9,000 Tzutujil families live, huge landslides and rockslides have created new riverbeds and buried old ones, while new rock and stone gullies have been created. Worst of all, many of the small plots, where people grew maize, coffee, beans, onions and chillies for their daily living, mostly at a subsistence level, are now buried under thousands of tons of rocks, stones and sand.
“Some people have lost their homes, and a lot have lost their plots of land. We don’t know what to do now. What we sow and harvest today, we eat tomorrow. But we can’t sow on stony ground, and we will never be able to grow anything here again,” says Paulina Culum as she points to the layers of rocks and stones, two to four meters high, that lie scattered around like a lunar landscape on top of what were once fields for harvesting.
Tops of withering coffee plants stick out of the layers of rubble, as well as trees pulled out by their roots, clothes and garbage. Some men try to move some of the stones, but it literally seems like the work of Sisyphus, the mythical king of Corinth who was condemned to repeatedly roll a heavy rock up a hill in Hades only to have it roll down again as it neared the top.
Walking on the road to San Pablo, one would believe it’s an ordinary dirt road. But underneath the dirt is asphalt, according to Culum, who lives in a small, adobe house in San Pablo. “Ten days after the landslides had happened, we still were trapped in San Pablo, so we had to clear the road ourselves from stones and rocks so at least the entrance to San Pablo would be open again,” explains Culum.
Culum is member of the Maya network Estrella Tzutujil and the Solola-based organization ASUDI (Solola Association for Integrated Development). She and others in San Pablo acknowledge the feeling of quiet desperation in the Mayan communities and agree that these communities will be able to rebuild with international support and support from non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
One group of local and international NGOs is offering support. Members of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International in Guatemala - Christian Aid, DanChurchAid, Guatemalan Evangelical Churches Conference, Lutheran World Federation, Norwegian Church Aid, Swiss Interchurch Aid (HEKS) – working together as the ACT Guatemala Forum, have formulated a plan to assist 7,700 families – mostly farmers, small producers and laborers - in the crisis and rehabilitation phase of this disaster. They will receive assistance with food, water and sanitation, health services and medicines, clothes, farming and housing.
The ACT Guatemala Forum aims to assist especially the most vulnerable of the population affected by Hurricane Stand and those whose livelihoods have been destroyed or put in jeopardy. The losses have been vast, however.
“I can’t speak in Spanish anymore. It’s too sad, and I can’t express myself,” says Maria Xojven while standing in the doorway that is the only remains of the entrance to her house, where the foundation is halfway swept away under rocks and stones. She wipes her face, while her husband explains that their family of nine lost the two cuerdas (each cuerda is nine square meters) of land they had in the outskirts of San Pablo.
At the same time, the family lost half of their house and most of their clothes. He apologies for wearing a dirty t-shirt and a pair of blue swimming trunks. “Some clothes were sent out here. But they are far too big for us. We are small people, and the trousers I was offered, I could swim in,” he says.
Most people in San Pablo feel they are being ignored, and they have not received any information so far on how the local and national authorities are going to help them rebuild their lives again.
The landslides that followed Hurricane Stan are scattered around the landscape in ten departments of Guatemala as brown, mud-coloured and rocky spots. Seen from above, they look like small spots, but seen from the ground, they are human catastrophes that mean death or life for many of the poor who lost not only their harvests, houses and plots, but also the hope of a small income in the forthcoming coffee harvest.
Portions of the coffee harvest have been swept away by landslides or have been “scorched” by the cold rain that washed down for days during Hurricane Stan.
In the aftermath of the hurricane, so many of Guatemala’s poorest citizens are desperately hoping for assistance. The majority of the population in the worst affected areas in the highlands and southwestern departments of the Pacific coastal area is indigenous people living in extreme poverty.
“It’s our entire cycle of life that disappeared with Stan,” says Juan Tuyuc, part of the social network Plataforma Agraria, which includes 16 different Maya, peasant and social organizations in Guatemala. “In July-August we normally are running short of corn and other basic food items, even though we try to save one’s food. Normally our family goes to the coffee harvest and we earn a little money from that work as ‘jornaleros’ from October to December. These earnings we use for buying new seeds and fertilizer and pay out our old debts and credits. Now there is nothing left - no land, no harvest, no work and no earnings.”
Linda Nordahl Jakobsen is a journalist for DanChurchAid, a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International.
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