At the end of this week Pedro will lose his job according to his father who has been keeping us updated on his situation since he left for the states last year. He has been working at a restaurant earning about $3.30 an hour working 12 hour shifts for almost a year now. But his employer as far as he knows doesn’t want to give his more experienced immigrant workers raises so at the end of this pay period will be letting them all go. Most likely the risk of being fined for employing illegal workers outweighs the savings in their lower wages. Pedro hoped to get work papers and his parents recently sent his Guatemalan ID in the mail. On Friday his ID arrived however, this week Pedro is training several African American’s to do his job. His father Gaspar talked to him yesterday but, he didn’t want to talk, “I’ll call when I find work again,” he said sadly.

While Gaspar was visiting us today our conversation turned to labor rights in Guatemala. Last year Guatemalans overwhelmingly elected Alvaro Colom president of the republic. He ran on the theme of solidarity and justice. These ideas appealed to the rural poor and indigenous people of Guatemala who have suffered for most of the countries existence. Holding to a promise made during his campaign this past month he raised the minimum wage for laborers from about Q35 ($5) a day to Q59 ($7). However, the good intentions of the president will do nothing for most workers. On Finca (Plantation) Pacayal one of the largest coffee fincas in the municipality of Pochuta (the municipality which UV is part of) all of the workers were immediately fired. People from all over the country who have worked and lived for years on the finca but owned nothing were told to go home. Home. The new workers being trucked in on cattle trucks with their families and the clothes on their back will not be paid by the day but are being forced to sign monthly contracts which will surly pay no higher then the wage earned by workers they replaced.

Last Sunday, in the D Revista a magazine published in Guatemala’s Prensa Libre (Free Press) newspaper one of the feature stories was about our very own municipality of Pochuta. The article boasted of the beauty of the landscape. It praised the fine produce and coffee that come from our region and the wonderful climate that we enjoy. It also featured many photographs of the vistas seen from one of the coffee plantations near us. The plantation was Finca Pacayal. The article made no reference to the firings of the people that had spent their lives working that finca or the struggles their children faced as they left home to find work for themselves. Nor did the author notice the injustice that is the finca system itself. He also failed to mention our part in this saga and how we justify our actions and ignorances.

Those omissions and unanswered questions continue to nag me as we finish our time in Guatemala. If our democracy, our economic system, our way of life in the States is so superior or advanced why are a select few the only ones that truly benefit? Some of these questions have been at least partially answered for me. Many still remain.

What if the Agrarian Reforms of President Arbenz had been allowed to mature and the rural poor given a say in their countries development? What if the US hadn’t funded the murder of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children? (A few of whose remains I have personally witnessed exhumed from clandestine graves) What if Christians stood up against war? What if citizens of western countries held their governments responsible for there actions? These are the questions we are supposed to ask ourselves, questions that cannot be ignored. But, often questions not posed because we are never in a place to hear them.

For the past 2 years, while serving in BVS, these are the questions that we have been confronted with in our neighbor’s kitchens, in the backs of pickup trucks, and while working in coffee fields. These are the questions of the majority, those not reaping the benefits of our freedom, our free trade, and our security. We can only begin to serve once we start asking these types of questions of ourselves. They are questions we have struggled with and hope to struggle with for a long time.