The heartbreaking but strong and hopeful Guatemala - Part 1

My university offers students service immersion trips to numerous places around the world such as India, Poland, and Jamaica.  I was chosen to be one of the faculty leaders on the trip, along with another faculty member, Josh. Our original trip actually was supposed to be in El Salvador, but our administration would not let us travel there after the Peace Corp pulled out and the state department issued new travel warnings. It seems two rival gangs ended their truce, and violence was increasing. The students had selected this trip around a year in advance, so with less than six months to go -we now had to chose a new trip or go nowhere at all. After much deliberation, the students decided on a trip to Guatemala. Our campus ministry office generally works with various nuns and priests in the local country, but because it was a last minute change, we had to use a company that specializes in these types of tours. 

This company provided us a complete itinerary, two guides/translators, and a driver, which really meant that the two faculty leaders didn't have that much to do. The guides, Ali and Delores were amazing. They really made the trip! Both were full of such wisdom and knowledge. Ali is an American who has been living in Guatemala for sixteen years, and Delores is a Mayan from Guatemala. She lived in the US for a brief time as a political refugee. 

A very brief explanation of Guatemala's history: 

• In 1523, the Spanish invaded, became the ruling class. The indigenous people, the Mayans, were converted to Christianity and many of their original codices were burned 
• In 1821, Guatemala became independent from Spain 

---------->>>>>>> fast forwarding a little here ------------>>>>>>>>

• In 1901 the American United Fruit Company began operations and by the 1930's were growing massive quantities of bananas 
• In 1951 Jacobo Arbenz, the President, passed a law that any unused land, even land owned by the American United Fruit Company, would be redistributed to the poor in the nation. Although people would be paid for the taking of the land, it would not be much 
• Under the guise that this was "communist," the CIA invaded Guatemala and forced Arbenz to step down
• Castillo Armas took over and undid all the reforms of the "democratic spring" Guatemala had been experiencing. He disenfranchised the majority of the people, especially the indigenous and poor people of the country 
• As the oppressed people fought for their rights, what ensued was a guerrilla war. 200,000 indigenous, Mayan people were murdered by the military regimes that ruled - and it is considered a genocide. 
• In 1996, the peace accords were signed 
• People are still fighting for justice, trying to bring the parties that committed the genocides to justice. In fact, Rios Montt, the former dictator of Guatemala was convicted of genocide in 2013, although the ruling was later overturned by the constitutional court.    
• Now, a lot of the struggles in Guatemala revolve around foreign corporations taking land from poor indigenous people and polluting (and worse). 
• A NYT article detailing this phenomenon with one (horrifying case) as an example

My plan in the next couple of blog posts is to share with you a little more about what we learned about the civil war and the people of Guatemala, so stay tuned.