Celebrating 20 Years with the Maya
Civil patrols, a daily part of village life.
Twenty years ago, Guatemala was embroiled in a brutal genocidal war. The thought of getting aid to the beleaguered Mayan people in isolated mountain regions where fighting was part of daily life was unprecedented. To bring such aid, one had to traverse the Cuchumatanes, a majestic mountain range where peaks soar above 11,000 feet and gorges plunge thousands of feet below. Boulder and mud-filled, the tortuous serpentine road required a four-wheel drive vehicle. Army checkpoints created further delays on the arduous two-day trip. Little communication with the outside world existed—there were no telephones and guerrilla forces had severed telegraph lines. In spite of such difficulties, the Adopt-a-Village in Guatemala founder, Frances Dixon, was determined to help impoverished Mayan families suffering from the ravages of the 36-year civil war in which over 200,000 Mayan men, women, and children were massacred.
Antiquated communication with the outer world
A tumbledown storage shed in Tres Ranchos, a small village located in the remote northwest mountainous region not far from the Mexican border, served as the organization’s first headquarters. Nearby, the civil patrol look-out post, a spartan shack perched on a hill, faced the village entrance. The civil patrols, a “bullets and beans” entity, so named and created by the Guatemalan military, were made up of conscripts of 14-year-old boys on up to elderly men of 70. They manned the posts on 24-hour-a-day shifts, armed only with old rifles and a few government-supplied bullets. Pay was not part of the package… not even beans.
A few miles away, fighting between the Guatemalan army and rebel forces was part of daily life and would remain so for the next five years. There, entire villages had been burned to the ground and men, women and children murdered en masse by the military. Those who were able to escape ran for Mexico, babies and toddlers on their backs, older children trotting as fast as their small legs could manage.
No schools, no teachers during war years
AAV’s beginnings were humble. With few funds, the organization would be managed with only volunteer labor. As a starting point, Mayan children, barefoot and dressed in little more than rags, were supplied with used clothing. The goal was to help indigenous families with the most basic necessities: health care, food, clean water, and most importantly, an education for the children. First major projects, the construction of a village water system and a fully-equipped primary school soon made Tres Ranchos conspicuously different from surrounding communities.
AAV has been the only humanitarian organization committed enough to enough to operate in this challenging, distant, and ignored region of Guatemala during these past 20 years. Most nongovernmental aid is distributed in the metropolitan centers and tourist areas. Leader Frances Dixon, the region’s only gringa who has lived and worked with the Maya in this remote area, has distinguished the organization by focusing on this area of most desperate need—building roads, schools water systems, delivering health services, and providing school libraries, furnishings and teachers, to over 40 isolated communities.
Leader Frances Dixon learning about the Maya
For 20 years the work that AAV has accomplished has been because of you—our dedicated volunteers and committed donors. Because of you, we have been able to create more hopeful lives for our Mayan friends. Great things have been accomplished in these past years—but even greater things are envisioned for the next 20.
Please take a moment to review our detailed history and our ambitious goals for 2011 and forward.
