I’ve been in Peace Corps service for a year and a half of my two year commitment. I’m not sure you can call this the ‘home stretch,’ especially because I do not play sports, but you can definitely say that I’ve played a few innings if I did play sports. I should have learned by now that, in Santa Clara, whenever anyone says they are going “to bring someone” that it means more than what I am expecting.
I went to bed at 8:30pm. I wasn’t sleeping, I was just flipping through my phone under my mosquitero (mosquito net) with the fairy lights flipped on. At dinner my host family told me that they were “bringing the body home tonight.” I imagined the usual funeral procession. As sad as they can be to watch, I am used to them. Town members slowly carry the caskets from the person’s home where the person died all the way to the cemetery. They carry the casket on the able-bodied shoulders of 6 or 8 relatives. Sometimes there are mariachi players accompanying the casket, sometimes people sing a cappella, women wear shawls to cover their heads. Usually these processions take place in the middle of the day around 1 or 2pm, before the rain or cloud cover sets in. In K’iche’ the funeral procession is called “Kaminaj.” I wonder if it is an adaptation from the Spanish caminar, “to walk,” but it’s just a guess. But this was late at night, that should have been my first clue that this wasn’t going to be the typical kaminaj.
So, I was in my bedroom under my mosquitero when I heard a loud siren. The siren was coming toward the house. At first I did not pay attention. I am used to hearing this siren on Mondays and Fridays for trash pick-up. In fact, I wish they would change the damn thing because, as an Estadounidense (US American) I hear the siren and I think PULL OVER- EMERGENCY. Doesn’t seem fitting for trash pick-up, as important as it is. But this siren continued on and on and got closer and closer to the house until I extricated myself from the mosquito net and opened my ventanilla to see what the commotion was about. “Oh yeah- the boy.” I remembered instantly. But what I saw I had never seen before.
Let’s step back for a moment: the day before was 4th of July. To be honest, I’ve never been much for patriotism, a pretty apathetic person.. But I think more now about my privilege. I think that people who have had to fight for their country, or immigrate, understand what a country can do for them a lot more than myself, someone who has benefitted from the blood, sweat and tears of my countrymen and women. Nevertheless, as a part of Goal Three of Peace Corps (sharing US traditions with your host country), I thought the 4th of July was as good an opportunity as any! I asked the school director if I could borrow the last period of the day for my event and I bought my supplies: red, white and blue candies, red white and blue giveaway prizes (nail polish, earrings, small plastic soccer balls, etc..) and the crowning glory was a roll of cohetes, to the tune of 30 quetzales, which are firecrackers. Allow me to explain that FIRECRACKERS ARE EVERYTHING IN GUATEMALA. Year-round, never quit, day or night, during talent shows, competitions, Christmas, New Years, weddings… let there be firecrackers and bombas. The bombas especially, one loud explosive boom, make you think you’re losing your life and in the name of CELEBRATION. I’ll be honest, sometimes an obscenity spews out of my mouth when the bombas go off because I thought for a moment that it was the end of my life.
Our speakers at the middle school are broken, so I had to yell at 80 middle schoolers who were hard to wrangle in. Ultimately it involved me throwing candy at them to try to get their attention. I printed off pictures of hot dogs, 4th of July parades and firework shows. I wrote down parts of the history of the US on construction paper and had three Tercero students throw the planes at the students. Whoever caught the planes had to read that part of the history out loud. Then I translated the Star-Spangled Banner into Spanish and sang it in English. All of the teachers were taping me on their phones like I was doing something special and unique, maybe I was. As the culmination, we set off the fireworks and the students gave out the lollipops to which I had glued “Happy 4th of July!” on each one. There was a lollipop for each student, but you can imagine not each student got one because some took handfuls (including the school director, thanks so much..). They got mad at ME of course: “Seño dijiste que iba a darnos dulces y no había ni uno para mi…” I sat there gluing Happy 4th of July to 100 lollipops and of course that’s the thanks I get. Middle school. BUT I’m so glad I organized the event, and I’ll be honest, I’ve never felt more patriotic than in that moment.. Yelling over 80 middle schoolers, wearing my red white and blue and translating the National Anthem into Spanish.
I unlatched my ventanilla (a small glass window that I can open without opening the whole door). Vehicle after vehicle was going down the street: they were bringing the boy. I grabbed my phone and briskly opened the door to the balcony. I was stilled and quieted by what I saw: All of Santa Clara came together in their vehicles to meet the body and accompany him home.
Among the groups of people standing in the beds of the pick-up trucks, I saw the faces of my own students. Antonio, a student from Barrio San Antonio, was taping everything on his phone. The line of vehicles seemed to go on and on: microbuses (passenger vans), tuk-tuks (rickshaws), fletes (pick-up trucks), compact cars and I think even some camionetas (US school buses converted to public buses). The American flag was posted on several of the vehicles while others flashed blue and red lights. People had gathered on the street, watching. They came from their houses when they heard the sirens. The parade was on the other side of my bedroom wall, so I watched in my pajamas.
I was so confused by all of the references to the US through the flags, the lights.. Apparently this boy went to the States when he was 18 and he got in a car accident 20 days ago. He got out of his car and he got hit and dragged by a semi-truck that was barreling past him. My family used a new word I didn’t know, arrastrar, dragged. His family paid Q125,000 ($17,000 USD) to have his body sent to Guatemala to be buried. His family had to go to the airport in the capital to receive his body. Their extended family, neighbors and other Clareños (people of Santa Clara) went to greet the car at Kilometer 148, where Santa Clara connects with the major highway. It’s a 40-minute ride from Santa Clara. All of the cars followed his body from Km 148 to his home.
In all of my service, I’d never seen anything quite like it. And I must say, I’ve seen a lot of things I did not expect to see. I was moved by my humble pueblo and it’s unwavering commitment to care for, curry, and comfort one of their own. The fact that he died in another country while he was trying to make a better life for himself, far away from his family, was a blow that the community of Barrio San Antonio and specifically the family of this boy would have to endure. It’s one that the community often endures, each one unique in circumstance but equally tragic a loss.
Just the day before I sang about The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. For those people who are privileged enough to be white and middle or upper class, maybe it is the Land of the Free. But for many, including the people from Santa Clara who go to the States in search of a better life and can’t afford the fat sticker price of freedom, they have to risk their life and limb to cross the border and seek out a living on the other side. Once they are situated in the States, they live with the fear every day that they might get caught and sent back home. And sometimes, you don’t get caught because you don’t make it to the other side. Sometimes you die crossing the border or you die in a car wreck. And your mom probably wonders if she did the right thing to let you go to another country to help lift your family out of poverty.
Being from the US has granted me an education, access to resources, healthcare (errr with several stipulations but that is another post) and dreams. I have been lucky enough to ask myself questions like: “What do you want to do with your life?” and live out that answer. Most people in Santa Clara don’t have that option. They can stay in Guatemala and scrape by, or they can risk everything, leave their families, culture and language, and try to find work cleaning or cooking and send money home to their families in Santa Clara. Sometimes they die anyway, like this boy.
I am not pointing a finger at the US, why would do I that? I’m not pointing a finger at anyone.This is about the shit for luck that some people are born into and try to pull themselves out of and still experience loss because life is plainly shittier for some people more than others.
It was the weirdest feeling, red and blue lights coloring the night sky, as Santa Clara accompanied this family bring their son home. Clareños understand the struggle, the fight and the grief. They understand the importance of community, and ultimately, that a person should be buried in their home. That is why the family spent the money to get their son back, even though I have no idea where they were able to find it.
I want to make a wish for Santa Clara and for Guatemala that conditions can become better in the pueblos, or that the process of immigrating isn’t a matter of risking lives. The crazy thing to me is that one of my main reasons for joining Peace Corps was to get a job that provided healthcare. I don’t want families to be separated and children to die millions of miles from home, alone. But honestly, I am not going to make this post about the layered issue of immigration and the border crisis because I could tell too many stories, mention the number of my students by name who have, in essence, lost their brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers at the border or on the other side.
This was a simple moment that said so much. Santa Clara accompanied one of their own to his final resting place, no matter the cost or consequence, without malice or violence, but with love, peace and honor for a young life lost. Peace be with you and your family, young man.