June 11 – Back in School Again
We decided to take a week in Antigua to study Spanish, before we get started for real with our investigation. It almost feels like it is something one should do here. We’re only paying $120 (1100 kronor) per person for 4 hours Spanish daily, three meals a day and accomodation with a Guatemalan family. Dirt cheap.
Stefan is frustrated during his lessons, and wishes that he hadn’t been sleeping during his Spanish classes when he was in high school. I’m frustrated as well because of all the mistakes I’m making when I try to speak.
We are organizing the rest of my trip from here, taking advantage of the plethora of internet cafes they have. This thursday we’re leaving Antigua to spend a week or so in the Ixil triangle. The guerillas had a stronghold here during the war, and many massacres took place in this area, trying to force them away. Sometimes whole villages were ‘erased’ by the army; men, women, children and livestock. The strategy was called ‘scorched earth’ and was used to eliminate the support for the guerillas and leave them without food and shelter. (The guerillas depended many times on the help of the poor people in these villages).
The UN Truth Comission states that it was never a matter of a civil war, but instead a mere slaughter of an innocent Indian population. The three remote villages we’re going to in the triangle consists of Nebaj, Chajul and Cotzal. We hope to find out more what happened there during the war, interviewing survivors of the massacres among others.
