Visiting Chajul

Last Friday I met a couple here at the Descanso who are traveling around Guatemala before starting med school in the fall. We made a plan to visit Chajul, a neighboring pueblo, on Saturday. It is Jaime and Blythe you see in the photos here. The minibusses for Chajul leave from in front of my hotel, so that was easy. It was about a 45 minute ride. We had seats because we were first on the bus, but it is fairly hilarious (not to mention a little frightening)how people just cram into these little mini-vans, happily standing and chattering away. Everyone was very friendly to us, and it was a pretty drive.

Chajul is the place where members of Rigoberta Menchu's family were killed in a massacre that she described in her Nobel Peace Prize winning autobiography. However, the accuracy of her details have been questioned, both by locals and by author David Stoll, who is somewhat of an expert of the Ixil Triangle: Nebaj, Chajul, and Cotzal. There is no question that there was a massacre. But she described people being burned alive after being tortured, and others say the people were shot. In any event, this atrocity was to "warn" people about affiliating with communistas. The Ixil Triangle was particularly hard hit in the violencia of the early 80's, and I have met numerous 30ish year old people whose parents, family members, or father, were killed during those years. The records of those events have recently been made public record here, and details of the atrocities continue to bubble up from where they ahve been submerged for three decades.

On a happier note, Chajul today is quite charming, with adobe homes and red tile rooves, active, friendly children who were very curious to talk to us, and a beautiful church. Jaime ended up playing soccer in the street with the kids, we toured the cultural museum and the church, and then just explored the streets and tiny paths of the town.

We met Tomas, a volunteer fireman, who asked us if we could get a used medic van for Chajul, because they don't have any way to transport sick people to the clinic in Nebaj. Of course we did not promise anything, but I am mentioning that here incase anyone has contact with our local fire department or rotary and has an idea about how to get a medic van for Chajul! (Nebaj has one; it, too, was donated, and I assume driven down from the states. It is HUGE for a city or pueblo to have one, as so many peiople live out in rural areas and when sick, or giving birth, transportation is a huge issue...)
It was a bit amazing, because after I said I was working with Puente de Amistad, Tomas said, "I know Puente de Amistad. They helped my wife and me." And he knows Diego, the facilitadoro with whom I spent the day on the motorcycle, visitng Trust Bank Groups!Talk about 7 degrees of separation.....

It was really fun to hang out with Blythe and Jaime, and spend a morning speaking English! We met again for an enjoyable dinner that evening, sharing lives the way travelers so often do--impromptu,and I was sorry to say good-by, But they left for Coban the next day. (Hi you two--in case you are reading this! Con mucho gusto!)