Chicken Soup

Dear Neighbors,

As we haven't seen each other in a few days, and I just very recently thought of you, I figured I'd put together a nice note and drop it by. I may not have mentioned this yet, but you have a lovely house and garden. The cute little group of hens out in the garden really give it a homey pleasant touch.  I thought I ought to share with you that you have a big beautiful rooster in your possession.  Yes, I know.  Rather forward. I'm American. It's a cultural thing. Yes, we talk a lot. I am aware. No I don't dye my hair.  No, Trump doesn't either because his is not real.  I agree. Strange. And yes, he is a terrible racist. Awfully vocal too. The worst kind of woman chaser.  A little like your rooster.

I have to say that having a bedroom that borders on your garden is, for the most part, a lovely experience.  My room is never quite as warm as the rest of the house can get, and in a summer that's already particularly hot and dry, it's an added relief that I can get a little bit of wind to cool things down at night if I crack open the window. Early in the morning--and in fact late in the afternoon, and often in the middle of the night--I find it relaxing to be able to listen to the sounds of the local birds.

Have I mentioned how big, beautiful and vocal your rooster is?

I haven't yet had time to thank you for the lovely traditional chicken stew you served on Thursday at Nicholas' 33rd birthday party. It was delish. I've gotta admit, that although I've developed a taste for fried chicken feet, this was the first time anyone offered me a chicken head, beak and all.  My heart did skip a beat--when I first took a gander at the plate. Staring back at me was (I was sure) was that virile and cacophonous rooster of yours.  Moments later, however, I was relieved to discover that his ample windpipes continued to very effectively ferry air in and out.  He really is something special.

It was lovely to chat the other day while we were all outside with our buckets waiting for the fire department to bring us not-quite-enough-water-for-three-days-that-has-to-last-all-week on Tuesday.  I don’t think I mentioned how much I like your new haircut.  Super feminine.  I may have also failed to mention your vociferous rooster.  So much bigger than the one the neighbour behind us has.  He is quite the specimen. That large, boisterous rooster of yours. I’ve noticed that he is an early riser.  A late sleeper too.  Strepitus in his pursuit of the hens that are so often happily eating away in your garden, laying their eggs and living their quiet lives.  I almost don’t even know they are there--in fact, if it weren’t for blusturous rooster, I probably wouldn’t. He does such an excellent job of making sure we all know nothing has gotten into the garden to bother the chickens.

Anyway, to wrap things up, I’ll be here about another month.  But was thinking about throwing a little get together to say goodbye.  I thought I’d ask---if it wouldn’t be too much of a bother--if you could bring some of that delicious chicken soup of yours?

The gringa next door.

Tomorrow there should be water.

“Tomorrow there should be water”.   The Alcalde’s promise rings out in a hollow sort of a way. Since February we’ve been waiting.  San Juan Chamelco isn’t a big town. It’s 10,000 people clustered right at the edge of the mountains.  It’s the heart of the Q’eqchi’ region in Guatemala and has been dubbed “Garden of the Verapaces” because of the thick cloud forest filled with orchids that seemed to stretch on forever.

It’s really only been four days since the water just stopped completely.  But over the last three months we’ve stayed up later and later and later every night.  Waiting first for a flow, until that turned into a trickle, to start so that we could fill up buckets to cook and bathe and clean during the following day. The Chipi-Chipi rain--a constant drizzle that is the hallmark of the Alta Verapaz--hasn’t come this year.  Or last year.  Or the year before.  The sweaters, thick blankets and heavy rubber mud boots that define life in this chunk of Guatemala are gone. Replaced by flip flops, sunburns and t-shirts bought for 5 quetzales from a paca.

The heavy thunderstorms that signalled the end of the short dry season (March/April) haven’t come this year.  But neither did the rain last year. The orchids aren’t blooming and the corn ears are small, hard and dry.  Without the rain in May the baby corn plants, popping their heads up after an April planting are wilting and struggling. Riding the bus into Coban is to sit on a bus full of women and girls with their brightly coloured plastic water tinakas.  With toddlers in tow they are off to visit friends, relatives, acquaintances.  Anyone they know in Coban who has water. Walking down the streets, with containers balanced on their heads or hips, it’s like the town has somehow skipped back in time a decade or three.

“We’ll send a truck.” Says the alcalde.  A water truck, that will drive up and down the streets and fill a few buckets for each house. A reason to stay home from work and give up a day's wage--just to have water. My host family assures me that while the truck was helpful last year, it’s still not the same as having water. Or being able to wash our clothes or clean our hair. Their oldest daughter and an aunt haven’t had water all week.  The frustration is palpable when people talk about last May. It got so bad that they risked protesting. Something that the community elders still remember being dangerous, as protestors they knew in the 1970s and 1980s disappeared.  There was a petition and they marched to the municipality office. They waited in the park to talk to the alcalde. They were met with police, the military, paid counter protesters.

There was no water.  Not that week. Or the next.

And May is just beginning.

Large swaths of Guatemala have been fighting through one of the worst droughts in recent history over the last three years.  The European Commision on Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection estimates 1.3 million people are being severely impacted and over half a million are facing direct food insecurity because the rain just won’t come.  Oxfam is handing out cash to over 2,000 severely affected families and assessing what can be done to alleviate the heavy impact that drought has on health conditions. Families without water lose what little access to good sanitation they once had. Parasites that cause diarrhea, nausea and vomiting hit families facing food insecurity particularly hard, impounding malnutrition and leaving them more vulnerable than ever to diseases such as zika, malaria and dengue fever.

Bouncing out past Chamelco in the back of a pickup towards the aldea of Chamil, the effects of climate devastation surround us; from the thick haze as massive corporate farmers burn sugarcane to harvest it (easier and cheaper than other methods) filling the air across the highlands with a smog that lasts for months, to the newly barren hillsides as deforestation runs rampant throughout the Alta Verapaz. Landslides, both small and frighteningly large, creep onto roads from Chicaman to Cahabon.  Dry loose soil, no longer protected by a canopy of root and forest, sliding off the hillsides.  Particularly when it rains. Dust coats leaves and flowers. Plastic bags and bottles float down streams, catching on twigs and branches.  Bobbing in the eternally brown water that is slowly washing away the topsoil.