David Melby-Gibbons, an Eastern Graduate student, played guitar while we sang several songs, among them: Amazing Grace—first in English, then Spanish.We concluded the bonfire by roasting some “angelitos,” marshmallows, which we enjoyed with the children.

It was now time for bed. Several of us from our group stayed in the small collection of houses where we had eaten and congregated. Cooper and I followed two girls down a muddy, rocky road. Like much of the area, there was a great deal of trash on the ground. Howard attributes this to the sudden influx of bodegas selling candy and junk food very cheaply. The trash these items created was a new development for the Mayan people, who had previously used all of their food, discarding only biodegradable material. He believes that they are simply unaccustomed to the practice of throwing away trash, leading to a mass accumulation of waste in the beautiful setting.

When Josh and I arrived at the house in which we were staying, our hosts provided us with a small building to ourselves. It was about 12x14 in size. The walls were white and unadorned; the floor was made of cement, and the ceiling was made of aluminum. There were two chairs and a table, and our beds were simply a wood frame with a thin foam pad and blankets. It was certainly good for our backs.

The group would meet back up at 7 a.m. for breakfast.

While waiting for breakfast to be ready the next morning, I took some time to look around. I was pretty tired from the rooster wakeup call, but I had no problem with the chickens. A hen laid an egg right in front of us and was promptly picked up and taken into the kitchen. Needless to say, the eggs were very fresh.

After we ate, two of the women that hosted us took us on a tour of the town, focusing on the areas devastated by Hurricane Stan. We passed a large trench that members of the Mennonite church had helped dig in the aftermath, with the hope that any future storms would not cause so much destruction. As we crossed the massive trench, the two small guides helped us down, holding our arms to help us avoid a hospital visit.

We passed a house of normal size that, if looking through the front door, appeared only half the height of a normal house due to the accumulation of mud. Three foot weeds brushed against the ceiling.  

We then visited a camp set up for the people that lost their homes as a result of the storm. About 200 families live there, with as many as 14 people in one small shack. They were supposed to have stayed there for six month but are still there after three years.

The guides told us that there were a great deal of people with diseases in the camp because of an inadequate number of toilets that many people used and because of the rats that were attracted to the toilets.

Next we visited the site where 250 people lost their lives and many others lost their homes. The crater of one of the volcanoes had become full of water and mud until it could hold no more, rushing down the face until it destroyed the houses. The people did not see the 5 a.m. onslaught coming. There was a clear path running down the hill where the water and mud had rushed and the trees had fallen. The path looked as if it had been prepared for a ski lift.

Behind the plot that had formerly held the homes, there was an abandoned government building that had been built a month before the storm had struck. The building and those around it remain unoccupied due to severe water damage and government restrictions on the area. On the buildings that were not completely destroyed, there was a visible mud line, sometimes extending half way up the houses.

We left the village of Panabaj in the city of Santiago shortly after the tour. Our ride back across the lake gave us a little time to process all that we had seen. The volcanoes and mountains surrounding almost looked unreal to me. The different shades of green set against the blue lake looked more like a painting than anything else.