Alison Powell: A New Direction

After what seems like a century, our trip has reached its end. Yes, it felt like a long time, but it is only because the person I was before coming to Guatemala is a different one that is leaving. Before going on this trip, I admit I had a very “black and white” view of Guatemala and its struggles.

Yolanda Colom and Sylvia Solorzano Foppa were the last guest speakers to grace us with their presence and have profoundly changed the way I see Guatemala and countries like it. Both of these women were leaders in Guatemala’s guerilla movement. Text books and web sites just don’t give you up-to-date, and first-hand information like they do. In short, they told us about their struggles and defeats, before and after “peace”. Knowing what the definition of guerilla warfare was, I was taken aback by their very beings.

They are mothers with kind smiles who once found no other way to defend the integrity of their country than to use violence. When being asked the question of what Canadians can do to ease ongoing injustices, their answer was not “send money”, like I had assumed they would say, it was “be politically active and fight for what you believe in”. Being someone who firmly believed in the power of non-governmental organizations, my world suddenly transformed into various shades of grey.

The simplicity and directness of their words were only a fraction of the ways I was moved by this trip. My heart ached by not being able to buy a trinket from every single hungry child in Chichicastango. I felt myself shrink like Alice in Wonderland when faced with the vastness of the rainforest and the vibrant history of the ruins in it. The Garifuna people reminded me how easily mass neglect can plague societies. The teachings of the Mayan culture represented the wisdom of the people in it. The true friendships I’ve made have taught me to never discount others as just strangers.

I admit, even though I thought that I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into, nothing could have prepared me for my entire frame of reference to be turned upside down. I strongly suggest signing up for this experience to anyone who is interested in truth seeking and corn tortillas.