And They Called Him Pedro Blanco
For the first time since its founding in the days of John F. Kennedy, the Peace Corps has recalled some 7,000 volunteers from around the world due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Think about that. Sixty years of global hostilities and scary events and it was this event which has caused a noble and stalwart body to send out an emergency message to all its field staff to leave where they were (largely untouched by the virus yet) and scurry back unceremoniously to the very lair of the beast in the United States. This is a story I wrote almost thirty years ago about a visit to Guatemala and work I did for a mere week with some Peace Corps volunteers.
He stood facing the hushed and uncertain crowd, sensing that he had one narrow opportunity to say something with impact. The faces that looked back at him were both vaguely smiling and yet tightly drawn. Two thirds were women and there were countless children milling about. They all shared the same sun-darkened skin tone, dark hair and somewhat flattened features. They only speak a mixture of Spanish and Quiche and understand virtually no English. They are the villagers of Paraje Cakbachuy of the town of Momostenango in the district of Totonicapan. They are, one and all, more descendants of Mayan and Toltec warriors than citizens of modern-day Guatemala. These Momostecas do battle daily on steep hillsides with hoes, shovels, pick-axes and the strength of their back muscles. Their enemies are the forces of nature and their goal is most often the most elemental of all …… survival.
We have come to this remote village as a group of eight “gringos”, led by a Dutch representative of CARE and assisted by Guatemalan CARE staffers and two young Peace Corps volunteers. Our mission is to understand better the good work of CARE and the plight of the people CARE seeks to assist. We hope also to leave some tangible sign of our visit by way of the work we do and the impressions we make and take home.
We found our way to Guatemala City by way of Miami. On Monday morning we arose ready for action, but had to cool our heels as we drove four hours to get to our hotel for the duration, which is in Quetzaltenango. We dropped off the bags and pushed on towards Momostenango. It takes an hour of rough traveling on dirt roads to reach Momos. It is here that we met up with Nancy and Amy of the Peace Corps. They are both “girl next door” types who look All-American and fresh as daisies despite over two years of service in Guatemala. I sensed that we all felt that the life here must not be so harsh for these two young women to look so fresh. This was one of many mistaken impressions we would have.
It was time to go to the village of Paraje Cakbachuy and meet our new friends. The term “off the beaten path” was never put to better use than for describing Paraje Cakbachuy. We drove on this same unbeaten and rutted path for a short while until the 4-wheel drive vehicles could go no further. As we looked up the steep hillside we could just barely make out the real unbeaten path (a footpath) of Cakbachuy.
We were at 2250 meters (7,000 feet) in altitude and from the burning in my lungs after ten minutes of picking our way up the rocky path. We passed terraced fields, adobe houses and watched as chickens and very lean and mangy dogs ran across our path. We climbed and climbed until we finally saw a small pile of adobe bricks with a tin roof and an open-air side. This was the village school.
This hill we had just climbed is the only way the villagers get all their goods home or their wares to market. Every evening the women must make this climb with two-gallon jugs of water on their heads for Cakbachuy has no running water. The women we saw climbing the hill with water included girls of 7 or 8 years old. They also help carry the firewood and anything else that needs to be hauled up this hellacious climb.
It is the dry season, thank God, as one can only imagine how treacherous the footing would be on this clay-based soil during the rainy season.
Our job over the next several days will be to help the villagers with several tasks. They need help making firebreaks on the hillsides of their community forest lands. Forest fires are devastating to current and future generations. They need help planting seedlings in their nursery, which is down an even steeper hill by the river. And they need help creating irrigation ditches on their terraced fields so that their crops can get and retain the water that they need.
We will work side by side with them. We will eat with them (food that we will provide, but which is cooked by the community for all to share), and some of us will even spend a night with them in their homes as their guests.
But for the moment, we must first meet them. As we reached the dilapidated schoolhouse we went in and shook hands all around. These Mayan descendants still dress mostly in traditional colorful garb (especially the women), but yet there is the occasional hat with “Chicago Bulls” brandished across the front. We tried to remember all the names, but the faces seemed too similar to our untrained eyes. The children are all smiles and giggles and they seemed to be the only ones present who were totally at ease.
Nancy, who knows the villagers best, had organized a “get-to-know-one-another” game called Spiderweb. In this game, a person throws a ball of yarn to another around the circle who must then tell his or her name, origin and favorite fruit. This ice-breaker got off to a slow start as both shyness and a yarn quality problem (it keeps breaking) hampered the fluidity of the process.
As the ball was thrown to Peter, he stepped forward and said, “Me llama Peter White, perro ustedes me pueden llamar, Pedro Blanco.”
All was quiet while this small “chiste” was absorbed. Slowly, a few of the locals got the joke and began to laugh. It became infectious and soon everyone in the group was laughing and repeating the names Peter White / Pedro Blanco / Peter White / Pedro Blanco. It was a small thing, but it managed to bridge a cultural rift as wide as the valleys which separate Cakbachuy from the rest of the world.
Pedro Blanco worked beside them. He ate the same food with them. He kicked around the football with them. He cheered when the pinata was broken with them. And he even slept in one of their beds.
Only Nancy was more famous in Cakbachuy than Pedro Blanco. Whenever we came or went from the village, we could hear from every doorway and behind every bush where a child could hide, the cries of, “Ola Nancy!”, “Adios, Pedro Blanco!”, “Buenos dias, Nancy!”, “Buenos tardes, Pedro Blanco!”
Nancy was deeply etched into their hearts from two years of hard, hard work by their sides. She shed tears at their good-bye speeches and they all clambered to get their pictures taken with her.
But Pedro Blanco also acquired immortality. We were only with the village for four days. The work we did was minuscule in the grand scheme of even their simple lives. But Pedro Blanco had connected and therefore we had connected.
They would remember the gringos led by Pedro Blanco who came and worked. Others came and looked. Some came and talked. Some even came and had lunch. But Pedro Blanco came and worked, even if just a little. It was what Nancy did. They understood neither, but they knew to appreciate both.
We connected spiritually with these humble and needy people. These people, who’s simplest tasks are chores by our standards. These hard-working people who become adults with burdens on their backs and jugs on their heads from earliest childhood.
None of us will wake at night again and take for granted a sip of clean water or a clean, sanitary bathroom. As we ride elevators to our apartments and offices, we will think of those steep and narrow paths.
Cakbachuy will have a new molino (maize crusher), a new schoolhouse (in Nancy’s honor) and the funding for further agro-forrestry work by CARE, thanks to our visit. They may remember all of these things, but they will certainly remember Pedro Blanco. Pedro Blanco, who bonded with each and every one of them on a person-to-person level with a simple joke which made us all laugh and understand each other, even if only for a moment.
As an epilogue, I got a letter from Nancy several months later. She was back in Illinois awaiting the start of graduate school where she would study social service. She was working at a FedEx depot thinking of the days on her Guatemalan hillside where there was so little as she watched the plenty of America pass through her hands at FedEx. Her tone was almost melancholy as she thanked me for orchestrating the gift of the new school and the naming of it in her honor. She ended by saying that she would never forget her Peace Corps days. We, in turn, should never forget to pay homage to these people who dedicate two or more years of their lives to the betterment of the lives of others. After Coronavirus, there will be much repair work needed and we should all plan to get back into the trenches to help one another.