Chico Mendes

Saturday at 6 i arose in the bleary dark of my room, before the parakeets in the courtyard outside my room had begun their morning chirping. The rest of my family was deep asleep, and i stumbled into the kitchen, overtired, a bit dehydrated from an evening consuming a few too many gallos (the Guatemalan beer), put on the kettle and tried to excite mýself for a day of hiking. I hadn´t slept well, as somehow, lying awake, burried past my eyes in covers, hat snug over my ears, spanish words and verb conjugations ran through my mind without cessation. A cup of yummy tea to warm me and pan dulce in hand, i made my way over to the school where I was to meet a small group of students for a trip to the nearby mountains with a member of the environmental organization Chico Mendes

Taking a pick=up out of the city limits and into a nearby village at the base of the mountain, we bumped along in early morning wind and clouds. Chico Mendes is committed to reforestration projects in the mountains surround xela. Much of the poverty present in the rural, primarily Quiche community in the area has been forced to cut down trees for firewood. But it is this very process that has made their communities even more compromised. The recent Hurricane, one of the worst environmental disasters in Guatemalan history, left thousands homeless or burried under the powerful mudslides that resulted from the loose soil on mountainsides without trees falling under the pressure of the torrential rain. Armando, the guide grew up working and walking in the forest through which we were to hike. In his own words, he knows the forest "como mi palma" and has begun the process of imparting the same knowledge to his children. They came along for the hike, two boys about 5 and 7 with boundless energy and a girl about 13 who met them step for step. they literally ran up the mountain, with backpacks full of food for our lunch and never seemed out of breath. All the while yelling vamos vamos to those of us lagging behind. Walking up the mountain, Armando would stop repeatedly, pointing out various medicinal plants, 200 year old pines, signs about the regulation tree cutting in the forest (punishable with 10 years in jail if the trees are not already dead). His knowledge was truly amazing, even just of all the various small paths winding their way up the mountain. Whe we reached the top after almost 3 hours of hiking, the views from the windy, grassfilled plateau stretched on for miles. We saw all the way to Lake Atitlan to the west, the view to the east one of clouds, hundreds of feet below. We could see patches of mountainside disappeared in the hurricane, could understand how complete the devastation was, how sudden. On our way down the mountain, after a lunch of tamales cooked over a fire and sweet te de jamaica, we passed an outpost of forest guards, a group of men (not sure if there are any women) who have a 24 hour outpost, high in the mountains where they are guarding the ancient pines from those who attempt to cut them down for Christmas trees. They rotate on 48 hour shifts until the 24th of December, when they will remove their tents and hope that the trees will remain until next year they begin their watch again. I am thinking about volunteering with Chico Mendes in their greenhouse nearer to Xela before I head to Nicaragua. Well see if thís is feasible, but their committment to reforestration, their politics are really inspiring and something I would love to be able to help in even the littles way.