By Renee Anderson

There was no one moment that struck me the most from my trip to Guatemala this summer.  Rather, it was the response of the country to the simultaneous natural disasters it has faced in the past few months, hurricanes, landslides, collapsed highways, sinkholes, volcanic eruptions, and the myriad of problems each brings.  

As an American I am used to a constant bombardment of news, both on the relevant and the irrelevant, and every possible opinion on it, how to fix what’s broken, and even what’s not.  Consequently, it was a bit mystifying to be in a country that has been suffering from disasters and a lack of adequate disaster relief, and not hear about the faults of the government, or a general outcry against corruption and the factors that increased the power of natural disasters to wreak such havoc on Guatemala.  

While in El Hato, we took a tour of the village and at one point came across an entire section of a hill that had been taken out because of the massive amount of rain.  Everyone in our group stood tentatively on the edge, apprehensive about crossing to the other side over the narrow pass, while the little kids and their parents stepped over it without a second thought.  

This had happened at a rather important place too, at the water source which doubles as a clothes washing station for the women.  As we continued in our tour of the village nothing, from the sheet metal houses to the fire in the middle of the kitchen floor, struck me quite as much as the acceptance of the people of the way they must deal with what happens to them on their own, rather than having even the most basic expectations of their government to provide sustained support to its citizens.