Guatemala: Heartbreak and Hope

I went to do journalism in Guatemala accompanied by an old friend.

I’d never been there. I don’t speak Spanish. Still, there was a familiar comfort in my queasiness — the feeling that always comes before knocking on the door, or picking up the phone, and asking somebody to share their pain.

It is a moment that can lead to the best and worst of this job. When a person is ready for the knock, there are tears of remembrance. If the timing is wrong, there is fresh hurt, sharpened by anger that their suffering has become the object of a stranger’s curiosity.

The journalists I admire most never find it easy knocking on the door, no matter how familiar they are navigating the terrain of grief.

In Guatemala, it seemed as if every door opened on somebody living with loss. Many had experienced the decades of civil war, political violence and genocide that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. More recent are the funerals for those lost to drug trafficking, government corruption, gangs and street crime.

Back in my safe, comfortable corner of the world, I am haunted by some of what those people helped me experience. The sounds of a crypt being walled shut on the body of a young man. The smell of funeral wreaths being burned in a cemetery. The cloud that passed over the face of a man who not only mourned murdered friends, but the disappearance of a place where people once passed in the street with a friendly “Buenas!”

I was fortunate on this trip to work with photojournalist Donna DeCesare, somebody who covers Guatemala and Latin America with uncommon compassion, knowledge and depth. She knew how to lead us to people who were ready to talk.

Some were people of courage who risk death in pursuit of justice. Others have taken responsibility for improving the world around them, armed with little more than a willingness to try. Some shared stories about the power of love; it’s ability to bridge space and time and even death, to find purchase in the hearts of the living.

Most made it clear they were glad for the chance to share what they know. Standing at the tomb of his slain brother, former gang member Tono Godoy spoke of healing. “These things stay guarded in your heart,” he said. “It’s better to let them out.”