Human Ants in Guatemala
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TweetSpecial thanks to The Expeditioner´s readers for support given to Guatemala when duel disasters struck May 2010.
Though bound by the usual array of parental rules as a child, when I sat next to an ant hill, it was as if I were an omnipotent God. Gazing down from on high, I would sometimes bestow Fruit Loops or other lavish rewards upon the colony below. Sometimes I would just watch, content with the minute world busily unfolding at my feet. But I was not always a benevolent God. Sometimes I would use a hose or firecrackers to reduce the orderly ants to a panicked state of pandemonium (maybe my mom should have let me watch more TV or play video games).
On May 27, 2010, when Tropical Storm Agatha hit Guatemala, coming just after a fatal eruption from the volcano Pacaya, the unfolding chaos made me think back to my days amongst the ants. In chaos, ants have a particular desperation as they scurry away from wherever they currently are. When their colony, which they’ve spent most of their methodical lives building, is suddenly destroyed, they get crazy, bumping into and running over each other. They carry larva and eggs, racing without aim with their offspring. Anywhere but here, their hasty pace seems to say.
In Guatemala things happened and they happened fast. Cuidad Vieja and San Miguel Escobar were the two Guatemalan communities hardest hit. Homes that had been occupied for several generations were destroyed in seconds as rivers of mud and rock came pouring down into the valley. People fled their houses, without an idea where to go, anywhere but here.
My past two years living in Guatemala working for la Asociación Nuestros Ahijados has been about building and creation. Homes for the homeless, rights for the marginalized, futures for the hopeless, and education for those without the opportunity. Anything created takes time. Destruction of everything can happen in an instant.
I returned to Guatemala from a short trip home a few days after the storm hit. Though my closet and other corners of my house had been temporarily turned into a water park, I was far removed from what those at the heart of the destruction underwent.
Panic, terror, fright, flight and every variation of these words is how people in the communities described their initial response when the disaster struck. Mothers gathered up their children and ran, but without knowing where. One government rescue agency, instead of helping out with the rescue, decided to work hard on a report describing the damage in progress. Our program´s staff donned ponchos and loaded up pickups with food, water, and clothing and drove to the heart of the storm. They helped women and children escape from houses just before the structures collapsed into the impromptu river that was once their city.
If everyone had taken a step back to assess the situation, we would have seen that our combined efforts would need to be multiplied by a thousand to rescue everyone. Instead, we focused on what we could do. Underneath the deafening pour of rain, people were pulled from mud and given dry clothes, food and water.
Later, when TV cameras came, I did not hear anyone respond to interview questions by saying, “I lost everything.” With a death count of 184, everyone alive was aware of how much they still had.
After two days of destructive rain, the sun rose, seemingly oblivious to what had been happening underneath the clouds. In some places, the mud lay in mounds 20 feet high. The official count was that over 30,000 homes were destroyed. People walked on the hardened mud with surreal expressions on their faces. They assessed the damage and destruction and seemed not to know where to start, when to rebuild, or how to recover from this. Their routine lives, which existed only days ago, had disappeared. Now there was only mud and rubble as far as the eye could see.
And this is the point where a sad story ends and another, happier story begins. It was then that volunteers started showing up at our project´s door wearing rain boots, carrying shovels, and asking what they could do to help. Tourists, travelers, backpackers — people who had planned on coming to Guatemala to see the sites, try the beer and improve their Spanish — came to help dig out homes and put lives back together. From Germany, Austria, Italy, England, Australia, The United States, Canada, Guatemala, El Salvador and beyond, they came asking the same question, “what can I do?”
We helped them answer that question, and soon had 80 volunteers working to dig out houses. During a few heartbreaking moments, volunteers unearthed bodies of those who did not make it out fast enough. One pair of volunteers dug up a body of a mother holding tightly to her eight-month-old baby. They were taken from the ground and soon placed back within it.
But mostly, the work inspired the workers. They were inspired at the resilience of the Guatemalan people who worked side-by-side with them, and amazed at their own ability to bring about positive change. Before there was death and destruction counts; now there was a new counting system: how many houses had been dug out, how much clothing had been distributed, how many days of were left before there would be no evidence that Tropical Storm Agatha had ever come through.
By flipping on any major news channel, it can be easy to be discouraged. From Chile, to China, to Haiti, to Darfur, to Iraq, to Guatemala and beyond; it seems the world’s woes are numerous and everywhere. But what these news clips often fail to portray is that for every problem, there are dedicated people young and old from all over the world giving all that they have to give to solve the problems they can. And in ways large and small, their efforts are succeeding.
That was the thing about reeking havoc on ant hills as a boy. The next day those ants had somehow rebuilt, and their lives had returned to the orderly pattern that ants seem comfortable with. The only difference between ants and humans is that in our case, ants from other colonies come to help us rebuild. Right now, in Guatemala, there is a lot of thanks to go around to people from all over the world who continue to help rebuild.
About the Author
Luke Maguire Armstrong lives in Guatemala directing the humanitarian aid organization, Nuestros Ahijados. His book of poetry, iPoems for the Dolphins to Click Home About (available for sale on Amazon.com) is especially enjoyed by people who “don’t read poetry.” (@lukespartacus)