Weeping
Paul Pitcher – Guatemala
Somehow, through all the trial and tribulations, through the pain and suffering, through the heartache and disaster that I have seen in the past two years, my eyes have only been a little wet a few times.
Paul Pitcher – Guatemala
Somehow, through all the trial and tribulations, through the pain and suffering, through the heartache and disaster that I have seen in the past two years, my eyes have only been a little wet a few times.
An aching reflection from November…
Somehow, through all the trial and tribulations, through the pain and suffering, through the heartache and disaster that I have seen in the past 2 years my eyes have only been a little wet a few times. I have managed to just let myself go numb most of the time and push on through the sadness. In fact, I am sure that I can count the number of times that a tear has risen in the corner of my eye on one hand. But last night I finally lost it, last night I wept. We had just had a nice dinner in the kitchen, laughing as I tried to get Juan to add the word “the” into the question, “where is bathroom?” and relax his mouth while saying it. With a muchas gracias and a buen provecho[1] we ended dinner and I walked down to get a bottle of orange Gatorade out of the refrigerator while Juan and Cristy went and turned on the TV. As I moved past their room to go into my own Juan called out,
“Pablo, there is a program on channel 9 with some of the victims from Panabaj.”
You may remember Panabaj as one of the villages buried under 2 to 3 meters of mud during the rains that devastated Guatemala. In addition you may remember that I spent a day last week helping to deliver aide to the victims staying in 6 shelters in the municipal head of Santiago Atitlan. So when I got to my room I was curious, I flipped the TV to channel 9, twisted open the Gatorade bottle, and settled down into my black leather lounge chair. What I saw was far from what I expected and within seconds I was up, out of the chair and in Juan and Cristy’s room leaning against the white washed concrete doorway of their closet and shaking my head. What appeared before us on the screen was, to me, a filthy corruption of the disaster.
It was a talk show. The flashy stage decorated with expensive blown glass globes and colorful water ornaments that recycle bubbles around and around in a circle. The host in her fancy clothes and glittery gold jewelry, bleach blonde hair and carefully crafted make-up, obviously a ladina[2] (In fact, I later learned that she is from Panama). In the cushioned chairs sat 4 people, 3 with scars marring their faces and the other, a bilingual teacher in Spanish and the Mayan language Tzutujil to help those that couldn’t speak Spanish well. What followed on the TV screen was itself heartbreaking. The host asked the guests to tell their stories though she got all the details wrong from their names, to their ages, to the pronunciation of the name of their language. She tried to ask a question to one of the men sitting there, 19 years old, who had lost his 9 brothers and sisters, his mother and his father but , a confused look infiltrated his eyes and then she realized he had no idea what she was saying. So with the poignant phrase “You don’t know what I am saying do you?” she turned to the translator and demanded that he translate what she was saying. I felt like they just had the translator there to make it look like they were trying to be sensitive. The host only turned to him when she was exasperated and tapped him on the leg while barking the command, “Ok, translates that for me.”
One man, 23, told his story. He was sleeping with his wife and 1 and a half year old daughter in their bed when the mud came. He had heard the rain outside but was not concerned by it and went to bed. The mud came rushing through the house and somehow by “la gracia de dios” he was pushed up to the top of the avalanche while his wife and daughter went under. He could hear his daughter under the mud screaming “mama, mama.” It was as he told this story that I lost it, that I lost control of the anger that I had swallowed, the tears that I had kept bottled up for so long. Juan looked over at me and watched as the tears streamed down my face.
The host interrupted the man at this point, “So do you think you will ever be able to be happy again?” I shook my head, my tears flying off onto the floor. Juan exhaled sharply, turning his disbelieving eyes back from watching me, and Cristy buried her head in Juan’s shoulder. I couldn’t watch anymore. I walked back into my room, changed that channel and drowned myself in an episode of CSI, once again pulling the hood over my tears, rebuilding the breach in the barrier that I have constructed as everyday I see pain, suffering, and poverty.
This tragedy continues to affect people and will for years and years to come. And those who prefer to exploit it, who choose to use it as a “human interest” piece to get viewers, to make money, who have not had to see with their own eyes the mass grave which is not Panabaj, repulse me. And make me feel the pain of this country, the cries leaping out from the hearts of so many. The news media controlled by this exploiting population still reports only 700 dead…and thousands, thousands missing…trying to make the world think that things are being taken care of, that the tourists can return to these communities ripped apart by Mother Nature. It’s almost enough to make me weep again as I write these words.
Pablo
Paul Pitcher is a missionary with the Christian Action of Guatemala (ACG). He serves as a communication and youth worker with ACG.