August 12th, 2004

Today was a day to sleep in until 8 am in the beautiful city of Santiago Atitlan. We all needed and appreciated the extra rest. Some of us enjoyed a nice breakfast of hot oatmeal (mosh), bananas, and sweet breads. Others continued to relax, write in their journals, reflect, or just regroup.

Shannon received a phone call from her husband informing her that the former civil patrols would not be blocking the highways until Monday at the earliest. This gave us the green light to continue our return to Guatemala City.

On the way, we circled the lake that spread out several hundred meters below in the midst of volcanos, clouds, waterfalls, and a bright green forest of trees, corn fields, gardens, small homes made of tin, wood, or straw.

People dressed in traditional Mayan clothing, old and young, speaking the indigenous language of the region walked with cattle or sheep or sped by standing in pick up trucks. Buses and cars sped by us all the way with no apparent regard for the oncoming traffic that might be approaching just around the next curve.

We arrived in Guatemala City two hours later than a previously scheduled meeting with the Alianza Contra la Impunidad (Alliance Against Impunity). The speaker graciously waited for us. As with so many who work in human rights organizations here, her passion comes from personal experience. Her father, brother, and pregnant sister were abducted during La Violencia (Civil War) and have never been found. It is thought that her sister was probably kept alive until the birth of the child that could then be sold for adoption. Her husband was exiled in Mexico for political reasons and later returned to contribute to the struggle for justice.

She has successfully managed to push for indeminazation in the courts for the loss of her relatives and those of thousands of others. She is also in court to have the right to learn of the fate of the child that may have been born to her sister; this case has set a precedent for many other similar cases.

How can she and others go on we ask. She replies that she has been given the chance to have "una segunda vida," a second life. Those who have had that chance must speak for all of those who did not get it (over 200,000).

We spoke about the current political climate in Guatemala. The Peace Accords have not been put into effect; the violence has been increasing dramatically; there is much corruption in government circles. Eighty-five percent of Guatemalans live in poverty; twenty-six percent of those live in extreme poverty. The Jaguar Plan was just put into place; an agreement between the U.S. and Guatemalan governments to build military bases here. One wonders, here and in the U.S., if that is not related to future efforts to fight the war on drugs in other countries such as Colombia or Cuba.

Delegates: Kneeling- Briana Connors, Mindy Ahler-Olmstead. Back Row(L-R)- Joel Papa, Ann Maczuga, Jenny Linane, Michael Branigan, Katharine Malaga, Ross Starkson.

We returned to the Sister Parish Center where we now feel "at home." After the mundane chores of washing clothes and eating pizza for dinner, we watched a film called "Precarious Peace." Again, the sad realities of much of life in Guatemala, mixed with the courage of the survivors of the Civil War period, move all of us tremendously. The pain and beauty of this place have effected and changed all of us, and will continue to do so, probably for the rest of our lives. Nobody leaves untouched, unscarred, undetermined to contribute in some way, shape, or form.

As so often, we in the delegation feel we are walking in the presence of saints.. not beatified or canonized, but doing their work out of love of God and humanity, justice and solidarity.

En la paz de Cristo,
Sister Parish Delegation