Chapter 2 - Into the Jungle

Cuatro Cayos

Thursday Feb -11 had been our long slog from Portland, ME to Guatemala City.  Friday was our woozy, dizzying 7 hour passage to Rio Dulce; Saturday we ventured out to the heart of our mission; into the jungle village of Cuatro Cayos.  Most days we made the 35 minute trip to the village riding in the back of a truck.  It is a most appropriate way to travel around Guatemala, as you will see if you click on the video link below (when the video ends, close the tab to return to the blog).  https://youtu.be/BoZsgj9ivGk  

The FWD trucks were necessary to climb the steep muddy dirt roads to the village; at times the creeks and rivers flood so badly that the bridges wash out entirely.  In past years Guatemala teams had to use this suspension bridge to cross flooded river banks during the rainy season. 

When you first see the countryside we traveled through to get to the village, you might think it is jungle.  It isn’t.  The hundreds of miles of jungle that was once here was all cut down and burned to ash to make way for the endless rows of palm trees you now see.  The few lone tall trees remaining are the last vestiges of a once mighty old growth rain forest that was wiped out to make way for the production of palm fruit; it's used to make palm oil for cooking and also used as a source of bio diesel fuel.  Palm production and other types of commercial farming are among the leading causes of deforestation in third world countries.

The village area itself remains mostly jungle - a jungle with houses in it.  Our initial arrival at Pastor Carlos’ (village pastor) house was a bit deceiving; although extremely modest by most standards, his house (built by our church) had cement walls, cement floors and a steel roof.  By Cuatro Cayos standards it was upscale.

Once we unloaded and were shouldering heavy suitcases of mission supplies down the leafy path to the school, I began to realize just how impoverished the villagers were. 

Their houses were constructed from boards sliced by hand or chainsaw, with dirt floors, makeshift doors, and roofs of corrugated steel if they had it, grass thatch if they didn’t. There is no electricity to the village, the homes have no running water, and there is no sanitation system other than some common-use compost toilets.

Cooking is done in a separate shack (for fear of burning down the living quarters), over an open wood fire with the meal propped up over the flames by scraps of rebar or other steel that might be laying around.

Because there is no running water, bathing is done in the same place clothes get washed – in the nearest creek or river.  Sometime the cooking water comes from the same river.  This tire marks the opening of a hand dug well; it caps a well shaft 3ft in diameter that is about 15ft deep.   Water is retrieved by lowering a bucket on a rope.  I helped the villagers fill some water buckets,  but it certainly wasn’t anything you or I could drink.  You can pretty quickly imagine that the lack to clean drinking water and the limited sanitation facilities figures largely into potential health problems.  

Additionally, these are people with limited and inconsistent access to food; two meals per day is a luxury that not everyone can afford, and there are days when there is no meal.  This includes the children.  Our church funds a program for all the school children to get breakfast at least every other day, before school starts.

It was these villagers that our visitation team had come to minister to.  Because of my other commitments I didn’t get to join the team, but they shared their experiences with all of us.  They walked to many of the homes, witnessed to and prayed with the villagers through an interpreter, and hung mosquito netting. Two observations the team made really impressed me; the people seemed to live with joy in their hearts despite their circumstances, and they were very happy to have our team come to pay them a visit.

  They genuinely enjoyed the company, and were appreciative that someone from far away had come to sit and talk with them in their homes, and bring services to their village. 

Later that evening after dinner we shared our first-day reflections during the evening Devotion. I stated bluntly that in all my travels both domestic and abroad, the villagers of Cuatro Cayos are the poorest people I’ve ever seen in my life. One of my construction teammates, a first timer like me, said it best when he stated, “I was raised poor, and I’ve seen people who are poor, but this is a different kind of poor”.

Cuatro Cayos Village School

One of our hallmark programs in the village is education.  When our first church team arrived 4 years ago there was no school and virtually no education for the children whatsoever.  Our church had completed building the school and soccer field two years ago, and developed an education and literacy program.  In the beginning the classes were held only when our church was there, but as we began to build out infrastructure the government got involved.  Last year they supplied a paid full time teacher, a big step forward.  This year the focus of our school team was on literacy – Dr. Seuss in Spanish, and many other Spanish books and materials that we ferried down from the U.S. 

But that first day we got to the school, the “old timers” on the team dropped their suitcases full of school supplies on the ground and stood back in amazement at what had happened to the school.  Unbeknownst to Pastor Bill or anyone else on the team, the government had come in and overhauled the entire facility!  

They tore the roof off, built out a front porch as an assembly area, installed ornamental but sturdy security bars over the open windows, brought in school desks, and built a proper steel roof to cover the whole thing. 

And to top it off, they installed a sophisticated solar powered lighting system with battery backup for evening use!  Now there were two paid teachers for Anna and the school team to work with, and they set to work unpacking books, paper tables, pencils, and other materials they would need for the week. 

The school team used the facility every day, for classroom teaching, soccer field assembly (this class was on how to hold a tooth brush and brush your teeth), and even to use the school cook house to host a BBQ for the entire village our last day there.

The success of the Cuatro Cayos school was a case of our church going to a remote village beyond the edge of civilization, and building out some educational infrastructure where there once was nothing.  When the Guatemalan government saw the feasibility of what we had begun, they stepped in to help out.

Next time – Dentistry in a jungle, and, how to build a medical center under a thatched roof.  Aidos! 

-- Doug