Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Rubber Trees, Sugar Cane and Bare Feet


These are just a couple of the vocanoes that line up along the way to Buena Vista.  Below are rubber trees beeing tapped for the rubber.
Skin conditions are common in Buena Vista.

This morning started early.  When I began writing this it was a little after 7:00 A.M. on the way to Buena Vista. We picked up Chohi in Amatitilan and we were on our way.  Choci is 70+, full of energy and was singing in my ear as I wrote in my journal.  Gratefully, she really didn’t seem to mind…as long as I occasionally acknowedged her by nodding, "Si," each time she changed tunes.  Buena Vista is at least two hours from Guatemala City, toward the Pacific coast, and the ride is spectacular albeit a touch “warm”.  As we dropped out of the mountains, the air got hot fast, the vegetation changed to denser rainforest, and a string of volcanoes appeared, some active and smoking, standing majestically in a line along side the highway.  Truly, the view was spectacular!

About two hours into the trip, we made a left turn onto a gravel/mud road that cut into a sugar cane field on one side and rubber trees on the other. Passing an occasional passerby walking with a large pack on their back, we arrived at “the tree” and turned right.  We were in Buena Vista.

Describing Buena Vista is easy in some ways.  No electricity, no running water, lots of desperate looking animals, and some of the worst human suffering I have ever seen.  Most of these people seem to subsist on whatever they can muster.  Bananas and mangos grow wild everywhere, and there must be eggs, since there are chickens roaming everywhere.  Some seem to glean income from tapping and bagging rubber or working on sugar cane fincas, but basically Buena Vista is shanties made of an occasional piece of corrugated metal, bamboo, a bit of wood, maybe a tarp but nothing substantial; every floor is dirt or mud depending on the weather, the smoke of wood burning fires permeates the air, and inside these homes, it is dark, very dark. 

The rubber trees and their taps, as well as children chewing on sugar cane are fascinating (Emily thought the kids were eating trees), but it was the bare feet that were the killers.  These beautiful people are filthy and nowhere is that more obvious than on their feet.  There feet kind of symbolize the whole situation.  Malnourished animals roam the paths of Buena Vista… horses, pigs, chickens, turkeys, oxen, vacas, cats, dogs…and so do the feet.  Every home we visited had a child that was ill, stricken with something unspeakable, or was mourning the death of someone, usually a baby.  I have no idea how anyone survives in these conditions.  We were pouring DEET all over ourselves to prevent any possible exposure to infected mosquitoes, and these kids were playing in dirt, surrounded by feces of every imaginable source, with very little food, little to no education, and virtually no hope for a future. 

We have talked at length about the difficulty in breaking the cycle of extreme poverty…the extreme poor live day to day, so planning for a future doesn’t even resonate with them.  However, they are open to God’s love for them.  Groundwork owns a plot of land in Buena Vista and this past year Guatemalans built a shelter and “outhouse facilities” from which to operate.  Just to have shade or a cover in the rain, is awesome in Buena Vista, and it creates a place for people in the community to gather weekly with Americans and Guatemalans who come to treat their medical concerns, meet their social needs, and feed their spiritual hunger.  I felt like a rock star in Buena Vista, and all I did was show up.  Groundwork is an organization of real life, long-term, Christian rock stars serving those that suffer as a way of life.  What they do is exhausting, incredibly impressive, and always Godly.  Hopefully, the photos will help you get the idea.  We went in three different directions today with home visits, and all three of mine were tragic…a young woman whose baby was born dead on Saturday and now has an ear infection and abdominal pain.  The next one was a family of four daughters and mother.  The youngest, two-years-old, has to be held constantly; she cannot walk, talk, hold her head up, eat solid food, and had some sort of rigidity in her leg.  The third visit was a young woman (25) with five children.  They all appeared to be malnourished, but one of her young sons was clearly losing a battle of some sort.  At they very least, he looked woefully malnourished and possibly not viable.  And those were just the visits Emily, Emma, Jeannie, Shelby, and I made with Kevin, Sandra, and Oscar.

We saw a lot today.  It was Emily’s sixteenth birthday today.  We prayed with desperately ill sisters and brothers today.  We witnessed mothers in mourning today.  We watched as Choci was unexpectedly taken to the hospital today.  It was quite a day.

Blessings,
Sally Jennifer, Kara, Emma, Shelby, Nick, Jordan, Kelsey, Lonnie, Jeannie, and the birthday girl, Emily
This was the home of the little girl who could not sit or stand on her own.
This is where mothers in shanties place there babies to rock them.
It is customary to have a team picture taken at "the tree".  Check out those roots.
Minor is an approximately 11-year old deaf, impaired child.  He attached himself to Nick like glue!

1 Comments:

At June 23, 2011 at 10:26 AM , Blogger Kim said...

What an amazing job you all are doing - I am so proud of all of you! Love reading these posts. Praying for your continued safety and can't wait to see you Kels!!

 

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