History

I am off to Antigua tomorrow for a day. This is a beautiful city with old Spanish architecture. Much of it was destryed in an earthquake a couple hundred years ago (1773). It was then that the capitol was moved to Guatemala City. The cityis still rich in architecture and the ruins of the ancient architecture only had to the cities charm.

On a side note please excuse some typos, I am using a Spanish keyboard right now and am still getting used to it.

Earlier today we visited a center for Anthropology. This foundation the FAFG is exhuming the bodies of victims of war crimes during the wars that lasted many years and officially ended in 1996 with the signing of peace accords. The worst parts of the war were the early eighties and late seventies were well over 200,000 people were murdered. This foundation is finding the victims, exhuming the bodies to study cause of death and to provide a humane burial to bring peace to the families of the victims. Much of the findings will hopefully be used in court to bring justice to the atrocities as well as healing to the Guatemalan people. The foundation has found and studied at least 5000 bodies but have very far to go. We saw some of the bones of some of the people who had been brutally murdered. Men, Women and even children were there. The evidence of the brutality was evident from broken bones and metal fragments embedded in the bones. Needless to say it was difficult to take in. The politics that led to such brutality is complicated and unfortuanantly our own country is involved in at least indirectly in some of this.

This is part of the sad History of Guatemala, but understanding it is crucial to understanding the culture and people and eventually healing of such wounds. Pray that they may be healed.