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| Ixil Family of Xonca |
Following a local bus ride from Atenas, Costa Rica to the airport to travel to Guatemala, a cheerful greeting from FH Staff in Guatemala City, the sweet, nostalgic taste of rosa de Jamaica with lunch, and a harrowing van ride from Guatemala City to the mountain town of Nebaj, my teammate Hudson and I were greeted by a damp, moldy room with two double beds, lumpy and sagging from age and the all-to-familiar smell of unvented sewer gasses coming from the mirror-less bathroom. Exhausted from the journey which took us over mountains, valleys, and precariously close to unguarded cliffs and landslide-weakened roads, we promptly retired for the night. Awakening the next morning to the foggy chill of high-altitude Guatemala, I fiddled with the shower for a few minutes to coax out what little warm water would come. I brushed my teeth, gingerly swishing with water from a bottle, the infamous “Montezuma’s Revenge” ever present in my
mind.
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| Guatemalan Hillside & Creek |
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| The Village Leaders of Xonca |
The day was to consist of a visit to the spring that the village leaders had discovered a year prior and hoped we could use to supply water to the 1,000+ residents of the village of Xonca. With plans to perform water quality tests for alkalinity, hardness, iron content, bacteria presence, and bacteria quantity, we set out after breakfast, heavy-laden with testing supplies, a handheld GPS, and other odds and ends. Little did I know, we were embarking on a 4-hour, 10km hike which would cover a total elevation change of over 400 meters (or about 1200ft). We set off for the peak at about 9:00 in the morning, where we were told we would find the mountain spring, led by a small Ixil man and followed close behind by a train of 20 other dark-faced community leaders from Xonca. The little 40 year-old Ixil man, Diego, who courageously led us machete-in-hand was more akin to a waterbug than a human, skimming across the muddy trails and cavernous paths with the greatest of ease. Weighing all of 80 pounds, he quickly skipped down the trail unaware that his “gigante” Gringo brothers were trudging through the mire and the muck, ducking and dodging low-hanging branches and limbs he’d never noticed. Outfitted with rubber boots, machetes, picks, shovels, filthy clothes and anxious smiles, the train of leaders behind us were raising a loud ruckus in the throaty Ixil language, exchanging stories of the night before and their commentaries on the excitement of the coming presidential election in Guatemala.
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| Following the "Waterbug" |
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| Our Entourage |
As we marched, my legs became heavier and heavier, partly due to the load of mud growing ever thicker on the bottom of my boots with every step and partly due to the altitude and lack of oxygen causing the lactic acid to build with painful quickness. As my lungs struggled franticly to keep up with our “waterbug”, I was constantly bombarded with questions posed in Spanish requiring answers…in Spanish. We finally crested a hill and were welcomed by a beautiful green meadow rolling gently down to the valley below. Here, we encountered their babbling spring of hope.
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| Arriving at the spring |
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| Spring |
As we prepared and executed our water tests, fumbling with sterile bags of collected water, test strips, and collection vials, the long, dark faces of our village leaders looked on in stunned silence. It suddenly dawned on me that they most likely had no idea of why I was spreading sweet-smelling clear gel on my hands (hand sanitizer), being so careful to avoid touching the edges of the clear, sterile bags I was filling with water from the spring, dipping little white strips of paper into the vials of water and seeing them magically change colors and then comparing them to other little squares of color. This was a day, I was sure, they would not soon forget. They would tell their children and grandchildren for decades to come of the day when the giant white men came to their spring to make paper change color!
Having collected our samples, GPS data, and other measurements, we made haste for Xonca hoping to miss the evening rains. Unfortunately, the downhill portion of the hike was not any easier than the assent. The pain that was in my thighs was now replaced by a shooting pain in my knees and heel, a nasty blister I would soon discover was building.
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| The "downhill" portion wasn't so "downhill" |
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| Waterbreak |
Finally leveling off in the valley, I was hopeful that the trail would become easier. However, much to my dismay, we made an abrupt left-hand turn into the cornfields. I was again quickly left behind by our “waterbug” to fight the cornstalks and leaves by myself. After an hour of fighting and swatting, we emerged into a clearing, Xonca.
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| About to make the abrupt left turn... |
We would soon be told that the poorest of the poor were living in Xonca and suffered from chronic malnutrition, the result of a limited diet of corn. Corn and beans were the only crops the locals felt comfortable growing and were the only things culturally familiar. Other organizations, along with FH, had been trying for years to introduce more nutritious crops into the Ixil diet. The water system we were there to design was part of a multi-faceted attack on the malnutrition and disease that affected the Xonca population. In bringing a clean, steady supply of water to the community, FH hoped to be a shining example of what God’s love was all about. We were there, having been blessed by God, to be only a small cog in that wheel. It was truly a blessing to have a part in the work that God was doing to bring His salvation to the Ixil people of Xonca!
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