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Los Encuentros And Nueve Puntos
On February 18 through 22 I visited these two communities to look at a proposal to bring in drinking water from a spring behind Nueve Puntos. Last year I had briefly visited Los Encuentros but this would be my first time in Nueve Puntos. This area is part of the micro region VII of Chajul and consists of six villages of Ixil from the Nebaj area. The langue is a little different as well as the style and colors of weaving. Of these six villages I believe only one, Amajchel, has potable water which is piped in from eight kilometers. At the end of this article is a brief history of the region beginning in 1927 when the people migrated to this region. It is interesting currant history especially when you met the people who have gone through it.
To reach Los Encuentros from Chel we hitched a ride in a pick-up with the alcalde of Los Encuentros. I was traveling with my friend Manuel Riviera to help with interpretation. Both communities had sent out a delegation to Chajul to meet with promoters of a national program called Mis Familias and we would catch a ride when they returned. Three hours late the group from Los Encuentros arrived very dusty and we hopoed in and headed up the mountain. Roads deteriate rapidly after they leave Chel and the little pick-up strained with its human cargo.
Both of these communities of lack water and depend on catch basins to collect rain water. Los Encuentros lies along a 4x4 road and trucks water from Amachel a nieghboring community during the dry season. There are 47 families here without legal right to barrow water and when Amechel is low on water they have to drive back to Chel. Cost for one water trip to Chel equals the cost of one and a half months supply of corn for a family of five. Nueve Puntos has 22 families and is a 45 minute walk from Los Encuentros. My first priority is to investigate a spring behind Nueve Puntos that might service both communities.
The group from Nueve Puntos arrived around 7: oo which meant they had to leave Chel around 4:30 and after breakfast we followed them up the trail.
If you want to get community involvement in a project offer a community without water to study how to bring in drinking water. It is so important that everyone is actively interested and after a brief meeting we left with a good sized company and headed out to see the spring. It is an hour and half to the spring and the trail almost immediately disappeared. I wondered how they ever found this spring but after passing a cave which had been used as a camp I remembered these mountains was their refuge for years during the war and today is their backyard. I was worried about the elevation also as we were going up and down a lot and really needed a good ascent to guarantee a gravity feed system. Dropping down a valley we crossed a small stream where the women have to come to wash clothes and collect drinking water during the dry season. This water is not the cleanest and is a long way on a slippery trail from their homes. The last half hour answered the request for an ascent as it was a grasp the roots and branches climb in the mud. This was going to be work to haul sand and cement back here and then dig a ditch all the way back to the village.
Up and Down it is pretty simple until you grap a bag of cement.
The delegation that went to the spring
The spring was disappointing for two reasons. It was not very large and the elevation did not look high enough to clear one hill between the village and us. We measured the flow at 5 gallons in 70 seconds. This is not much but over a twenty four hour period would yield 6,000 gallons, enough for about 85 gallons a family. We discussed building a small dam to trap all the water and coming back with an altimeter. I wanted to help but had doubts with the situation.
Above- Ringing the school "bell" And below school children without desk or a teacher. This photo is being carried to a meeting with the president of Guatemala to demonstrate the lack of goverment provision in these communities. We anxiously wait for change.
One thing that has amazed me this trip is the lack of separation of church and state in Guatemala. It many meetings like this one in the local school,they will pray at the end of it and it is not just a formal prayer but a chorus of cries for help and blessings with almost universal participation. This meeting was my official introduction to the community and information about how we would proceed with the study. Latter around 9:00 we had another meeting to discuss providing grass seed to sow their fields. In talking with the alcalde about providing a little help this year I learn they lacked the money to pay $10 to collect grass seed from neighboring fields and plant their fields. When I learn of opportunities like this that can make a real positive change for very little money I am ready to jump on it. The community was divided on this idea because pasture needs animals and animals need water. Back to square one!
After a week of negociating I decided to fund the cafe nursery. It will have 13 families participating in it and produce 15,000 to 20,000 plants a year. After three years each family will have planted 5 or 6 cuerdas and begin their first harvest. When all 6 cuerdas are producing they will yield $750 a year. In many cases this equals a year’s income. This program will cost under $300 a year- a great investment!Here is what a typical nursery looks like. These families will gather poles and leaves so they can shade the plants. The plants are grown in small bags and after 9 months to one year transplanted in the mountain fields. This nursery is one quarter the size they are building.
In a week I returned to Nueve Puntos with Gaspar Santiago (pictured above) a great gardener from Chel. I wanted to present a plan to provide seeds and instructions to grow garden vegetables. Both communities like this idea and all 67 families will participate. So for under $500 we will start personal gardens with 10 days of instructions in organic Gardening. I really hope this takes off. It would add good nutrition to the diet.
A family plot ready for planting
On one of my trips out to Chajul there was a festaval going on with lots of cheap clothing. I bought enough for every family to have two pieces for under $70
In los Encuentros there are 10 families (pictured here) who I provided seed potatoes to grow and then divide the harvest so that next year each family can grow potatoes to sell. Again a little money, their work and a new opportunity. Each family should be able to harvest around 3,000 pounds of potatoes in two years and sell them for $1,000. This only cost the price of 700 pounds of seed potatoes and transportation to Los Encuentros --$250. There are 28 families who have requested help in raising sheep and when I have $1600 I will start a sheep program like the one with cows in Chel
Back to the water issue. In total I made three trips to these villages. On the second we visited two other springs. One was too small to bother with but one was perfect. We could connect the two springs and use a different route back to Nueve Puntos and have a gravity feed system with 20 gallons a minute or 80 gallons a day for every person in both villages. We measured the distances with a 100 foot long section of string. Total distance -8,500 feet. We are going to complete the study and a preliminary budget and then I am going to start looking for funds. This is a big project but would yield great benefits for these families.
My third trip in we constructed a dam in front of the first spring so that in a month during the driest part of the year we can measure the flow accurately. The hill slide was so steep we made a platform to mix the concrete on. Sand and cement were hiked in. We made gravel on sight and fell a tree for form wood. Sad for a carpenter to us 1x18 clear hardwood for concrete forms.
At this point in my trip I was pretty worn out. The trail wasn’t getting any easier and I had lost #15 and was ready to feast on my way home. I often think about my privilege. After two months I can retreat to hot showers, a bed, and plenty of food. My friends here will continue the struggle to find the basics of life. Like these women in front of this dry well. Two weeks ago they washed cloths and watered animals here. Now it is a hours walk away. This water system will bring four community house bibs of clean water to these people. I hope to be a bridge between our abundance and their need. Will you help the dreams become reality.
Recent History.
In 1927 during the presidency of Lazaro Chacon who was elected by big business and ignored the needs of the poor a law was pass making it mandatory for the farmers to work on the plantations for free. There already was a law that allowed the plantation owners to send trucks into the mountains to conscript workers but now they did not have to pay for this labor. This was done in the name of national interest to protect cheap labor for the united food corporation to export fruit.
With forced labor and lack of sufficient food twenty families travelled two weeks threw the mountains looking for a place free from such dominations. They called this area “pura Montana” for there were no roads or villages. It took one week to find a trail to Chel which is only a 3 hour walk today.
The people increased for the next 26 years but then a sickness came that killed many. They carried their dead in chairs to Chel because they didn’t have boards to make coffins with. In 1956 they pationed the municipal oc Chajul to be recognized as a village and began petioning for schools, clinics and other projects. In 1960 both aldeas of Los Encuentros and Nueve Puntos were established. Los encuentros was named because there was a church there and that was where they had their meetings (encuentros) and Nueve Puntos was named after a tree with nine main branches in a sacred mayan site.
In 1980 during the presidency of General Lucas Garcia a large offensive against the gorilla movement came to this region. All six villages in this micro group were burned including the schools clinics legal documents animals and crops. Once again the people fled into the mountains. They hid under boulders and in caves during bombing raids and eat what the forest could supply. In 1988 the village of Almechel returned but received repeated attacks from the gorilla movement because it was part of the civil patrol system of mandatory service. Los Encuentros returned in 1995 the same year that a peace accord was signed between the army and gorillas. The gorillas turned in their old arms but hide the better weaponry in the mountains until 1998 or 99 when the army left Chajul. It wasn’t until 2001 that Nueve Puntos return home and started to rebuild. This is recent history with the participates in the preceding photos.
