Little did the 16 of us know what a ride we were about to take as our plane landed us abruptly Friday afternoon in Guatemala City, the two-million-person capital of a country about the size of Tennessee.
As we all crammed into the tiny van that would be our primary form of transportation for the next week, I thought about everything I already knew about Guatemala. I remembered hearing that it had more than 20 different languages, and that obviously Guatemalan women suffered oppression and abuse, as the focus of our trip was on gender inequality and women’s issues.
Then I thought about my last three spring breaks filled with fond, but slightly hazy, memories and hoped that this spring break would be different.
I maintained my hopes of experiencing a totally different spring break as I tried to order my first meal in Spanish, which I quickly realized was much harder than reciting what was written on the back of flash cards I made for a recent Spanish test.
It wasn’t until Saturday, when we met a tiny Mayan woman named Bernarda that we began to feel the beginning of a possibly life-changing experience.
Bernarda cried as she finished telling us, through our translator, how she had to leave her baby behind as she scrambled from her burning village for fear that its cries would alert the Guatemalan army of her hiding place more than 20 years ago.
The small room echoed sighs of relief as she explained that she later retrieved her baby amidst the sounds of her crops burning and the army murdering her neighbors.
We crammed back into our little van after our visit with Bernarda and the two other Guatemalan women who told their stories of how their husbands abused them, how CEDEPCA, also known as Centro Evangélico de Estudios Pastorales en Centro América, encouraged them to leave their abusive relationships and how it allowed them to stand up and speak to us that day.
The Sunday church service preached by one of the only two Mayan woman pastors in the Guatemalan Presbyterian church eased our minds as we each explained a word we chose that describes what a healthy community needs. We realized that love and care were learned at a young age in Guatemala when a little Mayan boy said in Spanish that he chose the word love because he loved all of us.
Our wave of emotions raged on once more as we pulled up to the “basurera” Monday morning.
Our guide, David, warned us the night before that visiting the largest dump in Central America would be our most difficult day. We watched in awe and silence from across a huge gorge as vultures circled above the hundreds of scrambling “guajeros” – those who survive by digging through the trash for food and valuables of any kind. As we imagined how the children of these poorest of the poor felt when they walked through the doors of “camino seguro”, we all noticed the sense of hope that we felt once we stepped inside. We learned that this school provides a safe place to learn, eat, bathe and receive minor medical care for over six hundred children of “guajeros.”
While the founder of “camino seguro” died only a month ago in a tragic car accident, the program barrels forward as the staff prepares for the arrival of the first lady as she plans to visit when U.S. President Bush makes his appearance in Guatemala later this week.
After spending another night in a Mayan household, crossing a tire-burning protest against the failure of a major Guatemalan bank, and almost missing our flight home due to a confused bus driver, we unanimously agreed that this trip to Guatemala has impacted all of our lives far more than any common college spring break ever could.
I couldn’t imagine graduating this December without the experience and education it gave me on the poverty and strength that can be found in our world today. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience of which I’m sincerely glad I took advantage.
