Laj Chimel

Laj Chimel means "Little Chimel," because it's a village built on the
site of the former village of Chimel. It's little because 14 families
live there, but 70 families lived in old Chimel.

Chimel is the home of Rigoberta Menchú, who won the Nobel Peace Prize
back in the early '90s for helping to publicize the plight of rural,
indigenous Guatemalans in the Guatemalan civil war. Although her book,
_I, Rigoberta Menchú_ has been criticized (not least for factual
inaccuracies), it's a pretty accurate story if taken as a typical
account of Guatemalans during the armed conflict here.

One of the local peace corps volunteers and one of the municipal
employees here had some work to do up there--they're promoting an
ecotourism project up in the village--and she agreed to take me and
several other gringos--a bunch of folks from Louisville, KY working on
water purification projects down here--up to the village to check it
out, and so I could talk to the people up there about their efforts to
conserve local forests.

The trip was incredible.

Not only did we get to take a hike through the beautiful and incredibly
rich cloud forest up there, but the locals had put together this
incredible rope swing which we were able to try out, we got a look at a
local lagoon which fills up with water in the dry season and dries out
when it rains (good for swimming--I'll put the pictures up when I can
get a wireless connection) we saw some beautiful scenery, I was able to
conduct an interview, and we good to hear the incredible and painful
story of one of the local women's experience during the civil war,
including accounts of being raped, her baby daughter dying, watching
friends tortured and killed, and watching her village be burned to the
ground.

A little background:

Supported by the US, the Guatemalan military regime fought against
Marxist guerrillas (themselves largely a product of earlier, arrogant
and misguided US interventions in Guate.) using techniques borrowed from
US efforts against the Vietnamese. Literally, the Guatemalan Army did
its best to clear the countryside of peasants, so there was nobody who
could support the guerrillas. Mostly, the peasants just wanted to be
left alone, but they got caught in the middle, with terrible results.

But now, they're back, trying to rebuild (and making a good go of it, by
the looks of it.) After buying back their land from large landowners
who had taken it over during the war, two of the original families have
returned, with twelve other families. Beautiful place, though I can't
imagine returning home to a place where you've experienced so much pain
and heartbreak...