Post by Helen Coskeran

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I can’t believe it’s been over two months since I arrived in the “Land of Eternal Spring” (as the Guatemalan Tourist Board often reiterates). Somehow the sights, sounds and stories that bowled me over at the beginning have become a part of every-day life and sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I don’t just live my days through in a daze.

My name is Helen Coskeran and ever since a brief visit to Guatemala in 2001 when I did some volunteering in a nursery in Guatemala City and some travelling around the country, I wanted to return. An opportunity came up this year to volunteer in a small NGO “Fundamar” run by a community of Marist brothers in the capital and to combine this with working with children in Casa Alianza, a home for street children or children from difficult domestic situations. Although tiring, the combination of jobs has been fascinating – the necessary administration work in Fundamar (we mainly run educational and community-based projects) coupled with the “hands-on” experience at Casa Alianza (I am generally in the library helping with homework, internet searches, computer skills or English but you do have to be flexible!).

I guess I realise now how naive I was after my visit in 2001. I was 18 and rather sheltered from the reality of Guatemala (although my experience at the nursery was definitely an eye-opener). Now older and living in Zona 1 of the capital (even some Guatemalans think I’m crazy to be living there), I feel like I’ve learnt so much more about the reality of every-day life here. Sure it’s great to escape to the tourist spots at the weekend, but I feel in the heart of it here, and that’s the way I like it. For example, working with the girls in Casa Alianza has shown me the difficult route some people’s lives take and yet they are so delighted to have us foreigners working there. They have incredible energy and creativity and I feel privileged to be able to work with them.

In Fundamar, I have come across villages and communities so far-flung that my Guatemalan friends haven’t even heard of them and have read their bloody histories in shock. When I visited the town of Chichicastenango in El Quiché (one of the municipalities that suffered most in the atrocities of the early eighties), it really hit home how much our help was appreciated. We provide scholarships to around 170 kids in the area – including some boarders whose homes lie a 5-hour bus and 6-hour trek through the mountains away. The warm welcome my Australian colleague and I received made us feel like local celebrities and we were so inspired by the students and their fascination with us and our respective countries, that we are starting a pen-pal project between these schools in Chichicastenango and English and Australian schools. We feel that both groups will benefit from the interaction with a completely different culture, and will hopefully raise awareness of Guatemala and the issues here for the English and Australian students.

Other events such as the anniversary of Monseñor Juan Gerardi (assassinated in 1998 after publishing the REMHI [Recovery of Historical Memory] report) and the 15th anniversary of the brutal murder of the Marist brother Moisés Cisneros have made me realise how far the effects of the armed conflict stretched and still stretch as seen in the daily reports of violence. However far Guatemala may have come, it is clear to me that there is a very long way to go.

Sandy Henderson, after spending time in Guatemala, has put together with Barbara Lowe, a brilliant exhibition on Mayan weaving at the Reading Internationcal Solidarity Centre (RISC). Sandy has put the exhibition together with the support of GSN and the Mayan Hands, a fair trade organisation that works with a large number of Mayan women weavers, particularly around Solola and Lake Atitlan, but also other parts of the highland regions.

For more information about the exhibition, contact RISC. You can see more photos of the exhibition here.

Post by Morven Gregor- Artistic Director- Mouth of Silence- Birds of Paradise Theatre Company

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Readers of reports such as REMHI (Recovery of Historical Memory 1998) or CEH (Historical Clarification Commission 1999) are probably all too familiar with the catalogue of atrocities visited on the people of Guatemala during the 36 years of conflict. Unfortunately, both then and now, most folk in the UK know nothing about it.

Ten years on from the signing of peace in December 1996 – how much media coverage will that anniversary get here in the UK?

That’s why as the touring production for 2006, Birds of Paradise Theatre Company are creating Mouth of Silence a new play inspired by the struggle for justice in Guatemala.

In some ways, the process started a long time ago, before I became an Artistic Director and volunteered with the Guatemalan Accompaniment Group living with a community of returned refugees in the Department of Huehuetenango. That experience in some ways inspired this year’s production.

However, theatre is a collaborative process and everyone involved in the workshopping (pre-rehearsal) period brought something to the process.

Writer, Gerry Loose has worked on many projects connected with peace and conflict resolution. One of the actors, Rachel Amey, had passed through the country, travelling. Designer Claire Halleran visited Guatemala in January this year. So, with a sense of creative enquiry, the help of others who had worked and volunteered there and lots of research materials we spent several days together exploring what we wanted the production to be.

Large issues demand a large canvass and for this reason we decided the performance will combine scenes in promenade and outdoor stations as well as in more traditional indoor theatre spaces. The audience and performers will mingle in market and return scenes, heightening their involvement in the piece. Working with deaf actor, EJ Raymond, we also decided to make the production inclusively signed – using the relationship between sign language and English as a parallel to the power relations between indigenous languages and Spanish in Guatemala.

With all these decisions made, we went our separate ways: Gerry to produce the script, Claire the model box and me to wait for the results!

So far, so good – rehearsals start on the 22nd May and we open at the Tramway Theatre, Glasgow on 22nd June as part of Refugee Week, before touring across Scotland.

Come and see the show, if you can. We’ll also tour a small exhibition and information stall, encouraging people to take action related to Guatemala.

And if you can’t join us we plan to have a tour weblog, so you can see how the production progresses across the country.

Production opens at the Tramway Theatre, Glasgow 22nd – 24th June 7.30pm
And then tours throughout Scotland; including Edinburgh, Taynuilt, Ballachulish, Banchory, Drumnadrochit, Isles of Gigha, Harris and North and South Uist.

See the Birds of Paradise website for details.