Panyebar

Neither of us has ever lived in such a small town as Panyebar. There is something cool about walking down the paths or street and greeting people by name. Or having kids run up to you and ask if you like the braids that their sister’s best friend’s cousin put in your hair (how would they even know that?)! Even in a small town like Pinole, we know relatively few people and it is always a cause for small celebration meeting people we know on the street. But not here. It’s just the way it is.

Panyebar is nestled at a low place on a ridge at about 6800 feet between the Pacific Coast and Lake Atitlan. Steep, classically- shaped volcanoes form the surroundings and we have felt at least two earthquakes in the past month. It’s pretty chilly most of the time and the cold is exacerbated by the fog that rolls in every afternoon from the coast. The fog is beautiful and mysterious and usually clears up sometime in the middle of the night (when I am stumbling across the path to the bathroom!) but as it blocks out the sun and brings with it a cold wind, brr, I would prefer it if it were less regular.

About 110 years ago, a small group of indigenous K’iche families recognized the fertility of the land and moved here. They stayed, intermarried and had children, lots of them. Which means that just about everyone is related in one way or another. Which means that some kids look a lot alike and it’s easy to mix them up. Which also means that if families continue to grow by the current average of 4 – 5 children every generation and stay here, a serious strain on resources is inevitable.

One thing that Panyebar is blessed with is a clean healthy source of water that comes straight from a pristine spring in the mountains, through pipes to get here. But there isn’t enough, so the delivery of water is alternated between sectors. This of course means that on the days that you do have water, you fill up your big tank (pila) so that you can wash clothes, clean dishes and take baths. Some people, however, don’t have these big tanks and are forced to put water in jugs and pots and whatever they can find. It can be hard to find enough pots to store water for a family of 8 or 10 for a day. This only promises to get worse over the next few generations.

The same holds true for the forest which is quickly disappearing because of the constant need for firewood. Yesterday, one of my students didn’t come to school because he had to go cut and carry wood home for his family. Kent figured out that the average family spends 8 hours every week cutting wood to burn in their stoves. This rapid deforestation and use of time are two of the impetuses behind the stove project which decreases wood use by half.

And garbage: Though it isn’t a resource, the number of people affects the amount of garbage produced. It seems there are 3 things one does with garbage around here: 1. throw it on the ground to blow away somewhere else, 2. collect it in a little garbage can and throw it in the creek or bury it, or 3. burn it. There is no garbage collection. So I wasn’t too surprised when I walked into the kitchen the other day to find a broken children’s bicycle wheel melting and burning up in the stove. We have become all the more aware that the problem is the same at home; we just find bigger holes to bury our garbage in. At least here there are dogs and chickens that run around and scavenge all of the bones and food scraps. Without the plastics, this system of burning or throwing would be fine, but now that plastic is ubiquitous, it causes real problems.

One thing that works really well here is child-care. The entire community is a children’s playground. Kids run around outside, make toys of whatever is available, play and fight with each other without their moms having to make play-dates. There is not a huge concern with danger – kids play with knives, ride their bikes on concrete and crash, climb trees and fall, and generally get up, cry and get on with it. Because almost every mom is at home, there is usually someone around to help if needed. Panyebar is a safe place.

Education is another issue facing this rural indigenous community. According to a survey of 350 families last summer, the average number of years of formal schooling for female heads of household is two years. And for men, the number isn’t much better: three years. The first language spoken here is K’iche. According to Guatemalan law, education is supposed to be bilingual in elementary school and it mostly is but national statistics and anecdotal evidence here in Panyebar suggest that the biggest dropout rate happens after 1st grade. K’iche-speaking children taught mostly in Spanish can’t keep up. Or instead of dropping out right away, they keep repeating 1st grade until they are say, 10 years old, when it is hard to be in the same class as a 6 year old. (We know 15 year olds in 6th grade.) The government is introducing a Cuban program to fight illiteracy and we are doing our part to encourage kids to stay in school and change the future.

So, like anywhere, Panyebar is a mixture of good and bad, easy and difficult. But all things considered, we are glad to be here, glad to be contributing (with your help) to a community that in some ways is healthier than home and in other ways is so needy.