Flores

We stayed in Flores - a small island town in Lake Peten Itza, which is really pretty. So I swam all the way around the island this morning - I think it was about 2km.

The view from our hotel balcony.....

The view from the restaurant where we had breakfast...

Naomi found a friend......

We flew back to Guatemala city - in an 18 seater plane -which said 'I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me'.

-which is probably a good thing as the pilot was chatting to his mates on the phone.

But we had some great views out of the windows - actually the first time we saw the sun -as it had been raining most of the couple of days that we were there.

Tikal

Yesterday I went to Tikal - the biggest (and most famous) site of Mayan ruins in Guatemala. The difference with other mayan sites is that it is deep in the jungle - so it's tall steep-sided pyramids appear to poke out above the rainforest canopy. It also means that you're surrounded by the jungle with all it's wildlife. It was actually tipping with rain nearly all day -so most of it had the sense to hide, but we did hear lots of howler monkeys.

Temple 1


The Gran Plaza

Alot of the pyramids are built in 'twin-temple' complexes - pairs of pyramids which face each other across a plaza or courtyard. Apparently they were built to commemorate the end of a 'katun', a 20 year cycle in the Mayan calendar. Tikal was inhabited and built between 700BC and 900AD.

Some carvings on one of the temples - generally there's lots more 'art' at Copan, but there's still lots of carvings and hiergliphics at Tikal too.

Temple 3 as we walked through the jungle.

Temple 4 - which is the tallest at 64m high-

- which we climbed and then had this view

of the twin temples of 1 and 2 on the left, and temple 3 (I think) on the right.

Lynchings

I bought the paper yesterday cause the name of the next town to where I live was on the front page and caught my eye.
It was the story of a lynching that had happened the day before. In Guatemala, there are on average 14 murders every day, and most are blamed (rightly or wrongly) on the gangs that have a strong hold in many communities. The police and the justice system doesn't seem to be able to do much about it - or is very slow in responding. The paper explained that 3 supposed gang members had shot dead a tuc tuc (small taxi) driver in the town. Several witnesses decided to pursue the young men and caught one. According to the news (and a video of it that was on the TV news later), the local crowd then spent more than an hour kicking and beating the man with sticks. They then poured petrol over him and burned him alive, whilst his mother begged them to stop, but was held back by the crowd.

This was included in a special report on the evening TV news - not just because of the brutality of the incident - but because events like this seem to be happening more and more often. The 'local opinions' in the paper suggest that many are in favour of these sort of actions - out of desperation in the face of the rising gang violence in communities. The president, Alvaro Colom, came into power less than a year ago, on the promise that he would fight violence with intelligence (as apposed to neighbouring Honduras and El Salvador who have introduced 'mano duro' (heavy hand) laws which make it a crime just to belong to a gang), but there's not much evidence of his programmes - and it's too early to tell if they're having any effect.

On the other hand, I have been able to visit a Christian organisation that works with active gang members, incarcerated in prisons around Guatemala. Their research suggests that much of the violence is wrongly blamed on the gangs, and that the media tends to dramatise the violence (often with no censorship of photos or videos of victims) - which both encourages communities to take the law into their own hands, and encourages more young people to join the gangs.
The gang chaplaincy project is seeing signs of hope amongst the gang members, but I think it's a long road to change the violent legacy of 36 years of a bloody civil war.

Honduras

I've been in Honduras for the last couple of weeks. I introduced Catherine to her placement in Siguatepeque and then went onto Tegucigalpa, the capital. There I was visiting various projects that could be stride placements for the future. Most of the introductions were through Red Viva Honduras (a network of organisations working with children and youth at risk). There's a huge amount of work going on - with lots of local churches or national denominations taking the initiative in reaching their own and surrounding communities with the good news of Jesus - in word and deed. Some of the projects were well connected with funders and supporters -mainly in the USA - but others were operating on a shoe string and still making a difference in people's lives. It was a busy few weeks!