Quiché in Pictures

"Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt." Susan Sontag


Recently I made what will probably be my last trip up to the war-torn Ixil region in the department of Quiché (for more on the region, see past post, “36-hours in the Ixil Triangle”). Below are photos that speak to the beauty of the place—bright aesthetics and consistent vibrancy that contrast considerably with the darkness of Quiché’s recent history.

Offerings

“Kneeling in the blazing heat of a narrow waxy corridor between four hundred homemade candles which burned on either side, I was busy spreading a fog of bilious smoldering copal, the “food of the Gods,” whose intoxicating smoke carried my very best esoteric oratory language in a flowery praise to feed the sleeping deity.” Martín Prechtel, Maya shaman

In the face of suffering, members of various Mayan faiths turn to ceremonial ritual. Traditional ceremonial practice dates back not hundreds but thousands of years, and it remains the core of faith and culture for much of the contemporary Maya communities in Guatemala. Today, Mayan culture is a hugely significant to Guatemalan society—individuals that identify as Mayan represent a majority of the population. Within Mayan culture there is much diversity—with over 22 distinct language groups, each with different cultural traits, dress, practices, histories, and traditions, the blanket term Mayan becomes almost irrelevant and makes way for the more widespread use of more specific terms identifying indigenous groups.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to attend a traditional Kaq’chikel Maya ceremony in the small village of Santiago outside of Antigua. My friend Anne, another Fulbrighter studying community development and cultural sensitivity (check out her blog:http://kaqkotzij.blogspot.com), speaks Kaq’chikel and invited me to the ceremony which was being held for an elderly woman who has been ill for some time. Anne’s friend Peter is the woman’s doctor, also a rare Kaq’chikel-speaking North American and an MD who has been working in the community for several months (check out his blog: http://coprinus.blogspot.com). Kaq’chikel ceremonies are often held in response to specific illnesses or deaths that come to pass within the community in order to make offerings to the gods in exchange for healing and peace.

Peter’s patient, member of Santiago’s Kaqchikel-Maya community

A few key ingredients

We spent the day of the ceremony moving through the crowded stalls of Antigua’s open-air market gathering ceremony essentials: copal, an incense made from the sap of a tree by the same name; hundreds of candles of various colors, each of which has specific ritual meaning; big bouquets of flowers—later we’d prep by pulling all the petals off of the stems to toss handfuls into the fire; oversized cigars; alcohol (kind?); plastic bags full of sesame seeds; eggs; a nearly 2-foot-long papaya; and big round loaf of sweet raisin bread. Everything, save some of the cigars and half a bottle of the alcohol (which would be consumed by ceremony participants), would be burned away in the flames of the ceremonial bonfire as offerings to the gods. Many of the various sundries would be used to construct the fire circle, and the remainder would be tossed in at strategic moments throughout the ceremony’s three-hour duration. We arrived to the three-walled room at the end of an alleyway where the ceremony would be led by a Kaq’chikel-Mayan Shaman named Roberta. Standing at no more than 5 feet tall and adorned in traditional Kaq’chikel dress accented by the long magenta tethers of a ceremonial headdress, Roberta guided us in fashioning a fire circle just as the light rain became a pounding chatter atop the tin roof and a lightening storm took over the darkening sky. She lit the first candle, ignited the fire, and launched into a long monologue of blessings and predictions addressing each of the group’s specific cases of suffering and reading the flames and smoke of the fire for what may come to pass in the face of such loss and pain.

Roberta begins the ceremony

Later she adds pale blue candles to the fire, an offering that addresses water, fertility and the heavens

One of the most important parts of the work of the Shaman is to read the flames and smoke for signs from the gods relevant to the past, current, and future fates of individuals and the community as a whole.

After the fire had died down and the air was totally consumed by fragrant copal-rich smoke, we had a debriefing period, customary at the end of ceremonies for wrapping things up on a reflective note. Those of us who were visitors had a chance to thank the small group of community members who had let us observe and participate in a highly-sacred tradition, and even talk some politics. After Peter had explained that Anne and I were in Guatemala to work on social justice and peace building issues, Roberta talked about the Peace Accords. In a combination of Kaq’chikel and Spanish conveniently translated by Peter, she stressed how the Maya communities continue to suffer even now that the war has officially ended. She called on us to be vigilant of those in power, to help see to it that the government keeps its promises of peace, and that the Accords don’t just remain words on paper. Finally, in a list of reflective thank yous, she said, referring to us, “Thank you to the white people, who come here and don’t just talk, but instead work for the progress of our communities.”

Maya culture is a rich mix of religion, spirituality, politics, activism, and daily lifestyle. It is not just the ancient society we learn of from museums, films, and history texts, but a diverse group of living communities that continue to suffer significant injustices for claiming their cultural identity. They are a strong part of Guatemala with an incredible amount of beauty and resilience that I’ve been privileged to learn from during my time here.

"You have no god."

"I was sleeping when the attack on Disa started. I was taken away by attackers, they were all in uniforms. They took dozens of girls...during the day we were beaten and they were telling us: "You, the black women, we will exterminate you, you have no god." At night we were raped several times. The Arabs guarded us with arms and we were not given food for 3 days." --female refugee from Disa, West Darfur, as quoted in 2004 by Amnesty International

Since the primary theme of my work here in Guatemala is the genocide that took place in the early 80s, I thought it only appropriate to keep some notes here on the genocide that's unfolding on our generation's watch...and most importantly, what we can do to avoid complicity.

We say never again. The phrase has become a brand rallying cry, characterizing the movement against genocide and repeatedly resulting in not much more than an empty promise. And today, a genocide is raging in Darfur, a marginalized Western region of Sudan. According to a recent Amnesty International report, some statistics on the growing crisis are as follows:

2.2 million… number of refugees and people displaced by the conflict.

285,000… estimated number of deaths from starvation, disease and killings in Darfur since 2003.

7,000… number of African Union monitors deployed in Darfur.

13… number of UN Security Council resolutions adopted on Darfur.

Zero… number of United Nations peacekeepers deployed in Darfur.

While news coverage, rhetoric and even some policy moves from the global north have far exceeded levels of these indicators during genocides of the past, there is still little being done to effectively stop the current and ongoing devastation.

At it's most genuine, "Never Again" it is a show of solidarity; a sorrowful conviction that what has passed in Rwanda, Cambodia, and many other countries were acts of utter inhumanity. Although we have come a long way in the recognition and denouncement of genocide, outcries of Never Again have proved futile. Darfur is an ongoing reminder of that, and we would do well to heed it. It's important to fight to keep from ignoring the atrocities being committed there; because somehow, apparently, genocide is a very easy thing to ignore.

“Race murder,” as genocide has been called (see Samantha Power's A Problem from Hell), may be one of the most difficult concepts for us to fathom as reality. But the incomprehensible nature of a truth like genocide does not absolve us from recognizing that not only is it going on, but it may well also continue. Daily events that take place in Darfur and that occurred years ago in Treblinka, Poland; Quiché, Guatemala; Kigali, Rwanda; and Srebrenica, Bosnia among others will take place again somewhere not yet known. That is unless we face the reality of genocide, struggle with it, and finally, come up with the conviction to create the intellectual and practical machinery to prevent it.

There's plenty of reading to be done to sort out the particulars of the violence in Darfur--scholar Gérard Prunier calls it "the ambigious genocide" in part because of just how complex the antecedents, ethnic lines, and characterization of victims and perpetrators are. We ought not to call it simply one side systematically devastating another; however, nor should we stall any longer chalking up the violence to overcomplicated ethnic warfare founded in too-deeply-rooted historic background. (On this note, for a really interesting and well-written take on humanitarian intervention [relating to Iraq and the Balkans but nevertheless revelant] check out this article from The New York Times by Roger Cohen.) Below are some links that help clarify the history and debate, along with some powerful visuals to make the events real in our minds.

Perhaps more surprisingly, another thing that there is plenty of are ways to act--on individual and collective levels--to start sending a signal that the violence calculated and committed by Sudanese government forces must stop. The links below are also where you can find a range of options for action from divestment to letter-writing to awareness campaigns.

Suggested methods of action may sound like just making noise, but making noise is one thing that needs to happen--stopping genocide is a task that's neither easy nor cheap, so if politicians have no reason to believe we care, they certainly won't make efforts to end the crisis.

Genocide Intervention Network-great tips on ways to act.
USHMM's and Google Earth's Crisis in Darfur
"Darfur Bleeds" photo essay from HRW
ICC Cases
Nick Kristof
Pep Bonet's photos
Amnesty's latest on the genocide
International Citizen's Tribunal
Mia Farrow's photos

Cali to Guate

"Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again;
we had longer ways to go.
But no matter, the road is life."
- Jack Kerouac

I have to apologize for taking a holiday from the blogging. There’s much to say about the past few weeks, so I’ll try to catch us all up as best I can.

First and foremost, my wonderful parents made the trip down to Guatemala for a visit and we had a blast for two weeks of gallivanting around the country. We started with a short flight from the capital up to the department of Peten, host to Tikal National Park, and the largest Mayan ruins discovered to date.

Tikal was incredible, as much for its lack of people and amusement park-like accoutrement as for its historical and cultural impressiveness. We had the park virtually to ourselves, 23 square miles of ruins, hiking trails, and jungle wildlife.

View from atop a Temple IV

A near-perfect rendition of my parents on vacation--in this particular moment we had spotted a toucan nest with babies and a proud mama in a hole in the trunk of a tree near the temples



The Grand Plaza...

After flying back south from the Peten jungle, we spent three days in Antigua, the old capital. I've had mixed feelings about the little town ever since I got down here--Semana Santa (see previous post) was incredible, but generally when I'm there, between enjoying the relief of safety and its colorful cuteness, I spend a lot of time resenting the too-touristy bustle of vendors and myriad bars that make you wonder if you just tripped onto a college campus in the states. However, much to my delight, fully embracing the tourist persona makes Antigua a total joy. If you have plans to visit (and aren't on a backpacker's hostel-ready budget) treat yourself and stay at the Cloister. I'm not one to care where I crash while traveling, but I swear, this place is a total dream. It's a small B&B ideally located under the landmark yellow archway a block from the central plaza, complete with a gorgeous garden courtyard, wonderful staff, flawlessly outfitted rooms, and delicious food. I hate to get Lonely Planet on you here (or worse but perhaps more fitting, Travel and Leisure) but really, this hotel was heavenly. Besides thoroughly enjoying our accomodations, activities included textile shopping, climbing active volcano Pacaya (my parents are so cool), and strolling the cobblestone streets to pop in and out of art galleries, very old churches, and european style sidewalk cafes.

Dad braves the volcano

Finally, we made our way to Lake Atitlan, which has quickly become one of my favorite locations on Earth (of those few that I've seen so far), no kidding. Tzutijil Maya, an indigenous group that live largely in the Atitlan area call it the Mother Lake, the world's umbilicus, the center and life source of the earth.

The lake’s periphery is decorated by volcanoes and villages, each of the latter with its own characteristics, many with varying indigenous influences. We stayed at my favorite spot in the village of San Marcos de la Laguna. San Marcos is a beautiful underdeveloped haven right on the shore, littered with organic vegetable gardens, yoga/massage studios and even an authentic Buddhist temple for meditation. When it comes to pace of life it has a lethal (or heavenly, depending on what you’re looking for in a vacation) combination of hippie chillax with classic ‘Guatemalan time’ (ie. everything gets going at least an hour later than planned). Anecdote: we were headed for dinner one night to find that the restaurant we had picked out was closed. As we turned around to walk back in search of alternatives, an elderly Keqchikel Maya woman comes running toward us, “No, no se van! Ya estamos abierta, pase adelante!” (Don’t leave! We’re open, please, come in, welcome!) She wouldn’t take no for an answer even though the place was clearly shut down, proceeded to unlock the doors, turn on the lights, fire up the stove, and cook us a delicious meal while we sat waiting.

Markets in Guatemala are not few nor far between and beautiful handmade textiles-for-sale abound wherever you go. Yet, everyone (gringos and Guatemalans, market enthusiasts and critics alike) says Chichicastenango, Guatemala's most famous market, is truly unique and a must-see, so we fit it in during out time at the lake. It didn't disappoint--a bustling, chaotic, colorful vibrant maze of stalls, Chichi overflows with tapestries, fruits, vegetables, livestock, and flowers; hustlers hollering, infants crying, musical instruments playing; and the strong, distinct scent of market—anyone who’s spent time in Latin America knows what I’m talking about—it’s a mix of raw meat, herbs, tallow candles and corn tortillas on the griddle.

Super-colorful Chichi...

We then moved on to a new hotel in a village down the shore from San Marcos, a place called Casa del Mundo--also raved about, also whose praise is very well-founded. It's a hotel built right into the cliffs with clear views of various volcanoes and other villages on opposite sides of the lake. Swimming and hiking here turn from common activities to ethereal experiences, and the views from the rooms are spectacular. So ended a great trip--a much needed dose of home for me, and a welcome encounter with some little-known gems of central america for my parents.

Lake Atitlan from Casa del Mundo...

One last note: thanks mom and dad, what a wonderful two weeks--you guys are the best.

Shifting the Target Slightly

"Guatemala is a good place to commit a murder, because you will almost certainly get away with it."--Philip Alston, UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings

The 1996 peace accords marked the end of what was considered a traditional internal armed conflict--a war that was made over with UN mediation, long talks, and short signatures. But a war is still on in Guatemala; the part that has changed (and changed only marginally) is the target.

Two women are killed every day in Guatemala. That's 10 times the rate in Britain. What's more, in the past 3 years, the number of women killed has quadrupled. These are alarming rates which, along with the calculation and brutality with which the murders are carried out, mean that the name of Guatemala's new war is femicide.

The term femicide refers to the systematic killing of women because they're women. Depending on the context, it takes on different specific forms including honor killing in the Middle East and selective abortion in Asia. In Guatemala, it's skyrocketing rates of murder preceded by violent sexual assault and torture against women aged 15-25 . The case that probably most readily comes to mind associated with the term is Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Here, femicide of a character similar to Guatemala's garnered high press levels and ardent international and national activism. Guatemala's situation has been considerably less-reported, which is interesting because the numbers here are in a totally different ballpark than in Juarez: in Guatemala, between 2001 and 2005, 1,780 women were killed (mostly in and around the capital). In Juarez, 400 were killed over the past 15 years. One victim is too many--no question. But these numbers should be not be overlooked. Under-reportage generally begets inaction, and it's fair to say Guatemala is no exception to that trend.

Mention of inaction brings us to why the BBC calls Guatemala a "Killer's Paradise" in a recent documentary it produced on femicide. The lack of response by authorities that surrounds the phenomenon in Guatemala is acute--out of those 1,780 cases of women killed, there hasn't been a single conviction. The vast majority of cases don't even enjoy preliminary police investigations.

Something to keep in mind: like genocide, femicide is not only about the number dead. As a colleague said to me once, "The fact that 250,000 people died in Guatemala over the past 40 years is not alarming. What's alarming is how they died." Femicide is more than murder. These women are being sexually assaulted, tortured, and dismembered. The perpetrators leave marks of hatred and power in order to terrorize and intimidate victims' families and peers in order to exert and grow that power. Numerous news reports and human rights NGOs have pointed out chilling parallels between the nature of the crimes associated with femicide and those committed during the war. And independent analysts are beginning to speculate that responsibility is attributable, to some degree, to state agents.

Following the war thread further--the target has changed, but only slightly. While women were victimized during the genocide because of their ethnicity and political associations, they were targeted simply for their gender as well. Women were able to "breed insurgents" and carry on the ethnic traditions, and therefore eliminated when possible.

So what does this mean for daily life in Guatemala? It means that many women feel confined to their homes out of fear of going out. It means that 2 families a day get calls in the middle of the night to come identify the body of their little girl. It means that fathers show up day after day to the chief prosecutor's office to demand that investigations are conducted and lead to trials, only to be lied to and brushed aside. I recently met one of these fathers. His 19-year-old daughter Claudina was killed a year and a half ago, a case that was, like all the others, virtually ignored by state authorities. He has not given up the fight for justice--he repeatedly meets with officials who continue to respond with indifference, he's made trips to the US to make pleas to the authorities there, and he's won the attention of Amnesty International, which now has an Urgent Action out about Claudina's case.

Femicide is a quiet war that rages in the infancy of Guatemala's peace. It's a remnant of the conflict--brutal tactics and power-coveting, shrouded in impunity--with a new urban setting and a new principal target.

For more info, Amnesty produced a great report in 2005 that's worth checking out. Numerous articles and press releases have also been written, making comparisons across borders to shed light on patterns. See the BBC documentary, Killer's Paradise, and go here to bring some pressure to bear on the Guatemalan government to take responsibility for stopping the crisis.

Fun Salvador

"Life overwhelms me in post-El Salvador period." --Brady, fellow Fulbrighter

This past week, your hard-earned tax dollars went toward an all-expenses paid retreat for Fulbright student grantees working in Central America. We were sent to beautiful El Salvador for a few days of sharing research, exchanging feedback, and catching up on some R & R after what has been for most of us several pretty tough months in the field. I just wanted to mention the trip to send a shout out to my fellow grantees, thank them for a truly inspiring few days, and note how impressive some of the stuff that's going on out there really is. There were roughly twenty of us doing work throughout Central America, projects from working with street children in Nicaragua to photographing the Afro-Antillean community in Panama. Among others is one grantee tracking primary school dropout rates in Honduran slums, one studying popular and political responses to CAFTA in Costa Rica, and one researching evangelical conversion in El Salvador. Not only is there some really excellent research coming out of these studies, but everyone seems to have a seriously strong commitment to activism--their interest doesn't stop at the statistics or theory but extends to involvement and understanding for the people on the ground who are affected by the issues. Nice job, Fulbrighters--keep up the good work.

Playing in the pool

At our resort in Sonsonate, El Salvador (photo credit: Rose Cromwell)

Another part of the trip really worth noting was our day in the capital. For years now, I've heard and read about the infamous Father Oscar Romero, a Salvadorian human rights advocate who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize the same year Mother Theresa won. Fulbright hooked us up with a tour to the site of his home, his church, and ultimately his execution, as well as the memorials for 6 jesuit priests who were also killed during El Salvador's violent conflict. On March 24, 1980, Romero was shot at the alter during mass at the small chapel of a hospital for cancer patients where he worked. After years of activism on behalf of victims of the civil war, Romero joined a list of martyrs killed for their affiliation to the church's promotion of peace in a time of violent revolution.

Cathedral were Romero preached, San Salvador

Just a few miles away at the Jesuit University in San Salvador, six Jesuit priests and two female University employees were killed nine years later by death squads directed by the same Salvadoran army. The memorials for the victims are a powerful albeit at times very graphic representation of the executions, the aftermath, and the inspiration they left in the wake of their deaths.

Commemorative depiction of priests killed

Memorial rose garden for female victims

Other highlights were having lunch at the US embassy, which is one of the biggest in the Western hemisphere. We met with the ambassador and his wife for some photo-ops and general promotion of US dollars at work in Central America. We also had some time to check out downtown...

Central plaza, San Salvador


Sarah and Brad hangin out.

36 Hours in the Ixil Triangle

"When it rains in Nebaj, there are tears in the sky."--Juan Perez, resident

Driving up onto the land of a region that was arguably the single-most devastated area during the armed conflict was the start of a few days of seeing a very different side of the project I began months ago.

Nebaj and the other two towns (Cotzal and Chajul) make up what is known as the Ixil [Ee-sheel] Triangle, an area billed as the hotbed of Guatemala's armed conflict. The three sit up in the northern region of the department of Quiché where, according to the UN-sponsored truth commission, over 300 separate massacres took place during the war. This was in addition to the typical laundry list of horrors that plagued primarily indigenous villages throughout the country: disappearances, extrajudicial executions, rape, forced displacement, and coerced conscription into the national army among others. Always better than a list of these repeatedly rattled-off abuses, though, are the words of surviving witnesses. Here is testimony from a young man who survived an attack in the small village of Acul, Nebaj:

At daybreak, soldiers and patrollers had surrounded Acul. Twenty-six dead; twenty were thrown into a hole and six were left thrown in the street. They were struck, shot at, knifed, and tortured. Eighty of them did it. The PAC commander knew me, and told me I was lucky.

Last week I drove north with a friend of a colleague who came down from Canada to do a few days of research in the Ixil for a novel he's writing involving humanitarian aid work in Quiché. He assured me the trip should be spent on whatever interviews I wanted to do, as he followed me with a tape recorder and generally got a feel for the land and people of Nebaj. The drive is a 6-hour trip on primarily windy uphill two-lane highways with breathtaking views of arid landscape. Every so often we drove through tiny villages decorated with cinderblock houses, peeling paint, stray dogs, and the glaring campaign material of various political parties...

FRG party, supported by Rios Montt

Encuentro party, candidate: Rigoberta Menchu (female indigenous Nobel Peace Prize winner)

We spent the first day getting our bearings on the small town of Nebaj, phoning human rights community contacts and following leads on a bit of a goose chase that I've found pretty typical when doing research in Guatemala. After only a bit of success with the local government who promised us interviews the next day, we relented to the fact that we'd get little done on a Sunday in rural Guatemala, and prepared to hit the ground running the next day.

Monday proved to be everything we'd banked on it being--interview after spontaneous interview with as many people involved in human rights regarding the armed conflict as possible. Interviews at the attorney general's office were highlights--so far, there have been no cases put through the courts regarding the conflict, yet in the past year over 100 exhumations of mass graves have been undergone in the Nebaj region alone. "Family members don't want to deal with the courts, they don't want this type of justice," we were assured. "They just want to recover what's left of the bodies." We spoke with a number of activists at NGOs that support the victims who, in fact, do want justice. Turns out there's a veritable cottage industry for this type of legal support, so perhaps the municipality's got it wrong.

The good news is, there is a fair amount of support (legal, psychological and forensic alike) for exhumations in this particular region, having much to do with A) the sheer numbers of high-quantity massacres that took place there, and B) a healthy community of activism on the part of surviving family members. For the families, exhumations shed light on the whereabouts of victims that have been missing for decades, and give them what they need to bring some measure of spiritual closure to an excruciating situation.

Overall it was great to breathe some mountain air and even better to practice some whirlwind fact finding. A few photos of the town to give you an idea...
The best part was feeling the history in the land, and getting exposure to the energy and convictions of the people who lived through the war. In spite of serious discouragement, so many are pushing on, still, in efforts to treat the trauma and mistrust left by the genocide.