Unión Victoria

We thought we should start with a little information about Unión Victoria. We arrived last Saturday and were greeted by Sinforoso and Augustina and their children and shown where we could put our backpacks. Sinforoso is a teacher at the school and a leader in the community and Augustina works around the house. The village is nestled in between two mountains with a river running through the middle. It is about 4 miles up a dirt road from the town of Pochuta. The first families started resettling at the former Finca El Salvador about 7 years ago. Since that time the community has grown to over 89 families. The residents of Unión Victoria speak the Mayan languages of Q’iche and Ixul as well as Spanish. The families live in small but sturdy 4 room concrete block houses with metal roofs. Each house has a few light and electrical outlets powered by a water turbine. Some residents also have satellite phones since cell or land service is unavailable. Most families also have a kitchen area outside made of wood, with a metal roof. This is where our family comes together for meals around their wood cook stove.

Fields of coffee climb the steep mountains encircling the community. Coffee is the main source of income for many of the families. This year’s harvest has been picked, sold and the coffee bushes are bright with small white flowers promising next years crop. Many families also have animals and some sort of garden. Our family has three cows and some chickens and a small garden where they grow corn, a staple for Mayan families, vegetables and herbs.

So far we really aren’t doing very much. The people are very excited to have us and we are trying to be visible. We usually take a walk around the community each day and visit with people when we’re invited. Hasinto invited us over for dinner and said when we come he’ll kill a chicken to eat. I think we may go over this week. In the afternoon when the children are out of school walking around kind of draws a lot of attention. Because the former accompanier’s name was Rebecca the children already know Becky’s formal name, Rebecca. The kids love Becky and always yell for her when she’s walking around. My camera has become a popular item of interest among the kids as well. We can tell former volunteers had cameras. We have also taken a couple hikes into the mountains for a better view of the village and to get better feel for the countryside. After work and school the primary activity for most of the boys and young men is playing futbol. Near the coffee processing building there is a regulation size field. Guevara (13), Vicente (16) and Miguel (18), the three boys in our family, invited me to play. It was quite the experience. I tried to explain to them that I had seriously played more futbol in the last three months then the previous 27 years of my life. All they know was that I was bad. In the end we lost but it was fun and being one of the tallest on the field I was able to head the ball in the direction of the goal a couple times. However, it never seamed to find its way in.

Although, we are currently living with a family there are plans for us to move into our own house sometime. We will probably need to do a lot of work to get a house ready but it will be nice to have something to keep us occupied. By Wednesday we had already read all our books. It will also be nice to have a little privacy since we are sleeping in the same room as Vicente.

After going to Guatemala City to renew our visas on Friday we are in San Lucas for the weekend to pickup some of our stuff. We are heading backup to U.V. on Tuesday morning.

Thank you for your continued excitement and encouragement. We never can get enough! We are also eager to hear about your lives…so feel free to respond to the blog or better yet email us a little note! Aaronhjohnston@gmail.com or Beckysjohnston@gmail.com. We really look forward to hearing from you! Our next time down will be in a few weeks so don’t think we are ignoring you if you don’t hear back from us quickly. We will be in touch. Thanks to all.