our first few weeks...

Well our first few weeks in Unión Victoria have been going relatively smoothly. We recently moved into a house that wasn’t being occupied. We have been busy working around the house a bit. It had never been lived in so it needed a little work. With the help of some of our neighbors we were able to install a few lights and outlets. Then we went to work cleaning which included rinsing the floor off with a hose. And over the last few weeks some of the kids have been helping us build terraces for a small garden.

We are starting to feel more comfortable in our new home. It seems to give us a little retreat. When the kids stop by we have a good times playing frisbee and trying to keep the girls from sweeping (everything). We have also been meeting a lot of the people from the community and getting to know them and their children. We are visiting different families each day for our meals, which has been really interesting. All of the families have been very hospitable and some of the families are very out going which makes it easy for us. Eating with different families has opened up a whole new world of understanding and has led to several stomach-churning and embarrassing events. After sitting down around the concrete and tile woodstove we washed our hands out of a small plastic container and were served egg soup and tortillas. We were both happily eating and chatting with the family when I looked up and saw it. A dead opossum was hanging from the ceiling with its tongue sticking out and its hair and skin missing. I quickly looked down at my food and ask Becky if she had seen it. Becky hadn’t yet seen it and after taking a split second glance didn’t look at it again. It was a perfectly normal thing to our host family but to people that only see meat in clean plastic packaging it was kind of disgusting. We continued eating (I am almost certain there was no meat in the soup) and chatting with the family while trying not to look at it. At another family’s house, I was seated in a hammock and Becky in a chair and our table was another chair. Well, somehow my feet flew out from under me and as I fell back my foot kicked the “table” sending our food to the floor. It was really embarrassing for me and I think the family felt bad but, we had a good laugh for about 15 minutes. I still don’t understand how it happened. Still, many families are more reserved and it has been kind of awkward because of the difficulty in conversation. But slowly we are meeting people and starting to understand more about them.

On another note the several communities have really been struggling with the local government trying to get them to come through on there promises to finish several post hurricane Stan projects that are in process. One of these projects is building a new community center in Unión Victoria. Work had been completed on the floor and walls and the community has been waiting for the funding to come through from the municipal government in Pochuta but they were holding out. Many believe that the mayor is corrupt and has been stealing money for himself and his friend. After several attempts to secure the funding through private meeting with the mayor, communities from around Pochuta staged a mass protest to bring attention to the problem. Representatives from several communities lead the protest with public speeches and attempted to meet with the mayor to submit documents that they believed proved that the funds were stolen. Since this was a planned protest the government was well prepared to break it up. Some 400-500 police officers in riot gear from several departments had set up lines around the municipal building. Overwhelming police presence led to a very tense situation. Several human rights workers were present acting as intermediaries between the police and the community leaders. The crowd was relatively peaceful and one community leader from Pochuta read a letter to the public describing their grievances. This was followed by an attempt by several community organizers to peacefully enter the usually open municipal building to meet with the mayor. However, the mayor would not meet with the leaders and the police blocked the doors. This encouraged the crowd in their chanting and the crowd continued to grow. The police finally got the chance to break up the crowd when a person from Pochuta threw a glass bottle hitting one of the organizers in the head while he was speaking. (Many from U. V. believe he was paid off by the government to do so). The police went on the attack hitting people with clubs including the hurt organizer and firing tear gas into the otherwise peaceful crowd. People fled and for a moment we just stood there astonished at the situation. Never before have I seen police act so aggressively towards civilians. Even in Washington DC at the Iraq war protest and in Chicago during the immigration protests we attended the police were always very professional but in Pochuta the police specifically were egging people on, inviting them verbally and with hand gestures to bring it on. After about half an hour of the police running around the town pursuing people and firing tear gas the situation calmed down. I believe this was mostly due to urging from the human rights workers. There would be no meeting this day and we headed back towards U. V. On the road up we meet approximately 30 more men and women coming down from Unión Victoria. They had heard that the police had attacked the crowd and were coming to the aid of their friends with the only weapons they had, mostly wooden poles and machetes. The teenagers we were going up with didn’t really say much to them and they continued down to Pochuta. Becky and I decide quickly that if they were going down I should go with them. I jumped out of the truck and ran back to them. I was able to explain what had happened and that everything was basically calm and that the human rights workers had helped cool the situation, which eased their worries. A moment later a second truck full on people from U.V. came up and they confirmed what I had said and several of the community leaders decided that the best option was to go back up to U.V. and have a meeting to let the community know what had happen. Becky and I were just overwhelmed by the day’s events. At the same time we were embarrassed by our lack of understanding going in to the day but convinced of the validity of our position as accompaniers. We were thanked in the meeting for being there with them in Pochuta, which was again overwhelming. Most everyone felt that the day was a failure and were unsure how it would affect them securing the funding for the roof of the community building. However, to our surprise on Monday the supplies arrived and Tuesday workers from Pochuta started installing the roof.

This weekend we celebrate the 7th anniversary of the founding of Unión Victoria. We are going to have a big party with food, dancing, marimba and a soccer tournament. Everyone has been working really hard preparing for the party. Becky and I have been painting a banner for over the road coming into the community. It felt good to be asked to help. The banner reads “Nuestra lucha ha sido justa para el futura de nuestros ninos y ninas” roughly in English “ Our fight for justice has been for the future of our children.”
We continue to be amazed at the support we have back home. We always look forward to hearing from all of you and to be honest we are feeling a little home sick…so keep the emails and pictures coming. We love and miss you!

Becky and Aaron