“Hola Justin! Tienes tiempo para ir conmigo a Ayapan?” (“Hey Justin! Do you have time to come with me to Ayapan?”)
German, our local contact, poked his head through our open front window as we wound down the afternoon listening to some quiet indie music.
“Sure?” I responded, somewhat honored to be asked but bewildered as to what needed to be done in Ayapan.
I convinced Karissa to go along with us. Being as AIM technically requires us to travel in at least pairs, I was able to cover my lack of enthusiasm for this new, unknown, late-afternoon task.
As we wound up the ragged mountain roads, our 15-passenger van with only 3 seats in use bounced lightly and rebelliously over the potholes and loose stones. On two different occasions, we squeaked by colorful chicken busses, staring perilously down the mountainside as only fractions of inches separated us from either becoming a new paint job on a public bus or chicken feed at the bottom of the slope.
When we made it to Ayapan, the main schoolyard in the center of the village was empty, save for a handful of boys playing with a plastic ball and shielding themselves from frequent swirls of rising dust. Only a week ago we played fútbol for hours with the schoolchildren during recess. But now, during the approaching dusk, the field felt lonely and void. Walking around the side of what I thought was another educational building, we found a man sweeping a layer of fresh, green pine needles out of a chapel meeting room in to a pile on the portico.
German approached the small-statured man with purpose and intent. After introducing himself to the man and his companions still inside the dim meeting hall, it was clear we were to be introduced as well. I fail to recall the names of each of the six men, but German quickly explained these were the mayor and leaders, city council if you will, of the local community. I strained to maintain my composure; not one of these men stood taller than 5’4’’, and they appeared a perplexing mix of age and youth. Among the weathered and deep-ridges faces, the wisps of grey hair and the various silver-capped teeth, these representatives appeared no older than thirty, not much older than me.
In the minutes that followed, I struggled to keep up with a rapidly interchanging conversation in both Spanish (“Castellano” in the words of older Guatemalans) and Kaqchikel, the Mayan and native language of much of the population in the mountains here. The conversation continued as we took seats inside the hall.
After a short while, German suddenly turned to me and said, “voy a comprar algo para tomar, venga,” (“I’m going to buy something to drink, come with!”) as he headed to the door.
Karissa and I followed German out to the tienda across the street where we purchased glass bottles of 7UP and Mirinda for each of our group back at the chapel. German paid at the barred counter and popped the lids off one by one. We returned to the seated group, a solemn, yet polite gathering.
For a moment, it was humorous to think I was sitting here, drinking a bottled 7UP with a bunch of people I don’t know sitting on a bench across the room from my bench. Men were speaking the click and hard ch’s and k’s of the Kaqchikel, mixed with Spanish words of medicos and viudas and huérfanos (“doctors”, “widows” and “orphans,” respectively).
The atmosphere felt thick and dark, not because of the basis of our conversation nor the attitudes of the parties involved. Everyone was cordial, appeared to enjoy their sodas, and the topic of German and the mayor’s conversation was how we could help the community.
“Um, so can you help me figure out what exactly is going on?” I hesitantly asked Karissa. “We know I speak Spanish, but I definitely feel like I’ve missed something.”
Karissa shot me a quick, wide-eyed, side glance. It was the look that, yup, I was definitely missing something, and that something was a bit unsettling. We finished our sodas and German walked the bottles back in to the store for the bottle deposit.
Out of earshot from our hosts, I shot a hurried whisper to Karissa, “what in the world?!”
“Well,” she cleared her throat, “not only are we the first Americans to visit this community, we’re the first people allowed to visit this community, other than family, for nearly two years.”
The issue at hand was bigger than I imagined, and the seemingly awkward, Coke-drinking meeting was much more important than just a simple introduction of an American missionary team.
“Justin. Two years ago, representatives of the government highway project came here to convince townspeople they should sell their land to the project. The townspeople burned them. Alive. Right there.” She pointed to the aluminum-sided entrance to the parochial school classrooms we had visited just days before. Our American contact had described a little about the current issues with the new highway project, a decade-long project to institute a highway loop around the growing metropolis of Guatemala City. The project was/is fraught with delays, including ones like in Ayapan, where no one has any recollection of not owning the land. The Mayan descendants have been here for centuries and the land is considered a cultural, familial inheritance. People who sell their land are harassed out of their communities, work sites are vandalized.
I immediately felt overwhelmed. My head was swimming, and not just because of the sharp twists and turns of the road on our way back to our home in Xenacoj. My home in Dallas has huge debates over upcoming highway infrastructure projects. But none of us have held much in the way of physical protest over the issue. Then again, none of us have such an intimate connection with the Trinity River basin that is going to be paved. The Mayan people consider themselves, “People of the Corn,” indicative of the intimate relationship they feel with their land. As we rode on, swirling thoughts began to make sense: the awkwardness of our first visit to the town where no work was done while our contact emphasized how important it was to meet the mayor, the timidity of the students the first time we played soccer, the vigilant eyes of the townspeople who watched as we played innocently with the students during recess, the heavy weight in the faintly-lit chapel/town hall we just left.
Our ministry to Ayapan is huge this month. We are breaking down walls. The mayor said that he is very happy to have us, that maybe our involvement will remove the black mark on this town’s name within this departamento (state) and region. We’re hoping to break down spiritual walls as well, to show love and care, to let the widows living in the lonely, tin huts know that they are not alone – that although there have been no visitors in years, there is a God who loves them and missionaries who will do their best to love them and open doors for many more years of relationships and ministry.
