Raising Money for People Devastated by Quarantine in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala

This past weekend, what started off as an opportunity to alleviate ourselves from the oppressiveness of the quarantine, see friends near and far, and have some drinks to a wacky time, turned into a small fundraising opportunity. With the help of our generous friends, we managed to raise $295 to send to Guatemala. Why Guatemala, and how?

Trevor and I had the opportunity (as is well-documented in our too-detailed instagram) to travel for a year through Latin America in 2019. We got to spend one of those months in the area of Lago de Atitlán, Guatemala. It was a surreal experience in every way possible. Atitlán is the deepest lake in Central America of azure blue, surrounded by three volcanoes and nine villages of mayan populations, some of which are only accessible by boat. Boats in fact, are the main form of transportation in this area. Each of the villages has its own character and flair, and you can spend countless days traveling to each one and seeing new sights.

This area has become a popular place for ex-pats in the last few decades, and has drawn a lot of tourism to the area. The people here are generous, small-town folk who take pride in taking care of each other, and keeping the area safe for everyone. And they love their lake and consider it sacred. As did, interestingly enough, Aldous Huxley and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who wrote The Little Prince and used the Atitlán volcanoes as inspiration for the Little Prince's volcanoes.

Last year, we stayed in the village of San Pedro in a cute little house (built by Clemente, our amazing host) up on a hill where we had the most amazing views of the lake. Any time we wanted groceries, we had to go to the markets in main town by walking by the lakeside on the sand and taking the small 10-minute path into town. It was dreamy. The Pedranos were incredibly nice and by the end of that month, we had so many familiar faces to say hi to on walks through town. Small town life, ya know?

Anywho, the quarantine. The sad thing about this situation for the people of Atitlán is that they depend heavily on tourism to keep afloat. These are humble, simple-living villages, often subsisting on what they grow in the area, and tourists for income. With the closure of the borders, tourism has been really affected. And this past week would have been the biggest year for tourism, semana santa, a week in which the whole country is swept up in religious festivals that take up all the streets. This video shows a bit of what this week is like in Guatemala, but it is mystical, beautiful and really hard to put into words. Because of the quarantine, they lost their biggest income-generating week of the year. It's a tough reality.

I got in contact with a young American female entrepreneur who lives in the area of Atitlán and asked if she would be willing to help me get money to the local people for donations. She runs her own business empowering mayan people to sell their crafts, and her work over seven years in Guatemala is awe-inspiring.

And she graciously agreed to help. So we'll be sending her a Venmo for her to buy food and donate to the local firemen, who are in charge of gathering food, putting it in packages, and distributing to families.

And that's where this money is going. Many people in this area live purely off what they can sell each day, oftentimes simple things like mangos, bread, tortillas, handicrafts. Whatever they can find to make a couple of dollars for the day to feed their family. With everyone under quarantine, this turns an already-desperate-situation into one of likely starvation. While we here in the U.S. are a little bored, yes, and also feeling our own kind of anxiety about this pandemic, we are incredibly lucky that a lot of us won't have to worry about making a meager $5 in earnings for the day to buy some food.

From the Catholic Sentinel

Thanks to our Chicken Shit Bingo efforts, and some gracious friends, we raised $295, which while not a whole whole lot, is $295 worth of food going to Guatemalan families. And that's a happy thing to know during these difficult times. And we feel returning some of the generosity the people of this area showed to us when we were there is the least we can do.

Special thanks to Mike, Irina, Zita and Randy, Nicole and Eric who all contributed individually beyond buying bingo spots. You guys are wonderful.