Guatemalan Thoughts from February

After a most fulfilling trip to Guatemala this February with a great team from all over the place…Maine, Texas, points East, West and North..what could be more striking in the contrasts you experience upon coming home than, for us Mainers, the 24++ inches of snow on the ground and the temps that differ dramatically from there in Antigua! Much as we like to brag about how “tough” you have to be to live in a Northern clime (or just plain crazy??), the contrasts really pale in comparison to our lives at home compared to our friends in Guatemala.

Friends at home here say to me how sad the for the folks there…the Guatemala City dump, lack of health care, malnutrition, and the list goes on.  But the people you meet in Guatemala are by and large a pretty friendly bunch!  They cope and they make do…they work very hard and endure much for their loved ones, and desire much of what we desire.  Yes,  there is sadness, but I’m not sure if you asked someone there if they’re sad if they would respond that way.  There is a desire to get ahead, but a system that makes this very, very hard.  Someone this trip said to me “…so much unrealized  talent in Guatemala”  which I thought summed it up.  We can’t really impact much on the socio-political climate…but if a place like Safe Passage can raise even just a few kids to become Nurses, Doctors, Accountants..and they come back to contribute to their community, and if more and more women learn to read, in a generation or two maybe we visiting teams will have worked ourselves out of a job.  I think that’s called sustainability.

Until then, I look forward working with my friend and fellow vision specialist Don Bisett, and the aspiring Nurse student Astrid (in her second year of study!) to see faces light up after many “mas major” or ‘mas menor” as we fit a new pair of glasses to a Mom who just learned to read the newspaper she fished out of the dump!  Now that’s contrast!

Mark, South Freeport, Maine