Then Julie arrived

 Julie became a tourist after she didn't reach Riddu (that's Tromsø in the background)

 So we took the cable car up the mountain (because we were lazy and tired) and down again

 Then had dinner with the media girls, here Ida and Cathrine

 Here, me with slightly tired and bloodshot eyes

And Julie is happy about the midnight sun again (this is about 00:15)

We also went to a midnight concert in the Arctic Cathedral (which is not a cathedral but oh well), Julie came to visit me at work and bought books and a hat in the second hand shop, she claims to have visited several museums while I was working, and we had some good meals with my family as well. We went out to Verdensteatret and Blårock, saw the midnight sun and the midnight clouds (when the sun was missing), and I believe a good time was had by all.

Here, people, visit me. Look, it's pretty, and we have nature and stuff.

Bosawas/Musawas

And then, more about this place I mentioned weeks ago.

One Sunday in May, after the longest bus ride in history, one night of sleeping in a parking lot, one night of sleeping three in one bed, and plenty of long meetings, we walked three hours into the woods and up the mountains in this beautiful natural reserve of Bosawás, to the village of Musawas, where the indigenous Mayangna live. We were supposed to have a meeting with the village, or with one board, or with another, and we spent two hours listening to them discussing in Mayangna about whether we were allowed to have a meeting, and with whom, and why we were even there.

They said they are now sceptical of people coming from outside to "help", because they have several experiences with those who come, appropriate their culture, and run back home to earn money off what they've learnt.

We ended up taking the meeting outside, because apparently our previous agreement wasn't official enough to have a village meeting in the village hall. We split into two groups: one sat around members from the Territorial government, the other around those from the local council (unless I am confusing all these councils again). I was with the territorial government.

Both groups could tell us that yes, they had problems. Mestizoes from the west and south were moving into the reserve, cutting down far too much wood, working for profit rather than survival, and not respecting that it was a reserve, that the indigenous people had the right to use the forest as they had traditionally, but noone else should come and ruin nature. The territorial government people were quick to point out though, that they had done something to prevent it. That the state was completely on their side, all they needed was a little time and these migrants would be kicked out. No problems here. - "But we heard there was an assassination of the past president for the territorial government?" - "NO. Accident. Accident, it was."

Certainly. The people in the other group said clearly that the former president had been killed. Two very different versions. They were also clear about the fact that they do actually have problems, people are still cutting down rain forest, and it's not going to go away just like that. I'm sadly going to believe the most pessimistic view of this last group, which some of the girls got to hear while the rest of us were sat discussing problems with people who claimed not to have any.

Back to our communities

Photo: me
 Johanne and I stayed in Rocky Point, which you've probably heard enough about by now. In short, it is a mostly black creole farmer community, close to Pearl Lagoon, where people live on separate farms. We've learnt how to make coconut oil, and how to eat anything made with coconut and coconut oil.

Photo: Line Bellingmo Johnsrud
 Ingrid and Line stayed in Orinoco, a Garifuna community which lives mainly off fishing. They've learned to dance, drum, make rondon and eat pretty much anything.

Photo: Mathilde Gabrielsen Vikene
 Mathilde, Julie and Nadia have stayed with a school at Wawashang, meeting students from all the different communities and ethnic groups, having classes in Spanish and Geography. They've also stayed at the nature reserve of Kaka Creek, and with a mestizo family on a farm in the area.

Photo: Elise Øksendal
Gro Malene and Elise have stayed in Kakabila, a Miskito community where people live off fishing and farming. They've stayed with many different families, worked with houses, in the woods, and are now going to paint a mural with the children there.

Everyone is going back to their previous communities in the same groups as before. We would have been able to change places - and partners- if we'd wanted, but noone seems to want to. After spending one month getting to know people, getting into a culture and their practices, you don't want to start all over again. All the villages here are distinct from one another, and most of what we hear from one another is different.

Good harvest/good corn

 That's what Chabil Utzaj means - a sugar refinery/company in Alta Verapaz, near Panzós

 Looking very attractive from the road

With some black smoke enhancing the pretty view

The sugar cane plantations have taken over a lot of the areas we visited. Even while in the meeting, talking to people about the problems, there were trucks driving past, loaded with sugar cane. Later on, we drove past the ill-smelling, black-smoking factory. The sugar cane is a very obvious, very visible example as you drive through the countryside, but there are other, as bad or worse, companies in the area. The problem is the richness of the country in terms of natural resources, good earth, many rivers, petroleum and metal. Rivers can be dammed, earth used for African palm trees – which makes it unusable for anything else, and hills can be delved into for precious and/or other metals. The companies seem to take no responsibility whatsoever, whether about the environment, the people, or just following the actual contracts they have signed. Because of all this, rivers are drying out or getting contaminated. We have corn only growing to half its original size, and crops failing. We have children and adults getting gastritis, cancer, and unexplained illnesses and rashes.  

What is the solution? Meetings, meetings and more meetings. First the population needs to be aware of their rights. Second they need to be able to arrange meetings with the local authorities, with the local people, to have a dialogue about all this. Thirdly, the meetings need to be taken seriously, which they rarely are. Many of the people we have met have experienced that the authorities just walk straight over them, after having all these meetings and making agreements that will at least benefit the locals slightly more than the alternative. We also met a representative from charity church organisation Caritas, who had worked with these issues many years. And as she said, you can work for years without seeing any progress at all. You just need to keep on, informing people, going to meetings, and hoping that at some point it will work.

We have also met a few who have managed the impossible, and changed the outcome, and saved some of their own environment – but I can't even remember who, or when, or where, because we've met so many who have said the opposite.

This is also directly tied up with the film I posted the other day: Evictions in the Polochic Valley. This is in the Polochic Valley. The owners of the company are the Germans in the film.

Want to read two completely different views on this? My view is, as you can tell, much closer to the people's one, because that's what I've seen and heard as well. I also generally believe more in people's stories than those of employees in a for-profit company.

The company's view

The people's view

Alta Verapaz/Polochic Valley

 We went to the Alta Verapaz from Thursday to Saturday, with one village meeting on Friday

 Where we met many people from different villages

 And heard many stories about the war, and the evictions that are still going on

Like this man and his community, who were facing eviction only a few days after the meeting

Alta Verapaz, in the north of the Polochic Valley, was one of the municipalities in Guatemala that was greatly affected during the war, and is still being affected. Now, there are a lot of companies coming in with massive projects, be it sugar cane and sugar production, palm oil, petroleum, hydro power stations, or just mining, and taking over people's land. Funnily enough, some plans for hydro power stations have been leaked, and they were signed in the late 70s – just about the time the military started barging into the areas. The mostly indigenous population of the area were accused of being guerrilla soldiers or supporters, and then got rid of through an unimaginable amount of massacres.

There has also been released information about this strategy in the neighbouring municipality of Quiché, called Plan Sofia.

When people understood that the military presence wasn't there to protect them, but rather to get rid of them at any excuse they could find, they were more prepared. When they saw militaries advancing towards their village, they would run up into the mountains with everything they owned, while the army burned down the village and beat, raped, and/or killed anyone they could find.

People would stay in the mountain, meet up with each other, try to live off what they could find, while they watched their children die from malnutrition, or their parents from wounds.

This is one of the most common stories we've heard while in Guatemala. And again, it's incredibly sad when this becomes the normalcy. Everyone has a story about their family members getting lost or killed or just plain disappearing.

Now, after the peace accords were written in 1996, you would think at least some things had changed for the better. And all right, there is less of an open war. It is more quiet now, less massacres, more subtlety. But the large companies are buying or leasing land that has belonged to generations of indigenous people. Not necessarily from the people themselves, rather from their rich landowners, who use this opportunity to throw people out of their homes – or evict them, whichever you prefer. These people haven't had papers on their land before, because they have always lived on their own land. In addition to that, we have the waste from the factories, polluting and contaminating the water and the earth – and finally the people.

The state is on the side of the companies – companies that bring a lot of money into the pockets of the higher classes. The local authorities are soon on the side of the companies – they don't get paid very well to begin with, so why not accept a little side income?

We even met some people from a community that is going to be evicted (last photo) – they might actually have been evicted already, the past few days. They wanted us to sign a paper to complain to the local government – saying that we and some of the other organisations in the meeting supported them and their cause. And we couldn't. Partly because it's not how our organisation works, partly because if we did, the Guatemalan state wouldn't let our organisation work more in their country – a country LAG is very far into with different projects. It was very difficult, being there, meeting all these people, and suddenly realising that we have very different ideas about what we are doing.

What are we, after all, doing here? Just listening to different people at different meetings, different organisations, trying to remember who said what and not really doing anything to help them in the moment. The most important thing must be to get the information out to people, I guess.