I recently had the good fortune to work on a project in a remote village in Guatemala helping build a new community library there. I learned many things while working in Guatemala, among these is that what we take for granted here in our community can be a rare luxury and privilege elsewhere.
Guatemala is an historically rich area, where the indigenous Mayan civilization dates back more than two-thousand years with a written record, sophisticated astronomy, mathematics and construction techniques.
Today, Guatemala is a poor country where individual families average about five percent of the earning power of the typical household in the USA. Guatemala was torn by civil war for nearly forty years from 1960 until the late 1990s. The country’s economy today principally relates to agricultural and textile industries, but lacks some of the basic infrastructure we have in the USA such as reliable electricity, machinery, and potable water. When peace finally came to Guatemala, many citizens for the first time were guaranteed certain basic rights that we accept as a given in the USA, such as access to public education that now is available to most citizens through sixth grade.
Today, with peace in the nation, there are significant efforts underway to modernize. This includes work to establish schools and libraries. My recent time there—along with members from Pueblo Rotary Club and others—was part of a much bigger effort to provide greater access to education, information, and literacy for the people.
We worked primarily in the village of Panimachivac, in the remote highlands of the country, but we also visited the site of a recently completed community library that was a year in the making. Almost all work is done by hand with very few machines and only the most basic tools. Our team worked during the day, and we were joined by villagers in the late afternoon as they returned from their daily toil in the neighboring agricultural fields. Our effort was overseen by PAVA, an in-country non-profit dedicated to helping the people of Guatemala.
I have included some photographs here to provide some sense of this rewarding experience.
Guatemala is an historically rich area, where the indigenous Mayan civilization dates back more than two-thousand years with a written record, sophisticated astronomy, mathematics and construction techniques.
Today, Guatemala is a poor country where individual families average about five percent of the earning power of the typical household in the USA. Guatemala was torn by civil war for nearly forty years from 1960 until the late 1990s. The country’s economy today principally relates to agricultural and textile industries, but lacks some of the basic infrastructure we have in the USA such as reliable electricity, machinery, and potable water. When peace finally came to Guatemala, many citizens for the first time were guaranteed certain basic rights that we accept as a given in the USA, such as access to public education that now is available to most citizens through sixth grade.
Today, with peace in the nation, there are significant efforts underway to modernize. This includes work to establish schools and libraries. My recent time there—along with members from Pueblo Rotary Club and others—was part of a much bigger effort to provide greater access to education, information, and literacy for the people.
We worked primarily in the village of Panimachivac, in the remote highlands of the country, but we also visited the site of a recently completed community library that was a year in the making. Almost all work is done by hand with very few machines and only the most basic tools. Our team worked during the day, and we were joined by villagers in the late afternoon as they returned from their daily toil in the neighboring agricultural fields. Our effort was overseen by PAVA, an in-country non-profit dedicated to helping the people of Guatemala.
I have included some photographs here to provide some sense of this rewarding experience.
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