“Not that others should have relief while you are burdened, but that as a matter of equality your abundance at the present time should supply their needs, so that their abundance may also supply your needs, that there may be equality.” 2 Cor 8:13-14
Every group that comes to Guatemala to participate in a Vision Trip with GRACES has the opportunity to visit the homes of the families we serve. My first home visit in 2017 was a powerful experience and, for many, home visits leave a lasting impression.
When we go into a family’s home the reality of the poverty they experience is immediately apparent. We are confronted with a comparison of our living situations and theirs, often with more emotions than we know how to process.
Living quarters go far beyond any concept of simple in the U.S. with dirt floors and corrugated metal walls and roofs. Some structures are fortified with any available cement blocks. There is no sealed door or caulking that keeps the inside and outside separate. Often a curtain or retired sheet is the only door that exists.
There is no place to wipe your feet or remove your shoes. No blast of an artificially created climate welcomes you into the space—it’s the same temperature and humidity indoors and out. And there are no building codes or home inspectors.
The families either rent the land or inherit the land from generations-old arrangements with the government. Many times the land is divided between family members—a section for the matriarch and rooms on the same land for each one of her children. When someone marries, they don’t move away, but simply add a room on the land for the new family to live in.
On June 18, we went to visit Ruby’s family. She lives in San Felipe on a piece of land her grandmother received from the government almost 50 years ago. She and her family live in a single room, separated into three sections by the strategic placement of furniture. She and her 23-year-old brother share one section, her parents sleep in another section, and the family has a plastic picnic-style table in the third section for a kitchen.
There is no indoor plumbing and the only electricity is used to illuminate a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe with string lights. A simple dirt path separates their home from the other homes on the same piece of land, which in total is no more than 30 feet wide by 40 feet deep with a sloping decline down the hill.
We brought nine trip participants to see the family’s home on the second of two days that schools were closed due to heavy rains. The rain washed out roads and toppled trees in the villages surrounding Antigua, where many went without electricity or water for more than two days. The public chicken buses stopped running and the Ministry of Education canceled classes in the entire department of Sacatepequez.
While the rain was incredibly destructive, it was also praised for bringing life to the suffering crops after two months without any precipitation. Therein lies the great tension in the fragile ecosystem and economy of Guatemala.
The trusty microbus was able to climb the hill toward the family’s home, only having to reroute one time for a washed-out road. The group descended the cement blocks used as stairs onto the family’s land and into the kitchen.
During the visit, the rains echoed with intensity on the metal roof and water pooled in the doorway. One measurement recorded 5.75 inches of rain in a 24-hour period that day. We asked the family if they had any damage from the storm and they replied, “Gracias a Dios, a toda via no,” (Thank God, not yet) while water continued to flow past their home.
A typical home visit includes a brief explanation about the family, which may provide details like who lives in the home, what type of work (if any) the family has, how long the child has been studying at Escuela Integrada, what his/her favorite subject(s) is and so on. We give trip participants an opportunity to ask questions to help them get to know the family better, and occasionally, though not often, the family will ask the group questions in return.
Ruby’s older brother, Santiago, is 23 and did not have the opportunity to study in school like his sister. He works a few days per week by traveling to Guatemala City or Chimaltenango to buy goods to sell in the market in Antigua. The profit margin—though only a few cents—is worth the expense and danger of making the trips. With the public buses not running due to the rain, he wasn’t able to go to the city to buy goods that day. For him, it is a day of lost income in a job that very typically resembles the informal economy in Guatemala.
We were just about to wrap up our visit when Santiago said he had one more question for us.
“What is it like to fly on an airplane?”
The group didn’t really know how to respond, despite their best attempts to connect it to something relatable. The problem is that anything remotely relatable is not part of the common experience for families here. Most analogies fell short since the subject of the analogy was something he had never experienced either.
Earlier this summer, I was visiting with a good friend who lives in Guatemala. She moved there from the U.S., became a full-time missionary, fell in love with a local and got married. She and her husband run a nonprofit in their village where kids can learn English and practice soccer.
The day we met for lunch, they had just returned from a trip to Costa Rica. The trip had long been a goal for my friend, with it being the very first time her mother-in-law would ever fly on an airplane. She was 67 years old. Her father-in-law had flown one time for work about 40 years earlier. FORTY YEARS earlier.
I don’t think we have much of a grasp of this reality in the U.S. We hop on flights for work or pleasure and can get to pretty much anywhere we want to go without much thought. Even the very fact that I was in Guatemala points to this reality. What an incredible freedom we have when this is unobtainable for so many people around the world.
For Ruby’s family, San Felipe is where they will spend most of their living years, only drawn outside of the area to try to make a living to provide for their family. Their travels will likely only include the two miles it takes to reach the market in Antigua or the 27 miles it takes to get to Guatemala City. Neither journey is for pleasure, but only as a way to survive.
In a country like the U.S. we have the incredible privilege to travel by car, bus or airplane at a moment’s notice. With this freedom comes great responsibility, which starts with the awareness that every trip or adventure we experience is at its very core a great gift—and, more importantly, it is not a right. How we use our time and resources in traveling can have significant effects on the people and places we visit.
I just finished reading Robert Chao Romero’s book Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity, which presents the history, theology and influence of Latina/o Christianity over the last 500 years. The book, though a work of academic scholarship, also presents several opportunities to grow in understanding of how our day-to-day actions affect others, especially those who live in poverty in Central America.
Along this line of thinking, Romero said, “If we live in the Spirit, then we will also walk in the Spirit in terms of our ethical principles and practices (Gal 5:25). Our social ethics and practices, moreover, flow from following in the Spirit’s historic project of the Kingdom of God.”
How can the ways we pursue travel reflect our social ethics and practices? How does the way we travel impact the Kingdom of God?
Today is a day in the U.S. where we celebrate freedom, but let it also be a day where we understand that our freedoms can be used to help others. Travel is an incredible freedom. What would it look like to use this freedom to serve others?
-The Faithful Writer
The Faithful Writer 