A letter from Roger and Gloria Marriott in Guatemala
August 25, 2009
Friends,
It is good to be back in Guatemala. Gloria and I were recently commenting how we were surprised that we feel so comfortable here, even happy. We marvel at how we can feel so at home in a country that is so challenging, especially to its own citizens and particularly those at the margins, and specifically the Kekchi.
The fact that we are pleased to be here and have been here for eight years does not prevent frustration and the constant collision of cultures. We recognize that we respond as North American, white, middle-class, suburban, Christians, to all events.
That is who we are, and all the communications media and all the influences in our lives reinforce the values represented in that description. That also describes the overwhelming majority of visitors to Guatemala, essentially the flower of U.S. society, people at the top of most every category that sociologists use to describe society. Inherent in that description is also the germ of misunderstanding when working cross-culturally—North Americans believe their systems and values are the correct ones and are the standards by which they measure the rest of the world. And why wouldn’t they? This has been part of the North American educational process from the earliest. “The melting pot,” “land of the free,” “you can be anything you want to be,” and many similar phrases speak of the strengths and the pride we have in our system.
North Americans take as a matter of course that what we value is what all people value, that what we have is what all people want. Immigrants have been arriving for decades in the United States and they continue to arrive, risking their lives and earthly belongings to get here. That fact alone seems to prove the point. Many U.S. citizens believe that immigrants come because they want to participate in the North American lifestyle. In some cases that may well be true, particularly for many well-educated people. But others go to the United States for the most basic of reasons—to make a little money so they can send it to their families at home and save enough so they can return to their homes with maybe enough money to start a little business or build a house because job opportunities are not available in their home countries.
When North Americans visit a place like Guatemala as short-term missioners, they bring with them all the influences that have shaped them. As U.S. missioners, the overriding influences have been Christian faith and the belief in upward economic mobility. There is the need to help those who have so little in comparison to North American standards. Missioners have been taught to share not only their faith but their material wealth as well.
Christian groups have a little more work to do, though. They are not anthropologists nor are they charitable organizations charged with distributing aid. They are not psychologists, sociologists, or political scientists—they are part of a group seeking to understand how best to reflect their understanding of who they are as Christians before God and before their fellow human beings. Visitors from the United States are asked in a short period of time to put away prejudices and preconceived notions about who or what another people are. But that is difficult to do for that very reason—they are here only a short time, and one value of U.S. culture is to make good use of time and money, to assess the situation, analyze, and then act on the perceived needs which are obvious to us, coming from U.S. culture. North Americans—and people in general, I think—rarely reflect on why they believe certain things or hold other concepts as perceived universal ideals. It’s a rare person who spends time considering whether he is responding culturally, intellectually, or rationally and what the influences are that condition his responses.
Determining the differences between responding as North Americans and responding as Kekchi to the same set of circumstances can be difficult. What criteria, information, values, or traditions does each of us bring to bear upon the situation at hand? Our Kekchi friends have also learned what has value in their culture. We tend to see them as uneducated because they have little formal schooling, and we tend to underestimate the role of tradition and the informal training they have had. We deem their traditions as inferior to ours (whether or not we like to admit it) making them, and we wish not even to hint at it, inferior to us. We have more information, we are more knowledgeable, our experiences are deeper and wider, we synthesize facts or observations based on that wealth of experience, and it follows that our conclusions are more informed, therefore better, and we are therefore superior in a variety of ways. Such thinking is difficult to avoid and carries with it the burden of guilt, which can cause people to take actions that may in the long run be harmful. However, a visitor is faced with a lot of cultural information in a brief time, and it is difficult to absorb so much while he also sifts through his own cultural influences, which determine his initial responses.
We sense that life, which we hold dear, is less precious here since any of us can observe many unsafe practices (or the lack of safe practices), such as sanitation and hygiene. Drivers take what North Americans see as unnecessary chances not only with their own lives but also with the lives of their passengers. Passengers frequently ride atop overloaded vans, and the drivers don’t change their driving patterns because of that. Young men who act as helpers to get passengers off and on the vans hang out the doors, sometimes on the side of the speeding van, attracting customers while hollering out their routes. The common experience is that all drive too fast for the circumstances, and it is the pedestrians’ responsibility to be on the lookout for the driver, not the reverse. These are clearly unsafe practices. Why, we ask, can they not see that since there are frequent wrecks and passengers and helpers do fall from these vans and die? Why, we wonder, is that difficult to see? North Americans don’t understand.
We talk of being in partnership with our Kekchi friends, but we would expect anyone else with whom we may be partners to be equal to us in all ways; we would expect something substantial from them. Too often we see our Kekchi friends, or any indigenous group, as in need of our largesse, our wisdom, our knowledge, and our help—not as partners. I believe it’s valuable to consider what is the substantial thing that one receives from any partner. Can it be articulated so that all can understand it and believe it, especially the partner from the Two-Thirds World?
Frequently, actions by North Americans in any foreign setting serve to underscore differences rather than similarities. We assess and determine unilaterally what it is they must need and what has led to the formation of hundreds or thousands of NGOs that deal with specific needs; e.g., clean water, wells, food, education, books, shoes, health, agriculture, houses, and more. Marginalized people become objects of our worry and pity. That act dehumanizes them or makes them less than we would hope to feel or believe even about ourselves. Visitors only want to help, but they have little time to spare. Given the value we place on doing something about the situation, we begin our activities immediately. Time is a luxury unavailable to the short-term missioner, but NGOs are available to offer an answer to the missioner’s desire to help. And that answer usually satisfies the missioner, since the NGO reflects North American or at least Western values.
Rarely do visitors consider that the things they think are important are learned, they’re conditioned by culture, and that looking at things in another culture through our cultural lens may be incorrect. These factors affect every North American in Guatemala. If people don’t respond according to our experiences and beliefs, we immediately try to explain it to ourselves because that is our culture: There is always a reason. And that’s the way we cope. We answer for others if they act in ways contrary to what we know as correct behavior.
North Americans find some things puzzling. For example, in an article in the July 30 edition of the newspaper Prensa Libre, a village in the municipality of La Libertad in the Petén had an outbreak of conjunctivitis. One-hundred and twenty families in the village of La Nueva were affected, which was almost every family. It turns out that the health center in the village had been closed two months before and that the parents of the kids had neither the money nor the will to travel to La Libertad, where treatment and assistance was available. The director of the ministry of health in La Libertad learned of the outbreak and sent people to deal with it, but not before the problem spread to a nearby village. None of the villagers took the initiative to deal with the problem. Why would villagers not attempt to rectify the problem? What is the thought process? We could all make a guess, but it would be based on our culture and therefore probably incorrect in this setting.
North Americans are aghast at such apparent lack of concern for the health of these kids. But could it be that health is not so important in that culture? Such outbreaks are not unusual and ultimately fade away. It could be that they were simply waiting for that to occur. Or was it merely resignation and hopelessness? Or are those merely North American guesses because we have to factor in reasons for what appears to be irresponsible behavior? Is there something missioners can learn here?
North Americans value health and spend huge amounts to maintain it. It is much in the news and we lament those who are unfortunate enough to have no insurance. Access to medical care is a right (even though obesity levels and the resulting drain on financial and health resources continue to lash an astonishing 50 percent of U.S. citizens) and we want to export that right to Guatemala. U.S. organizations train some local people as health promoters to work in their villages as a front line of care. Yet we know villagers rarely use these services. There are many trained promoters with nothing to do. Some avail themselves of the local “curanderos” (native physicians—more or less) when they or family members are ill. Native remedies frequently work. Not all Guatemalan villagers have concurred that good health, in the North American style, is that important. That is alien to U.S. standards. What’s the appropriate reaction of visiting groups?
Last year a group delivered bags of corn to various villages. In one, the leaders suggested the corn be given to Juan C., who had not worked for a year due to a problem that caused terrible pain in his groin and low back. He and many others cried when he was given the grain, and arrangements were made to take him to the hospital in Sayaxché the next day. He was found to have a groin infection, which was cured quickly by a couple of days of intravenous and oral medications. Everyone was happy.
The group learned that Juan had been in the hospital the year before with the same problem but had gone home before treatment. Juan later said he had no money even though the treatment, except for the purchase of some medications, was free. For nearly a year he suffered, his family suffered, and the villagers suffered because of his fear and misinformation. All involved simply accepted his worsening condition. He might have died but for the North Americans. Why didn’t anyone from his village insist he return to the hospital? What are the cultural peculiarities at work in this instance, and what is the appropriate North American reaction?
In November 2008 a villager, Juan G., in a remote area needed an “emergency” operation. There was no money available. In July 2009, the same villager still needed the operation, which was for a hernia. Hernia operations may be difficult, and there can be complications, but they are routine. The operation could be performed in Sayaxché at no cost. However, for reasons not understood, he was afraid to go to Sayaxché. So he has suffered since November 2008. What is the appropriate North American reaction?
A health-related NGO could take Juan G. to Antigua for a free operation at a cost of only the travel expenses, less than 200 dollars. That is a fair price for 12 hours of travel one way. Another villager needs the same operation and another 200 dollars to go to Antigua. For unknown reasons, these men chose not to visit the nearby government hospital in Sayaxché. A further twist to this story is that there is a North-American sponsored hospital only an hour distant. Misinformation was generated that said that this hospital charges about 600 dollars for the operation, which is not the case. No one researched that information nor did anyone visit the hospital to ask for clarification. Juan G. simply suffered and waited. His family and others have also waited—and continue to wait.
It is very difficult to understand the thinking and logic that is applied in these situations. How to work with people whose experiences and manner of thinking is so different from what any North American knows is a challenge for visitors? Some visitors simply act on their own understanding and observation of what is needed. They may be associated with an NGO that promotes a specific action, so that is the action they will pursue. They may decide that education is needed and will build a school or buy supplies. They may feel that clean water is the crying need. They may determine that the gospel must be more clearly understood by the natives. They may urge medical training, since as we all know it’s impossible to have too much information.
North Americans have an educational system that demands critical thinking skills rather than rote memorization. Does the Kekchi way of thinking serve them? Yes, it does; in fact, they are not gloomy people ruing their circumscribed lives compared to us sophisticated and wise North Americans. In many ways, they are far more content than people in the United States, although their worlds are quite small.
We have learned that most of the training that happens in short workshops (a common form of education in rural Guatemala) simply stops with the person receiving the training. For example, our friend Raymundo, to whom we taught a simple bookkeeping system, hasn’t been asked by any of his people to share his knowledge. He is willing to share, but the knowledge has stopped with him. Domingo, who is a shrewd and talented man and who has taken advantage of opportunities that have come his way, has a 20-year-old son with a second-grade education and daughters that cannot read. Most of what he has learned has stopped with him.
A lot of this has to do with trust issues, a legacy of the civil war, which encouraged people not to trust one another.
If you don’t understand someone’s cultural values, then interpreting their actions is nearly impossible. How does a missioner add the understanding of the people he is visiting to his own understanding, and how does he then draw an accurate conclusion? We are now discussing multiculturalism, which is becoming a concept everyone in the United States must deal with—even those from the suburbs.
Yet all of this is part of the diverse world that God created and called good. It may be too easy to say, “It’s all good,” but that may be the best way to say it. Such diversity is another way God manifests himself in the world. As we delve into the differences between cultures and struggle with things we do not understand, we can stand looking with wonder and awe at the beauty of God’s creation, in the majesty of our natural surroundings, and in the faces and lives of those he has put before us. All people were created in the image of God. We are called upon to love all people, our neighbors. Loving them would require some level of understanding them.
The more we know of one another, and the more we understand one another in each other’s cultural context, the better able we will be to build real partnerships and true relationships based on mutual understanding, not upon what one can do for the other. Once we do that, then our mutual abilities to communicate the truth of God will be enhanced and we can celebrate together what God has done and is doing in the world in the lives of people, wherever they are, who are so different from us. Mutual understanding will help us to see God more clearly and to become beacons of hope, love, and understanding that promote unity in Christ, peace in our lives, and ultimately peace in the world.
Roger and Gloria
Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.
- Psalm 25: 4-5
The 2009 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 277
