In 2002, on our first journey to Guatemala, my husband and I learned about the plight of the Maya population following the 30+ years of civil war in Guatemala. We saw how hard they worked and what a struggle they had just to survive in the mountainous, agricultural regions. We both grew up and spent many years living on Iowa farms, so we understood much about their way of life, but they did everything by hand, and we were used to machines that made much of the physical labor easier. Then we realized that our grandparents had struggled in the early 1900s just like the Maya people do now. That experience four years ago turned us into advocates for the Maya people and finally this year we were able to return as part of the 2006 F@W Pilgrimage.
When we arrived in El Sauce on Monday morning to help build a simple concrete and brick school for this village, the women and little girls made me think of my maternal grandmother. She was born in 1899 in southeastern Kansas on a peach farm located many miles from town. Once when she and I traveled to the area where she grew up, she told me about walking several miles to school where one of her uncles was the teacher and the school was so cold in the winter time. She only got to go to school through third grade since educating girls was considered an extravagance in rural U.S. areas in the early 1900s.
Because of that, she spent her entire 91 years thinking she was dumb. I knew better because she not only worked hard on an Iowa farm where she and my grandpa raised eleven children through the Depression, but she could also grow fabulous flowers, sew whatever needed to be sewn and had solid Bible knowledge and reading skills despite her limited education. I suspect that many of the women in the village of El Sauce are similar to my grandma, they don’t have much education, but know how to make-do with whatever is available for their use and have an abundance of hope for their children.
Therefore, it was exhilarating to me to see so many women in the village taking lead roles at the ground breaking ceremony for their new school the Monday morning we arrived. Women teachers spoke, all the children participated in the songs, dances and skits. Mothers were there with younger children and one could sense the excitement and hope that came with the promise of this new school.
And later, the hard work the children put in to help us with the project was absolutely amazing. We had to move a dump truck load of sand about a quarter of a mile from an impassable spot on the road to the school building site. We set up a relay of wheel barrows, pushing them up and down the hills, going back and forth from the sand pile to the school site. The children joined us and soon many of the little girls were filling small buckets and dishpans full of sand, hoisting them to their heads and walking to the site where they dumped the sand. I helped one tiny little girl again and again as she filled her dishpan with sand. I would lift the heavy pan onto her head and off she would go. It seemed she returned in no time at all to once again fill her dishpan. She wasn’t carrying a lot in terms of how much sand we needed to move, but she was doing her part with a lot of determination. She didn’t quit until we had to put the wheel barrows away for the day.
We also found out that the entire village had worked for a day and a half carrying the bricks for the school walls the same hilly, quarter of a mile route to the school site. Later, when we had to move some of the bricks to another spot, many of the little girls promptly picked up the bricks and carried them right along with the rest of us. They were hopeful and excited about the new school, and their hope gave me new hope.
I realized that the girls of El Sauce are much like my grandmother was 100 years ago. They have so much to give to the world if only they have the opportunity. Hopefully the school that we helped finance will give these children the education they need to break out of the back-breaking poverty that is currently a daily part of their lives.
The two Guatemalan pilgrimages I’ve experienced have made me realize more than ever how blessed I am, and how much God is calling me to give. If we, who have so much, can learn to share a bit better, then surely the Earth will be a better place to live, and the men, women and children of El Sauce and Guatemala will be able to bless the world with their gifts.
Coleen Myers lives in Decatur IL with her husband, Mike. She has two sons, and five grandchildren, has attended several Faith@Work conferences and weekend retreats, and participated in two F@W Pilgrimages to Guatemala.
Next FAW Pilgrimage July 21-31, 2007