‘Guatemala trip like being in a time machine’

“I felt as though I had stepped into a time machine and gone back 100 years.” That's what former Minneota student Sofia Rabaey expressed about a recent mission trip she embarked on to San Lucas Toliman in Guatemala.

The San Lucas Toliman Mission has a long history of support from the Catholic Diocese of New Ulm. Sofia’s parents, Fred and Margit Rabaey, have been on several missions together and even met while in the Peace Corps in Guatemala.

“That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to go there; because my parents met there,” said Rabaey, a recent graduate of the University of Mary in Bismarck, ND. “I spent about five weeks as a volunteer at the San Lucas Mission.”

“I learned so much from this experience and grew in simplicity and appreciation for everything I have been given.”

Rabaey was both surprised and impressed at the relentless work ethic of the Guatemalan women.

“They cook over hot wood fires on dirt floors inside their little tin shacks,” Rabaey explained.

“This made their house hot and smoky; and that often causes respiratory problems, especially with the older women and children.”

“In addition to cooking, cleaning and tending to the children, the women would spend hours washing clothes.”

“They would walk to the public pilas (wash tubs) with big round baskets of laundry balanced on their heads while some also carried an infant on their back.”

There is a standard fee for use of the wash tubs, although many families can’t afford to use them in this poverty-stricken region.

“Those women would go into the lake and wash their clothes on large rocks a few yards off shore,” Rabaey said.

“Each basket of laundry would take two to three hours to wash.”

And those women with a large family need to wash laundry every other day, including hand-washing an infant’s cloth diapers. To get a better perspective of what these hard-working women are going through, Rabaey attempted to wash her own clothes on a washboard.

“My clothes were quite dirty from my days doing manual labor at the dusty construction sites, my hikes up to the nearby volcanoes and swimming in Lake Atitlan,” she said.

“After more than an hour scrubbing my clothes in cold water on the washboard, lathering them up with soap, rinsing them, and scrubbing again, I finally gave up and just accepted that my socks would remain a dingy gray and the stain on my shirt would never really go away."

“My respect for the Guatemalan women grew as I began to notice how their clothing was always clean and neat, and their whites were white.”

While there are various stages of poverty is in all countries, Rabaey was astounded at how some families of Guatemala are able to cope with so little money or food despite working so hard.

“The (Guatemalan) men would go off into the nearby mountains to collect the firewood that they would carry home on their backs,” she said.

“I would see men and boys staggering into town under towering stacks of woods. Their legs would be shaking from exhaustion as they completed their several mile-long trek down the mountain.”

Men of Guatemala also often work in their corn fields or tend to coffee trees. “A man is lucky if he owns a small plot of land,” Rabaey said.

“Most Guatemalans rent their fields; further reducing their small income.”

One particular heart-wrenching story of hardship has stayed with Rabaey weeks after she returned to her farm outside Taunton.

“A young woman came into the health clinic staffed by American doctors and nurses in San Lucas on a week long outreach program,” said Rabaey.

“She initially wanted her small son to be checked over by the nurse.”

“The nurse diagnosed the child as malnourished and prescribed some children’s vitamins because there were no other resources available.”

The woman told the nurse that she had five children under age 10, that her husband was an alcoholic who had left her and the children, and that she was struggling to make enough money washing clothes for others or selling cloth weavings to feed her family.

“When asked about her food, the woman admitted that most meals consisted of one or two tortillas with salt,” said Rabaey. “The mother would often go without a tortilla in order to feed her children. But even the children sometimes had to go without food.”

The mission hospital is funded by American donors. American surgeons work there for free. The woman was able to have surgery for pain that was preventing her from washing clothes. She was then put in touch with the Unbound Program in which Guatemalan children are given assistance with food and education through U.S. sponsors.

Rabaey also spent her time in San Lucas working at construction projects sponsored by the mission. “A big project was to prepare the ground to build a new addition to the mission school,” she noted.

“Everything in Guatemala is done by hand. We had to shovel dirt into five-gallon pails to be hauled out of the way.” “Any rocks we found had to be moved to a separate pile.

A truck would drop bags of powdered cement in the street and we would haul them into the schoolyard and mix the cement on the ground with water and stone. The labor was led by a team of Guatemalan construction workers.” Rabaey was able to attend Mass in a beautiful white colonial mission church. But

because she was on a tight budget and not earning money during her mission trip, Rabaey was unable to contribute to the offering.

“Yet, I would sit and watch as the poor people would always give something,” she admitted. “Often, every member of the family would donate to those less fortunate. Yet, it is hard for me to imagine anyone less fortunate than these Guatemalans.”

And by watching someone with little money give in order to help others made Rabaey feel guilty at her living style back home. “I thought of my own expensive habits like my frequent trips to the ice cream parlor or to the coffee shop,” she said.

“I am ashamed at how these unnecessary indulgences are worked into my budget without a second thought; whereas giving my money to a worthwhile cause of bettering the lives of the Guatemalans was so hard.”

It’s understandable, though, as it’s a lifestyle we’ve grown accustomed to here in the United States, much like the Guatemalans have grown accustomed to living with few amenities.

But by volunteering to a mission trip to help others less fortunate is nothing to be ashamed of. When Rabaey returned home in late April, she heard that the volcano Fuego, which was softly rumbling during her time there, had erupted on June 4.

“San Lucas is about 26 miles away from Fuego and safe from the destructive lava,” she said. “Unfortunately, though, there were several towns which were not so lucky and entire villages were completely destroyed.” “Over 100 people were killed and another 200 are still missing. There is no insurance and most families do not have the means to replace what the volcano took from them.” A group of Minnesota-based benefactors have been collaborating on relief efforts since the Fuego eruption in order to collect and donate food, clothing, medicine, and other items requested by relief agencies. Donations can be made by visiting “Friends of San Lucas” online and click on the donation tab. Be sure to include “Volcano Relief” under the donation information description.