A couple of months ago I was on Vancouver Island, and an article in the Nanaimo newspaper caught my eye.  The community had adopted a family from Guatemala, and it discussed the difficulties in getting them settled in.  It seems that in this family, not one of them could read nor write, even in their own language!  Who are these people?  What are their problems?

The first group of immigrants “caravan” that walked across Mexico to the US border, eighty percent were from Guatemala.  What made them leave their homes to face such terrible hardships.  5200 children were separated from their parents in a horrific action by US immigration.

I started investigating all of the articles on that country: the people are leaving because they are starving!  How can that happen?  Guatemala has the highest malnutrition in South America, the fourth worst country in the world for hunger.  More hunger than most of the countries in Africa.  One half of the children suffer from malnutrition, and occasionally have to be hospitalized.  They grow stunted:  an eight year old is the size of a normal four year old.  Their protein and calcium, essential for normal growth, is severely limited.  If their bodies don’t grow, what is happening to their brains?

Historically, Guatemala consisted of many small farmers, who produced enough food for themselves.  Eventually the good agricultural land was taken and distributed to the elite, and of course the United fruit company, so the farmers were left with the least useful land. The farmers used to grow their own corn, then they laboured three months a year in the coffee fields of the big businesses to pay for the rest.

Now, over the past 4 years, there has been severe drought, and crops aren’t growing.  The corn doesn’t grown, and there aren’t even jobs on the coffee plantations, as coffee growth has also been affected by the drought.  There has been over use of forests, the soil is poor, and now no rain.  The situation was limping along with some food from foreign aide, but even that was held back by the Trump administration.

The cities are oblivious of this situation, it is a slow invisible emergency.  900,000 are in need of simple food.  The drought has not subsided, ;there is no more food, people have to leave.  And we ask why?

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