Community comes first!
“Chocola” in Spanish literally translates to “chocolate” in English. Eating chocolate gives me immense joy and happiness, so Chocola, the next city we visited, got me excited just by hearing the name. The hotel we stayed at was like a mini-rainforest, lush trees all around and a small stream flowing, packed by a gazillion critters. It was pouring rain most of the time we were there and was a great relief from the heat we experienced in Zacapa.
The first place we visited in Chocola was a health clinic run by the Maya Health Alliance, which is run by a nonprofit, but local individuals are being trained and neighborhoods are increasingly involved in order to know more about the needs of the people. This project addresses the most urgent need of Guatemalans that is healthcare. Making healthcare accessible to people living in remote places and speaking in remote languages has been the motto of this nonprofit venture. The tragic fact that despite the presence of around 15,000 NGOs in Guatemala, the situation of high malnutrition in small children is yet a major area of concern. After hearing from the local women of the community that this program has helped make their kids healthier and made them happier in turn, I felt a little hopeful.
The other place we visited was the Seeds for a Future headquarters and small neighborhoods nearby. The people of the community were happy to see us and willingly showed us around. Every household had built their own little garden, mainly to grow plants and farm animals that can supplement their dietary requirements. In the community, every house we visited had little rabbits inside cages particularly, which were to supplement protein in their diets. After all the tiring exploration they served us their new creation, the “Green Tortillas,” for lunch. This new type of tortilla had various kinds of herbs and vegetables mixed in the dough to make it more nutritious. The other delicious stuff we were offered was green mango juice, which was very refreshing and tasted exactly how my mother makes it back home.
Post lunch, we heard testimonies from the community members and facilitated a discussion survey. Questions about how they feel about their community and what changes they want to see were asked to both locals and to our group. This helped in seeing a better contrast between the lives of people in Guatemala and in the United States. Most of them looked very happy and even though they yearned for more participation from their community, they responded with great determination to build and strengthen the momentum. The crucial thing I learnt from this visit was that when a community tries to understand the needs of its members and then cater to them is when a community truly prospers, it shines brightly as a beacon of hope for the entire nation altogether.