On my first day of visits as an accompanier, my partner, Lisa, and I went to a nearby town to visit Magdalena*, a fiery older woman who, in Lisa's words, "always has an activity planned for us," whether that's going to check on her milpa (small fields of maize used for subsistence farming), learning to make a new kind of food, or visiting her co-workers with her to deal with town business.
As Lisa and I arrived and began walking to Magdalena's house, we found her, in typical fashion, already in motion. She was flying by us in a tuk-tuk, but stopped to let us hop in and join her on her way to her office. Though her meeting with her co-workers was conducted in Ixil, leaving Lisa and I clueless regarding the contents of the conversation, Magdalena's confidence and the trust other community members put in her leadership were evident. Afterwards, she explained to us that supplies she had ordered for the town's farming season were being held ransom by a local politician demanding political support (evidenced by hanging a flag in the politician's party color) before allowing the supplies she had ordered to be delivered. Despite this obstacle, Magdalena was working hard to find alternative routes to obtain her order without bowing to the politician's demands.
While we hustled with Magdalena from one end of town to the other, we talked about local landmarks. Interspersed between information about where her family members live, which pharmacy had the medicine she needs or where she goes to buy atol (a grain-based drink) and chat with her friends, she pointed out landmarks from the armed internal conflict, which had hit the Ixil so harshly. When we discussed the crop growing in a field nearby, she told us that the field was the site where, in one fell swoop, the army had executed all the town's men, as their mothers, wives, daughters and neighbors looked on. After, she told me, because no men remained to dig the graves or organize a decent burial, the women had to organize themselves, wading through the blood of their loved ones to carry the men to their final resting place.
Later Magdalena pointed out an imposing building on a hill, filled with children. She told us that, for centuries, the land had been the burial site of the town's dead. During the conflict, the army razed the cemetery and built an outpost over the graves of their ancestors, demonstrating their contempt of the town's dead, as much as its living. The effort to wipe all trace of the town's Ixil heritage, both current and former, was clear. After the conflict, the army's outpost had been transformed into a school, where many of the town's children were educated; the army itself moved down the road only a short way away.
These scenes left me with two strong, but very distinct impressions. The first was a sense of amazement at the resilience and strength of these humans in the face of pure atrocity. Though the army had reduced the place where the town could pay its respects to the dead to ash, replacing it with a staging ground from which to bring more death, from this the town eventually created a place where future generations to learn and grow. Though government forces slaughtered their loved ones, the women came together to honor them with a proper burial; the town has not stopped organizing in the face of oppression since then, as shown by Magdalena and her coworkers determination to get their due without bowing to the pressure of dictatorial local politicians.
However, while I feel nothing but the purest admiration for those people ceaselessly fighting to protect their homes, communities and culture in the face of brutal and unyieldingly cruel forces, there is a sense that constantly standing in the face of adversity has left little room for healing from these repeated traumas. As those same people that profited from the suffering of hundreds of thousands continue to hold power and continue to reap personal benefit from the pain they continue to inflict through fraud, coercion, violence, occupation of community lands and destruction of important Mayan sites, the need for a reckoning with the violent legacy engendered by the internal conflict seems all the more necessary.
* Name changed.
As Lisa and I arrived and began walking to Magdalena's house, we found her, in typical fashion, already in motion. She was flying by us in a tuk-tuk, but stopped to let us hop in and join her on her way to her office. Though her meeting with her co-workers was conducted in Ixil, leaving Lisa and I clueless regarding the contents of the conversation, Magdalena's confidence and the trust other community members put in her leadership were evident. Afterwards, she explained to us that supplies she had ordered for the town's farming season were being held ransom by a local politician demanding political support (evidenced by hanging a flag in the politician's party color) before allowing the supplies she had ordered to be delivered. Despite this obstacle, Magdalena was working hard to find alternative routes to obtain her order without bowing to the politician's demands.
While we hustled with Magdalena from one end of town to the other, we talked about local landmarks. Interspersed between information about where her family members live, which pharmacy had the medicine she needs or where she goes to buy atol (a grain-based drink) and chat with her friends, she pointed out landmarks from the armed internal conflict, which had hit the Ixil so harshly. When we discussed the crop growing in a field nearby, she told us that the field was the site where, in one fell swoop, the army had executed all the town's men, as their mothers, wives, daughters and neighbors looked on. After, she told me, because no men remained to dig the graves or organize a decent burial, the women had to organize themselves, wading through the blood of their loved ones to carry the men to their final resting place.
Later Magdalena pointed out an imposing building on a hill, filled with children. She told us that, for centuries, the land had been the burial site of the town's dead. During the conflict, the army razed the cemetery and built an outpost over the graves of their ancestors, demonstrating their contempt of the town's dead, as much as its living. The effort to wipe all trace of the town's Ixil heritage, both current and former, was clear. After the conflict, the army's outpost had been transformed into a school, where many of the town's children were educated; the army itself moved down the road only a short way away.
These scenes left me with two strong, but very distinct impressions. The first was a sense of amazement at the resilience and strength of these humans in the face of pure atrocity. Though the army had reduced the place where the town could pay its respects to the dead to ash, replacing it with a staging ground from which to bring more death, from this the town eventually created a place where future generations to learn and grow. Though government forces slaughtered their loved ones, the women came together to honor them with a proper burial; the town has not stopped organizing in the face of oppression since then, as shown by Magdalena and her coworkers determination to get their due without bowing to the pressure of dictatorial local politicians.
However, while I feel nothing but the purest admiration for those people ceaselessly fighting to protect their homes, communities and culture in the face of brutal and unyieldingly cruel forces, there is a sense that constantly standing in the face of adversity has left little room for healing from these repeated traumas. As those same people that profited from the suffering of hundreds of thousands continue to hold power and continue to reap personal benefit from the pain they continue to inflict through fraud, coercion, violence, occupation of community lands and destruction of important Mayan sites, the need for a reckoning with the violent legacy engendered by the internal conflict seems all the more necessary.
* Name changed.