Making The World Slightly Smaller

Monday was a rest day to just lounge around our hotel at Tikal. Having been out of bed at or shortly after sunrise most days it was a welcome break to lie in a hammock all day and read.

On Tuesday morning we were picked up at the hotel by Karina, from ActionAid, and a chap from local Mayan aid agency. I’ve been sponsoring a little boy called Hugo in Guatemala for about two years. When we decided on Guatemala for our honeymoon, we realised we’d have the unique opportunity to visit him in his village.

Hugo lives in the vast and sparsely populated region of El Peten in the north east of the country, where Tikal is situated. We drove for an hour from Tikal down to the nearest town, Flores. From there it was over an hour to the town of La Libertad and from there a further two hours to the turn off for the village.

The road was good, Tarmac all the way. But it’s quite literally a road to nowhere. After La Libertad there is no other town for hours – the next one being as far as you can go and nowhere anyone would want to. We barely saw any other traffic.

The turn off was a dusty, bumpy track through the stunning countryside. Crop fields shared space with trees and palms and fields of green grass. Steep, undulating hills formed a mini mountain range while dragonflies and butterflies chased the truck. The track took us around half an hour to drive along, picking up half a dozen women for a lift along the way. It would be an hour’s walk for the people living in the village, just to the road where they’d then need to hitch or wait for a sparodic collectivo public bus.

Finally, at about 1.30pm we approached a collection of houses: Chinatal, our destination. Immediately, the truck was surrounded by 20 or so children and several adults. They rarely get visitors (Karina had never been herself) and almost certainly never a white person.

Our guides began to tell us a little about the village and the work they do, while eager and inquisitive little faces gathered around us. Finally, Penny broke the ice by hiding and pulling faces with two little girls and they all began to giggle. We walked across to the school, as gradually some small hands got hold of ours, until both Penny and I had at least three children on each hand, all smiling and giggling and wanting to be friends with the strange newcomers.

The village is a collection of thatched, one-room wooden houses, with a small subsidised shop selling essentials and a few treats (lollipops and soft drinks etc). About 50 families live here. The schools is a long, concrete block painted baby pink: lessons are five days a week in term time, January to October. At the moment, it’s just for under 6 years olds. The school was built by the government, but it was with the help of the organisation we support that the community were able to ask for it.

They have electricity some days, provided by a generator shared with the next village. This allows them to pump water. There is no easy water source, the nearest river is 5km away but has dried up. The next village shares their water with Chinatal.

Our support had bought each family a sort of stand-alone stone sink, enabling the women to wash clothes and dishes easily without having to walk for hours to streams and ponds. It sounds simple, almost silly. But this is something the community asked for and is something that saves so much time and energy. Nothing is imposed on them, no agency tells them what they should or should not have. The community themselves make the decisions that they feel will improve their lives.

The majority speak Quechi, so the Mayan agency worker explained who we were and what we were doing there. The community leader, a man of around 40, told us that we welcome, thanking us for visiting them and for supporting their community.

Hugo was brought out of the little group of children to meet us. He’s about 6 years old and a very quiet and shy boy. He doesn’t go to school because they said he was scared. He doesn’t easily make eye contact, generally looking down with his chin close to his chest. We suspected he perhaps has some learning difficulties, but he did shake our hands and say hello though tended to hide or have to be persuaded to pose for pictures.

We started to take some photos around the village and of the children. This was a great game as they loved seeing themselves on the camera screen. There were a couple of gorgeous cheeky little boys, spinning and jumping for the camera. Suddenly, Hugo appeared at my side and took my hand which just meant the world to me!

In no time, it was time to go again. We were only there about 40 minutes, which seems short for a 3 hour trip but it was a long way back and Karina had a flight at 7pm. But it was the most special and wonderful experience. We all often give money to projects, but rarely do you think of the people on the other side of the world: happy, friendly, welcoming, warm people with homes and communities they are proud of and beautiful, playful, cheeky, sweet children. People, in other words, who are exactly like us.

What a rare and unique opportunity for us to meet the very people we try to help, to turn the vague concept of ‘charity’ into a real experience of a village, into a images of smiling, happy children that will stay with us forever.

And what is travel, if not forging some sort of link with people on the other side of the world, finding friends and making the planet just a little bit smaller?