Once in a while some unlikely situation presents itself, leading to a string of unlikely and heretofore unimagined opportunities. It’s sometimes called serendipity, and this day in late April was not the first day its whimsical influence.
Having traveled to the Guatemala City area for my Peace Corps Mid-Service Conference (another one of those volunteer reunions of my cohort group, particularly significant for its marking of my halfway point), I was suddenly bombarded that fateful Friday by my Peace Corps superiors asking if I planned to be back in Totonicapán the next day, Saturday. I wasn’t; I was staying near the capital for the weekend because I had scheduled a routine but obligatory medical appointment for Monday in the city, there having been no other openings. But I said, “I can be…?” My PC project director and boss Flavio explained that the U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala was traveling to Totonicapán the next day for a big meeting with the Alcaldía Indígena de 48 Cantones, the Indigenous Mayors’ Association with which I sometimes work on forestry, trash management and environmental education projects. I am the only North American who works with them, and if there were anyone who could help orient the Ambassador to the nuanced realities of this powerful form of local grass-roots government it would probably be me… So I jumped at the news! Of course I can be there! Hmm… even if it means forgoing plans to go to the beach with friends on Saturday, haha.
And since it doesn’t hurt to enquire, I asked if the Ambassador was leaving from his home in the capital tomorrow morning, to possibly catch a ride with the convoy/entourage since otherwise I’d just be sharing the highway with them from a chicken bus! Of course, I didn’t know if that sort of thing was allowed, regular folks traveling with the Ambassador… But there I was, responding to my strict orders to arrive at 7:30 am at the “Residence” for a quick breakfast and we were on our way.
A few hours later (and considerably later than the hour at which we were supposed to arrive at the Assembly of the Indigenous Mayors in Toto), the two-SUV convoy stopped in the crowded streets around Toto’s Central Park, it being market day and the place totally crammed with people, and I climbed down from one of those SUVs with the U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala. Fancy that. The big cars and the four or five bodyguards sure attracted attention, and as we walked escorted by the President of 48 Cantones and other board members who had arrived to greet us I was soon hearing “Seño! Seño!” from kids I know who recognized me (that’s a shortened “señorita” and is how all young women and female teachers are referred to in this country). I sure felt important, and like I didn’t really deserve it!
That feeling didn’t change when we climbed the stairs and were ushered into the Assembly. I was whisked to the front with the rest of the Ambassador’s party, and reflected that this wouldn’t have happened had I not by coincidence been in Guatemala City and asked for a ride; I would’ve been just another member of support staff present that afternoon when the embassy entourage showed up. Hence, serendipity.
The Ambassadorial visit was for the dignitary to get to know this organization, and also to sound out whether any potential for Embassy financial support existed. The Board of Directors did much speech-making on the history, structure, and function of 48 Cantones, after which the Ambassador gave his address in k’iche’ (wild enthusiasm from the assembly, of course), after which the President of 48 Cantones presented and briefly detailed his grant proposal. Of course, all this to ask for money!
In the car on the way back to Guatemala City (ah yes, when he found out I had to be back in Guate the Ambassador offered me a ride back too! What a good guy) it was just the Ambassador and I, and he reflected quite a bit on the practicality of the proposal with which he had been presented that day. An exorbitant amount of money to build a building! And for what? “I’d never get this through; I’d be laughed out first!” If only there were a way we could help them out with the tree nursery and reforestation efforts they talked about… If only we could encourage the community environmental education stuff they said they do… And I agreed.
In all, it was a car ride of stimulating conversation and some good ideas and reflections; the Ambassador left me his card with emails and everything, and as the SUV convoy drove me up to the front door of where I was staying and dropped me off I remember thinking… What just happened? Did all that really just happen?
And while that day was soon over the issue of the funding grant was not, and my part to play in this was just beginning really. I soon found out from my friends on the Natural Resources Board of 48 Cantones that another grant proposal did in fact exist, one that included aid on tree nursery upkeep and reforestation, as well as on community education campaigns. Just the thing the Ambassador had expressed wanting to see more of! So I emailed him a copy of the alternate proposal that, because of politics between boards and board members of 48 Cantones, wasn’t presented to him that Saturday but had all the elements he expressed wanting to see. Of course he was interested, and these days we are in negotiations on how to make a grant fit this proposal. I sure hope I see something come of this before I go. If anyone deserves USAID money, it’s the Natural Resource Board of the 48 Cantones whose members dedicate themselves every year to preserving the 21,000-hectare coniferous forest surrounding the pueblo; the natural and cultural legacy that has been “passed down” for generations but which nowadays is being slowly degraded, thinned, and shrunken for lack of environmental ethic and awareness. I sense I am already invested in this potential project because my park, El Aprisco, has played a big part in instilling that lost environmental ethic in the newest generation. But just one effort isn’t enough. We’ll see what USAID says on the matter!
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