Touring the Village

Let's start with a tour of the Village!

The village was established with the help of Agros http://www.agros.org/.

Agros negotiated with the Guatemalan Government on behalf of the remnant of

people from Batzchocola for a patch of land deep in the jungle.

They received the land from the government at a verrrrry discounted price

to help make up for the travesties that occurred during their civil war.

They had received the land just 5 years prior to my visit.

At that time, it was simply raw jungle land on the side of a mountain.

Wait till you see all the work they've put into it!

This is a view of the hillside that the people of the village farm.

Have you ever had Organic Shade-Grown Guatemalan Coffee?

It could've been from Batzchocola!

More on that in a future post.

Notice how steep the hills are?

Their whole village is built into the hillside,

with steep paths up and down between homes.

This is the hillside from the last picture up close.
These are newly planted Banana Trees that create shade for the coffee plants.
There are literally hundreds of little coffee plants between the trees.
See them?

Their homes are built from hand hewn wood straight outta their forest.

When you look at the wood up close, you can actually see the saw marks in the wood.

Meetings are held in the Town Hall.

They had one meeting during our visit,

which included updates on their various projects

and introduced us to the Heads of each committee.

They honored us for our help with the village as well,

which was verrrry moving. More on that later...

Here is Juana again baking bread for our feast...

Look at all those rolls on the cooling racks!

Can you imaging baking like this?

She spent the entire day just making rolls for everyone.

The smell of fresh bread was absolutely intoxicating!

Inside their homes,

there is one main room where they eat, cook, sleep and spend time together.

The stoves they use for cooking are a major health hazard.

The stoves don't pipe the smoke out of the home, so it just fills the air with soot.

Many of the stoves have been replaced with one like this.

They are made of concrete and at the back end,

there is a smoke stack to pipe the soot out.

You can see the walls are still charred black from their prior stove...

Running water is such a treasure here!

They have an incredibly clean and abundant source of water for the village.

They used to carry it in with baskets and buckets daily.

Only a 2.5 mile hike up the hillside and back...

Now, their water is piped into the village and some homes have the luxury of a sink!

They are made of fiberglass and each have 3 bowls.

They fill one with soapy water to wash clothes, or dishes.

Then rinse in the next!

Very handy.

The children have a school house and LOVE going to school and learning.

Many of the adults in the village only speak their native language.

It's a gutteral ancient Mayan dialect, which has lots of clicks and grunts...

A few adults have learned Spanish, and the kids are all learning Spanish in school.

This will help them be able to travel outside of the village to sell goods, obtain higher education,

and further their commerce.

The school house is on the left, with one of their two churches behind it.

With only 250 people, they need 2 churches - with a third on the way -

each a different denomination.

Fascinating that even such a small group of tight-knit people still disagree on

the details of God...

There is a cemetary as well.

Many who are buried here died during the Civil War.

Family members brought their bodies from other places throughout the jungle

to be buried here in the village where they can be together.

Welcome to Pedro Chavez's Home!

This sign just CRACKED me up!

It says,

"Welcome to the Chavez home. You can charge your cell phone here."
Cell phones?!

Yep!

A handful of people in the village now have cell phones.

They used to have a 2-day trek through these mountains to get to the nearest town,

Nebaj, but now they can make a call to town...

Pedro's house has one of the only generators in the village.

Ahhhh, electricity!

Meet Pedro's Burro.
We had a burro to rope growing up. His name was Pedro!
Coincidence??
So, I asked Pedro what his burro's name was.
He said Burro.
No, no, I said - not what he's called, what is his name?
"Burro. We don't name animals." was his simple reply.
Right. American Erin, these animals are for WORK, not for play or affection. C'mon...