Home Trip Journals Partners About Us Sponsorships

 

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Dear Friends,

We are in Santiago Atitilan. We arrived on Friday. How does one start? We had started an e-mail of what we have been doing but before we send that we want to send some pre-information.

How does one put into words Total Devastation….. Pain, heartache, loss, People who have lost families, homes and every possession. Whole families that don’t exist anymore. There are no words……

The information that we have found out so far is that the mudslides affected mainly three communities.

Pachichaj—This community people lost many homes with the death count listed at 4. Because this area has not been declared a cemetery, the government will not be providing land and new homes.

Panabaj—This community does not exist anymore. It has been declared a mass gravesite. The estimate is 600 families, perhaps as many as 1000 or more people who died. Only 96 bodies have been found. The mud dries like cement so there is very little possibility of recovering the bodies, hence declaring it a cemetery.

Tzanchaj—There were not any deaths, but hundreds of families who homes have been partially or totally destroyed. These families will not receive government assistance to rebuild.

The necessities of existence have been provided, food, western clothes, and shelter. We believe there are close to 5500 people who do not have homes. They are to be out of the provisional shelters this week and the government is to provide temporary housing. We will see.

It seems that traumatized is a good word to describe things here. People are going about their daily existence but it seems like there are still so many unknowns.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Here are some photos that were taken within the first few days. They are from our friends here. Altho the photos are graphic, it is a way for you to be here with us.

 

Please remember the people in this area.

Diane, Vikki, and Peggy