This blog is explicit.
My team and I were spending the day with some local missionaries with Servants 4 Him. Their names are Forest and Carol, and they have been in Guatemala for eight years. We had just finished installing a water filter in a house that contained four generations of a Mayan family in Santiago. For more information about the state of the local water and the effects on the local people, please see the blog titled ‘Hand washin’ Jesus’ in a few days.
Carol was driving the truck with Jacinda, Krystle and I on the inside. All the men were on the outside. At some point, our conversation turned towards how women were treated in the Mixed Spanish culture. I wish I could say it was a happy revelation, but that would be a bold faced lie.
(Photo courtesy of Angela Aston)
Women are not treated as human beings. They are seen as baby makers, field workers, house cleaners, food killers and preparers, and sexual toys. Once a girl has her first menstrual cycle, she is seen as free sexual game to any male, including her father, uncle, and brothers. Carol told us that the majority of girls past puberty have a child. And when asked why they don’t leave or resist, they simply say, “Es me vida.”
“It’s just MY life.”
Hearing these facts was so heartbreaking. We have been in Guatemala for nearly a month now, and while I noticed that many young girls had children, I never thought that they were from their own family.
Unfortunately, the reality only got worse.
In the Mayan culture and multiple tribal villages, women from birth to death (80+ years sometimes) never bathe. All they wash is their hair, and everything else covered by cloth stays dirty. This is a very intense problem with the women of these cultures, because they are doing all the things outlined above.
(Photo Courtesy of Blake Martin Photography)
Not to mention, after birth women and the newborn are not allowed to leave the room for 30 days because they are seen as unclean. Not only is this very dirty considering their lack of hygiene, but if a child is born with a small issue (fever, jaundice, etc that could be cured relatively easily) that child usually dies in that room.
So after all this, many women get vaginal infections, or their pelvis’ drop, allowing their organs to hang out of their private areas, and very serious illnesses start gripping them. However, the men of the culture refuse to allow their wives to see a doctor, because they never want anyone’s eyes to see their wife but them.
Carol told us of an interaction between her and a Mayan man who’s wife has a bad vaginal infection:
Carol: You need to get her to a doctor. She is sick.
Man: No. Only I can see her like that.
Carol: If you do not take her to the doctor, she will die.
Man: Then I will get a new wife.
The saddest part about this is that this man is a Christian. He loves God, and wants to do His will. But he has grown up in a culture that says these things, so he knows no different. Forest and Carol are going to tell him that they will not hire him again unless he takes her to a doctor, and I am praying that will help him see the seriousness of the situation.
As I was sitting in their truck with Krystle and Jacinda, I was shocked and sickened by the treatment of the women and children in this country, and yet I was not as shocked as I thought I would be. In the senior semester at New Tribes Bible Institute, we had a speech class where we had to write and give a 15 minute speech on something we care about. One of my roommates choose human trafficking.
If you have never studied human trafficking before, you should. It is all around you, in your neighborhood, in your local schools, in your place of employment in some way, shape of form.
My point is that hearing her practice that speech over and over again, listening to the testimonies of some of the young girls who have escaped, it is something you never forget.
So hearing about these girls being violated, hearing about these women suffering for no reason connected them to all the other stories I have read and heard and cried over around the world. The perversion of this world is no stranger to me, but this fact makes hearing stories about the people you just met no less shocking and painful.
Coming later today: When Children Become Objects
