Stories - Guatemala

Guatemala Carmen García
from Trauma Healing and Transformation
Chapter 2 pp. 13-14

Trauma is never an abstraction, but shows itself in human faces and individual histories. From my years of work in Central America the face of Carmen García comes to mind. I first met Carmen in 1992 at the inauguration ceremony of a popular education center founded by a union leader in Guatemala. Carmen held a plaque honoring my work of solidarity with the Guatemalan people who had struggled for justice through the years of political violence. With a joyful smile she handed me with the award and spoke of her hopes for women in the union movement. A year later I again saw Carmen, a broken woman now without a hand, victim of two major traumas. She had lost her left hand in an industrial accident while cleaning a machine that manufactured chewing gum. One of her co-workers, out of spite, failed to turn off the machine when Carmen first screamed for help. Over the next two years Carmen had twenty-three operations, skin grafts, and physical therapy on the remaining stump of a hand. She was extremely depressed and rarely slept, thinking that she would never work again without her hand. Perhaps even more traumatizing, Carmen lost her job and her union. In a political struggle at the plant where she worked, her union was broken. Unions, even small ones, were considered subversive by the powers in Guatemala. In the 1980s Carmen had lived through the assassination or disappearance of a number of union leaders. Often she and her colleagues received death threats. Now her job and her union were gone, as well as the sense of meaning for her life. As a widow and single mother of four children and five grandchildren, Carmen felt that she could no longer support her family. She suffered all the signs described as posttraumatic stress disorder: flashbacks, insomnia, nightmares, depression, anxiety, and headaches. Carmen's doctor gave her several strong medications to alleviate many of the symptoms that she was experiencing. Since she was poor, most often Carmen did not have the money to pay for the medicine. She also vacillated between taking her medicine and leaving it because she didn't want to feel numbed by the drugs. Out of desperation her family and union friends spoke with me during my visits asking me to include Carmen in the Capacitar work to give her some sense of meaning.

Over the next three years Carmen accompanied me whenever I offered Capacitar workshops in Guatemala. As she learned the Tai Chi, visualization, acupressure, massage, polarity, and other practices, I could see a definite change in Carmen. She was less depressed, had fewer headaches, slept better, and had a more positive outlook on life. Carmen even accompanied the Capacitar team of 25 women from 12 countries to China for the 1995 NGO World Forum on Women, where Capacitar co-coordinated the Healing Tent with the Chinese Medical and Traditional Medical Associations. Women from all over the world came to the tent to learn and share healing practices with each other. Carmen often worked in the Healing Tent giving welcome massages with her stump of a hand to tired women who came by for a moment of relaxation. One of my favorite memories is Carmen massaging disabled women from many cultures who came in their wheel chairs to receive her healing touch. This past year during a workshop for religious and professionals of CONFREGUA (National Federation of Religious of Guatemala), Carmen shared how she no longer felt that she was a victim of her circumstances. She had suffered, she is disabled, but she has learned great wisdom from the wounds of the traumas she has experienced.

Guatemala Barbara Saquéc, Ix Anil, Alejandro Batz Madre Tierra
from Trauma Healing and Transformation
Chapter 3, p. 63

Barbara Saquéc and her daughter Ixaníl are Kachiquel Mayans from Patz™n, Guatemala. Barbara has practiced Tai Chi with her daughter since her birth. When she was an infant Ixaníl would peek out from the shawl tied Mayan-style to her mother's back. At two years of age Ixaníl joined the Capacitar workshops and would actually do Tai Chi like an adult with the rest of the Mayans. Barbara and her husband Alejandro Batz work with six communities in different parts of Guatemala teaching the Mayan customs and spirituality that were lost during years of violence and forced relocation of indigenous people. For Barbara and Alejandro the Mayan cosmology and interconnection with nature is similar to the Taoist philosophy upon which Tai Chi is based. Tai Chi movments have been integrated into some of the ceremonies led by Barbara and Alejandro. Another group of Mayans in Nahualá use Tai Chi movments daily. In several families all the men, women, and children do this as an exercise and a prayer. One of the leaders, Santos Ixcal, once made the comment after an outbreak of violence in the village, that everyone in town should learn Tai Chi. He felt that the practice would change the negative attitudes of the community.

Guatemala - the Mayan Community of Nahualá
from Trauma Healing and Transformation,
Chapter 3, p. 39, 134, 201

The Mayan people of Nahualá, Guatemala have a traditional practice of protection that has been used for generations. Francisco Muz and Santos Izcal, Kachiquel Mayans, described how their people wrap themselves and their children in sacred healing light before starting the day. In the Mayan cosmology we are all interconnected with the sacred energy that flows through us and through all of nature. With the practice of protection we make ourselves conscious of the sacred energy that is always with us. Francisco and Santos shared how they start in the area of the head and with their hands they brush through the energy field, wrapping sacred light around the entire body, like a protection of grace.

Process Acupressure has become a favorite method of healing for Mayan couples at the Center for Spirituality in Nahualá, Guatemala. Francisco Muz, Santos Ixcal, and Mary Bertrand SSND, are directors of this center. Their healing work involves six regions of Guatemala. People in these areas have suffered many years of political violence and natural disasters, as well as physical ailments related to hard labor in the fields, poverty, and lack of resources. The Mayans have found the acupressure points to be especially helpful for leg and lower back pain after long hours of working in the cornfields. Besides using the points on themselves, many of the mothers and fathers use them on their children to bring relief.

One of the most powerful labyrinth experiences I have had was with a group of 25 Mayan men, women, and children.Sacred circles are part of Mayan cosmology, so the labyrinth pattern felt familiar to these people.The Kachiquel community had experienced much suffering and trauma during thirty years of violence in Guatemala. A few months before my visit, a lynching of two youth had occurred in their town square. The Mayans walked the labyrinth like a sacred procession, many weeping. They walked once again through their history connecting with past memories of terror, massacres of loved ones, and political violence. When the community knelt together to pray before the candle in the center of the labyrinth, a remarkable peace and radiance surrounded the group of mothers, fathers, and young children. The grace and dignity of this people had not been destroyed by years of brutality and inhuman suffering. After the labyrinth experience when the group took time to reflect, some of the Mayans shared how they wanted their communities and other family members to likewise walk a labyrinth. Several of the men who were tailors, measured the pattern and calculated that they would need 40 grain sacks sewn together to make the base for the circular pattern. With house paint they could draw the paths and with Mayan symbols they could decorate their own community labyrinth.