I got to spend a week training inside the PNC academy. My part of the training was one full day, and there were three days of training run by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS). What an experience!

Outside the Police Academy buildings

Last November, we asked our U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala, Steven McFarland, to help us get in the door to help train the National Police (PNC). As a result, MIA was invited to tag along with NCIS during already-planned training to deliver our program “Hombres contra Feminicidio” aka White Ribbon Campaign. We want to thank the ambassador for the opportunity to speak to a classroom full of 60 trainers, and we’re very proud of how the training went.

Students working together on a workshop assignment

While MIA was in action, the director of police academy joined us in the middle of an activity and without knowing who she was, I used her for an example and she volunteered without introducing herself. She was a good sport and played the role I asked her to, and after the activity was complete, one of the trainers came to me to ask me if I knew who she was. I did not know and she explained that she was the director. I immediately acknowledged her and asked her to join me in the middle of our circle and asked her if she could stay longer to hear the trainers request, complaints and wishes. I was assertive with her, just like back in my Girls, Inc. days when I had to be assertive with the high school administrators during our training with their students.

Lucia leading the workshop

She was very open and thanks to our moves, she liked our work and invited me to give an inspirational talk on Women’s International Day to 460 new policewomen who are about to graduate.

Students engaging in the workshop

I really wanted to have a male join me for the training, and luckily Carlos Ibanez, who has spoken to our delegations about human trafficing, recomended his buddy Eric who is a long time trainer for teenagers and Eric jumped on the opportunity. He is “between jobs” and our small honorarium meant a lot to him. I am hoping we can afford to have him do more training with us in the future.

I want to tell you more about the training.

My fellow trainers from NCIS came with a 3 day training of a translated domestic violence manual and walked the PNC through page by page for three days. The material seemed pretty basic. But while I was observing the first day, I figured out that NCIS had done their homework; they knew that we need to get our police men to understand their own biases on how to respond to a call for help. The first day was spent tapping into their biases and help the police women to be respected. What the NCIS trainers did not realize in advance is just how bad it is for the police women in Guatemala.

Lucia (left) and the Director of the Police Academy

One brave companera stood up and gave her own testimony on how hard it is to be a police woman. She and her coworker were sent to respond to a call and found a body hanging, she spotted from a distance and ran to the body, prompted her coworker and he responded to her; “you found him, you get him down.” She had to pick up the body from hanging untie him and them put him down without dropping him and hurting him more. My fellow NCIS trainer’s question was, “did you go to your supervisor?”, a very common question we here in the U.S. would expect to do. The policewoman responded very assertively, “No”. The trainer asked why, and the policewoman explained to her, that reporting a thing like that can only get her in trouble. The policewoman explained how hard they have to work to prove themselves all the time, and how it affects the concentration during their duty. Not only do they have to watch their back against the suspects when responding to calls, but also with their male coworkers.

They reported that they are not allowed to drive during a call. We women are seen as bad drivers and not aggressive enough to zig zag thru Guatemala’s crowded streets. In one of our conversations during breaks, the NCIS women talked about our policewomen sisters in the U.S. going through the same kinds of things in the 1960s and 1970s. Probably, this is still happening still here at home but less visibly than in the early days, and much less visibly than in Guatemala.

Over and over, our NCIS trainer ended up giving the same lesson, if you reach a roadblock, you find a way to go over it, around it, or under it, but reach your goal. Guatemala women and men don’t have the equipment to go around it, under it, or over it. Many times I felt the training was a teaser because they were given a training, but no assurance of a follow up to support the advice they were given.

On Friday, after four days of training, the students got our certificates, and we got a certificate of appreciation plus PNC souveniers.

By popular demand, we were asked to go back in the summer. We don’t have exact dates, but thanks to all of you who donated to MIA for this trip, we definitely have a foot in the door with the PNC. For the next training, I did assertively ask Uncle Sam to please write me in the budget. I reminded them we are a small nonprofit and how hard it was to find funds for this past trip. Our contact person at the embassy seemed to have some ideas on how to get us funding help for the next trip, but that’s not for sure. We’ll have to see when the time comes whether Uncle Sam can fund our trip expenses, or if we will have to ask you all again for donations to help with trip costs.

I will be making a family visit to Guate soon for my favorite nephew’s wedding and will stay a few days extra to help a trainer in the city with her training skills. Many of the trainers asked me if I was going back soon, offered to help a group of eager to learn more women and one man, who impressed me, asked his boss to allow him to attend this week long training during his vacation time. His boss asked him, why would you want to give up your vacation time for a week long training and he answered him, just because. He shared with me, he did not want to explain himself, because he knew machismo is so ingrained, it was no use to try to explain the importance of this training.

It is for people like the women and this man who came to me for more information, that I knew it was necessary for us to be part of this training last month. I am planning to deliver three full days of our Hombres Contra Feminicidio training to a small group in a PNC station in Zona 1.

Policewomen at attention

Addressing policewomen in training on International Women’s Day

Lucia at the lecturn, with the Director of the Academy

I have a feeling we will be contacted to visit other stations and will have a chance to do more thorough work. What they want is more one to one attention, and this will help MIA understand better the ins and outs of the PNC. My hope is that we can find a grant for this leg work. I don’t want to take money from our small pot for the three schools where we are delivering programs. Also, we need to find money to translate our manuals. The little we did translate was pure volunteer work from our star Daniel from our sister organization GPDN.

I am happy to communicate that MIA was part of the end-of-week debriefing and follow up with the trainers suggestions to the Director of Police with NCIS. During the debriefing I made the case that if we want to find out if what we did this week worked, we must follow up with the same group and hear them report to us in a couple of months. During this debriefing there were many talks of coming back, but I felt that we need to follow up or else we would only be putting one fire off and running to another and another. NCIS was very humbled by the 60 trainers and we could see their trainers got emotionally involved, and also suggested they want to go back to Guate. I reminded them of all our conversations with the trainer before and after training hours and how important it is to follow up with this group.

I am calling this our pilot program. I don’t doubt we helped them, but really, we just scratched the surface. There is a much much more work to be done. I tried very hard to be assertive and talk about the impunity in my country with NCIS, but was told that that is not something they can help with.

Our goal is to continue going to the Police Academy and promoting the gender equality education until the Academy adopts gender equality education as part of its curriculum.

Well, it’s official! Lucia will be going at the end of February to deliver our “Hombres Contra Femicidio” training curriculum to the Guatemala National Police training staff. The ambassador asked us in November how he could help us, and we said “take us to the police” to get our training in with the PNC, and he said “you got it”.

Well, of course we couldn’t believe things could happen so fast, but we met with an NCIS representative with the Embassy in January, and he said he was programming the training for the end of February. We still couldn’t believe this was all happening so fast, but we got confirmation last week, and Lucia’s booked to travel real soon.

Wish us luck!!

January 20, 2009

Inauguration day! We had a day off, so the delegates could catch up on reading, shopping, and especially sleeping. It was inspirational to hear Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, while sitting in a country so strongly affected by U.S. foreign policy.

January 21, 2009

After a late start, we went to La Linea, an area of Guatemala City alongside the train tracks. The train no longer operates, but the tracks remain, and the street along the tracks is lined with small apartments used by sex workers. We were asked not to use our cameras there, both to protect our contacts, and to protect ourselves, so, unfortunately, no pictures.

We were there an hour or so discussing business, how women get into the business, and what it will take for them to get out. What struck this writer was the sensitive humanity and pragmatism of the women we spoke with. While we were there, there was a constant parade of men walking, riding motorcycles, and driving by, window shopping — gawking. This writer was left feeling respect for women sex workers, who were trying to earn a basic living wage for themselves and their children, and no respect for the male looky-loos.

January 22, 2009

Our final day of visits were to extremely emotional locations. The first was the Forensic Anthropology foundation (FAFG), who exhumes skeletons of victims of the armed conflict.

A scientist from FAFG explains the mission and purpose of the foundation

We were asked not to get photos of the skeletons, out of respect for the families of the deceased. The mission of the foundation is to exhume the skeletons, collect evidence related to their death, and provide reports to the Ministerio Publico so that they can prosecute cases if they choose to. So far, no cases have been prosecuted.

Most torture does not affect the skeleton so, while causes of death are often evident, there is not much evidence of torture. However there are exceptions: we were shown a skeleton where the shin bones indicated that someone hacked at the legs and shot and shattered his lower legs shortly before death.

Even though no cases are being prosecuted on the basis of evidence collected by the FAFG, the administrators of the center receive frequent death threats, which they share with their contacts.

In the afternoon, we got a very graphic experience of the pain of Guatemala’s poor; we visited the city dump, the largest dump (basurero) in Central America. Hundreds of families live around the dump and work

collecting recyclables from the trash. The price of recyclables is really low now, and that increases the economic pressure on the poor families.

We also visited Safe Passage, a center that provides a safe and beautiful environment for the preschool and grade school age children of the basurero families. The center also provides nutritious food for the children, and the representative explained that without nutrition, brains don’t fully develop and the chances of having a better life are greatly reduced.

The beautiful play equipment at Safe Passage

Just beyond the walls of the beautifully-appointed center is a very different world.

The kids in the center are friendly, interested, playful and affectionate. This young man:

had fun playing with my flash, suggesting various things to photograph around the center. I didn’t see any gun-type toys around, so I think my flash became a death-ray in his imagination. I remember reading that if boys don’t have toy guns, they’ll turn sticks or whatever into pretend guns. But a Nikon SB-800? Hey, wait, aren’t they sometimes called flashguns??

We ended the day at Jenny’s house. Jenny’s parents hosted us several times for lunches and dinners and provided a homey environment to help us process the challenging emotions we felt.

Here the group is celebrating her birthday. The girls went out later, but not very late: wake up time was 5:30AM on Friday morning to make the trip home.

The delegates / Soka University students set themselves out three projects: make a documentary, do writings, and make a photo documentation of the trip. We are really looking forward to seeing their work. Our Soka University students were from the California campus, but were originally from all around the world: India, Dominican Republic, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico and the U.S.

January 17/18, 2009

Saturday morning: after a very emotional week meeting with so many brave survivors and human rights defenders, we slept in then took off for Panajachel, on the shore of scenic Lake Atitlan. We shopped, ate and rested, getting a needed break from the stress of being in the capital city.

Fabrics in the marketplace/main street in Panajachel

Sunset over the Lake

Sunrise finds two fishermen chatting while they bring their nets into their simple boats.

A few of us took a boat ride to nearby Santa Catarina Palopo.

January 19, 2009

Monday morning: back to more about the horrible history of Guatemala at the Police Archives. The Archives focuses on a 10-year period of the armed conflict when the most human rights abuses were perpetrated. These police action records were found stored in dark rooms, tied in bundles, and just thrown in heaps like trash.

The project is to clean, read, scan, and store these records, and cross reference them so that they can be used to possibly investigate crimes committed by officials. To date, though, the Ministerio Publico has not prosecuted any cases, but despite the lack of action, people are making death threats against the workers at the Archives.

Bianca washes the corn in the pila, a large concrete oudoor sink.

Next, she takes it down the street to be ground by machine into dough for tortillas. While not quite as old-school as the hand grinding stone we saw used to make our lunch earlier in the week, this is still pretty hands-on. The food was great, with tamales de chipilin, guacamole, frijoles, and more. We are pleased to see Bianca, whom we help with school expenses, studying in the morning two days a week, and helping her mom at their family restaurant.

After lunch, we took a short walk to the school

where we iniciated our “Hombres contra Feminicio” education program last March. The latest news on this program is that we have a connection to help us get our program into an institution in Guatemala, where it may be able to reach many, many more people. More about that later…

Next we visited a yoga and meditation center in the city that also provides day care for young children. The delegates delivered a workshop

for these children, part of our “Hombres Contra Feminicidio” program, promoting understanding between the genders.

We got a tour of the Palacio Nacional in central Guatemala City, which is, like our White House, built to house the president. The president no longer lives there, though, and it is being transformed into a “cultural center”. There are some really cool art galleries which we got to see, but we didn’t get the opportunity to linger there.

This mural in the entrance to the palace stylistically depicts the conquest of the savage Mayan by the cultured Spanish. If we take the naked mayans as symbolizing todays indigenous population, and the spaniard as representing the tiny wealthy elite, this mural becomes a realistic representation of the power distribution in Guatemala today.

The grandeur of the main hall removes this space completely from the poverty in most of the country. The government is using the phrase “a palace for all”, as part of their program to reinvent the palace as a cultural center.

It’s a little hard to see from this picture, but the stonework is all a pale green. Beautiful draped in plants, the darker green exterior and soft green interior color give rise to the Palacio’s nickname the “Avocado House”.

We interviewed this woman whose 6-year old daughter was tragically kidnapped, abused, and killed. She shared her life and her story with us, and she is optimistic for the future, despite the tremendous loss she suffered.

We visited San Carlos University guided by the students from Organizacion Rojelia Cruz. Rojelia Cruz was a beauty contest winner who used her fame and influence to be a voice for the poor and downtrodden in Guatemala. She was tortured, raped, and killed in 1967 by a paramilitary death squad, and symbolizes the continuing struggle for fairness and prosperity in today’s Guatemala.

This image of Rojelia Cruz carries her words: “Woman, in our struggle, we don’t have a gun”.

Our students got structured opportunites to interact with their Guatemala counterparts. In some cases it was difficult because of language issues, but they always managed to have meaningful interactions.

January 14, 2009

We started the day with Rosa Franco, whose teenage daughter was kidnapped and killed in 2001.

She has been struggling to get her daughter’s case investigated and prosecuted, but there is very little progress in the case. Amnesty International wrote her case up in detail, and our delegates got to hear from her first hand, which was a moving, inspiring, and chilling experience.

Rosa Franco’s 15-year old daughter disappeared and is pictured in this watercolor, which Mom showed us with pride.

Cops were on the move outside our hotel because of the potential for conflict during a demonstration against a proposed cement plant in San Juan Sacatepequez, a small town about an hour from the capital.

One of our clients lives near the capital, in a house where things are done the old fashioned way. Shown here is the “stove”; wood fired…

and here is the garbage disposal. The indigenous people of Guatemala know what sustainable living is, and practice it as a matter of course. Sadly, life in the country is not safe, and this family lost a teenage daughter to the society’s pervasive violence.

Schooled by the lady of the house, our delegates practiced making tortillas.

Our final meeting of the day was with Jorge Alvarado, whose 19 year old daughter Claudina was killed four years ago. Jorge

creates a very vivid picture of his beautiful, popular, intelligent daughter who planned to become an attorney. As a way of getting out of their duty of investigating the crime, the police said “she had a belly button ring, so she was a slut”. Blaming the victim is the first response to crimes here in Guatemala. Jorge read us a story that his daughter might have written, and keeps the memory of his daughter alive by fighting against the impunity that pervades this beautiful country.

A special delegation was requested by Soka University professor Sarah England for January 2009. Soka University is sponsoring “learning clusters” for students, giving a dozen students the opportunity to travel abroad during the brief session between Fall and Spring Semesters.

The delegation arrived early Saturday morning, and after breakfast and exchanging a few dollar for Quetzales (at the improved rate of Q7.70/$) we went to Antigua for some sightseeing.

We were in Guatemala to learn about femicide and the people that work to end it, but winding down after an overnight flight in beautiful Antigua, plus doing a little souvenir shopping, was well recieved.

Sunday happened to be the birthday of one of our scholarship students, so we took her for a birthday celebration to Nais, reportedly the largest aquarium in Guatemala.

This was a really unusual establishment: you pay to get in, and it is basically a restaurant. We had drinks and dessert, and celebrated the birthday girl’s special day.

The aquarium was pretty cool, with sharks and angel fish and many of the species that are familiar to divers of Caribbean waters.

What I found strange was the ubiquitous advertising! Sure, corporate sponsorship is needed to fund the labor- and technology-intensive task of keeping the aquarium viable, but is it necessary to put the ads in the tank??

Monday was REALLY full: we saw Claudia from Fundacion Sobrevivientes, Norma Cruz spoke to us briefly, we visited Cafe Artesana and heard from Sandra Moran, then ended the day learning from CICIG’s Claudia Samayoa. The delegation got their school’s moneys worth that day!!

Norma Cruz on Sobrevivientes (Survivors)

Sandra Moran co-founded this restaurant to make a place where artists could gather and eat healthy food.

Claudia Samayoa gives the big picture of the recent history of Guatemala like nobody else!