The time in Guatemala- Mission Trip 2014

Hello Folks,  It is now Feb 13th 2014 and I now have a little time to catch up on my blog.  When I left off we where planning to go to Guatemala.  There is group that was established over there called Hope-Renewed.  It is run by a man from Chicago.  They have been in operation for 4 years.  They focus on the poor in four areas.  They work in the dump in the middle of the city.  The ghetto at the edge of the city, a women's prison and a girl's orphanage.  We visited all 4 places while there from Wednesday to Saturday of last week.

Guatemala is just north of El Salvador and it takes about 5 hours to drive there from San Salvador.  So Padre, Jicela and I started on the trip and the roads were good the whole way.  It was very warm that day in San Salvador but the Padre said I should take a jacket.  I was surprised.  But then I began to understand more what elevation means especially in the tropical areas of the world.  The capitol city of Guatamala is about 4000 feet about sea level.  So of course as we began our trip we started going up and up.  By the time we reached the city the jacket was needed.  And so I began to understand the beautiful weather that this city has.  They say it is always between 75 and 85 degrees and not humid.  Always very pleasant.  All very lush.  All plants seem to grow like weeds.

The city is a city of contrast, however.  If we go to the rich areas you see skyscrapers and modern buildings and the best McDonalds, I have ever ate at.  The surrounding houses high on the hills are mansions.  You would feel like you are walking around the best area of our large cities.  But just outside this area you begin to see the poverty.  The city dump is a hugh valley almost in the middle of the city.  We saw it from above looking at it from a cemetery, and then the other hillsides are covered with one room block houses attached to one another as far as the eye can see.

So it is a city of contrast.  We have them too but not to the degree this city is.  The rich truly do have it all here.  I am also sure that they control the government to their advantage.  So it is in this environment that this group has started to help the poor.

In so many ways there is not much difference between the two countries.  Of course the language is the same and the poverty is almost the same.  I would say that the rich appear richer in that country and the poor appear poorer.  But, as the Padre has reminded me, I have not seen that in El Salvador,  it truly does exist.

So we arrived and started at this organization's guest house.  A nice place near the edge of the where the poverty zones begin.  Three people from the states were there who were doing a mission trip along with a man about 30 who spoke English.  He is Guatemalan and had come back from the states in the last year.  His story is like so many.  Was working in North Carolina and then one day he makes a U turn and gets caught by the police.  The next thing you know he is one a plane back to his place of birth.  How common this story is.  The rate of people coming illegally from this country is as great as El Salvador.  Just people wanting to find a way to take care of their families.

So the following morning we went with these people to the Dump.  They had plans there to work with the children in a little commuity center they built there.  The Dump, people living on the edge of the refuse.  The "houses" are made of corrugated metal.  The streets are dirt. One water faucet outside every 10 houses.  No bathroom facilities.  The reason they are there is the adults and children too, go through the new trash, dumped there by the truckloads each day to find scraps of metal or paper or bags or anything they can sell for a few coins.  I am told about 3000 people live here.  Of course the place can be dangerous and the local police never show up.  No medical attention is available nearby.

It is in this environment the center was built by the group.  It houses a pre school for the little children from 3 to 5.  So this day it was building a gingerbread house they could eat and some songs and some dancing.  Then came lunch which today was pizza.  A treat they hardly ever get.  Usually a snack is provided by the group during the 4 hours they are there each day.  As usual the kids seems happy, bright and well behaved.  I wondered what they ate at their little houses.  There were several other aspects of this area that I could tell you about but this will have to do for now.  It seems impossible that people could live like this.

From there we went to the Ghetto or in Spanish, La Limonada.  Much larger and all over the hill sides. We were taken to just one area where we were also told is dangerous but not as bad as it was just a year or so ago.  Area still controlled by gangs. Here the group is building a community center for educational reasons and starting a bakery to provide jobs and training for the people that live there.  Also very interesting.

The following day we were off to a women's prison a few miles out of town.  I was told that many women here still had not had a trial and it has been more than 8 years.  Very common.  The place was fairly clean.  What surprised me was that the group was able to work with the prison to build some fencing that allowed the women to be outside some of the time, a basketball court in another area and a silk screen workshop for women to learn a skill that makes a profit and something they can do when they get out.  I was told that this has helped the return rate to prison for these women.  I was just surprised that the prison allowed someone to come in work on projects like this.

That evening we got in the car and drove to the coastal town of Mazatenango.  It took about 5 hours due to the traffic on this two lane road.  Lots of trucks.  Lots of sugar cane fields in this area and processing plants.  We arrived and stayed in a nice motel.   The next day it was off to the girl's orphanage.  This group just took over this private one.  About 30 girls of all ages.  Most from abused homes, the court has sent them there.  Major problem in both countries when it comes to adoption.  They are hardly not allowed in both of them.  This process stopped in 2007.  I do not understand.  So the number of children living in private and public orphanages continues to grow.  A sad situation for them both.  This group has fixed up the buildings on the campus, provided better food, better schooling there, better social services.   The sad thing to realize is that these kids could be there until they are 18.  Better than being in an abusive home but still not much of life.  They are doing the best they can.  I saw the little ones peeking out the window.  Only 3 to 5 years old.  How beautiful they were.  How many people in the US and other places could give them a wonderful home and yet it will probably be impossible unless the laws are changed.  In the meantime at least they are getting proper care.

From there is was time to take the three people organizers from this group and begin the trip to El Salvador.  We started at about 4 PM .  The trip was long and mostly hot.  We had a horrible border experience.  Trucks parked for a mile waiting to be check in by immigration.  We needed to find a way to get pass them or just sit there for hours on end.  The solution was to just drive on the wrong side of road and then finally after having our passports checked finding a young man who stopped by our window who offered to find another way to go around  the trucks that in this place the trucks were stopped on our side and passing on the other direction.  So off we went.  Now we were on the dirt side of the road almost in the ditch being waved on by the guy on his bicycle.  He was stopping trucks, and doing whatever to keep us moving.  Finally we made it pass at least a one-half mile of trucks to the El Salvadorian border.  We stopped the car and paid the guy.  I wanted to give him whatever.  I pulled out a 20  Padre said to just give him 10.  This I did.  I thanked him profusely and took his picture.  It was the best 10 bucks I have ever spent.

And so that is our little trip to that country.  The border issue just made me realize again what a hard place this is for the people to live.  Surely there is a simple solution to this border issue.  Such a waste of time, such a waste of economic progress.  How can we help?  We arrived in San Salvador about 11 PM.  Took our guest to a nice hotel and Padre, Jicela and I went back to the Padre's house.  And then it started.  I guess I ate something in a restaurant in Mazatenango.  Do not know what.  I was in the bathroom most of the night.  Our guest from Guatemala had the same problem.  The first time I have gotten sick.

The Padre's comment to all of this was  'That is the price that you must pay for helping the poor'.  What a profound statement!   He is so right.

More later