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		Happenings By Sue Ellen Kingsley and Hale Sargent November 12, 2003 Text and photos © 2003 Sue Ellen Kingsley.  Reprinted with permission from the Copper Country Guatemala Accompaniment Project (CCGAP) Newsletter, October 2003, Number 27.* Photo: Sue Ellen Kingsley and young Fronterizo friend.

Guatemala accompaniers to speak Nov. 16

HANCOCK -- The Copper Country Guatemala Accompaniment Project (CCGAP) will sponsor a potluck and program on Sunday, Nov. 16, at the First United Methodist Church in Hancock.

Hale Sargent, CCGAP's most recent accompanier, will share his experiences in Fronterizo, Guatemala, where he recently completed a six-month term as a human rights observer, sharing in the life of the village. Joining Sargent for the event will be the group's next accompanier, Vernon Chow, who will be serving a year term in Guatemala as a protective presence for the families of witnesses in a landmark genocide trial.

The public is invited to attend the event, which includes a potluck dinner at 5:30 p.m., followed by the program  at 6:30 p.m.

The following is Hale Sargent's final letter from Fronterizo, as published in the October 2003 CCGAP Newsletter:

Celebrating Connections

By Hale Sargent

Men on horseback racing to yank the head off a live duck: strange ceremony. Effigies of the devil going up in flames to welcome the start of the Christmas season: strange, interesting ceremony. Life-size dummies carried door-to-door on Good Friday by kids demanding bread and candy: cute ceremony, still sort of strange. I've seen some unique celebrations in Guatemala, so I was ready for anything as my village geared up to mark its eighth anniversary.

Accompanier Hale Sargent poses for a photo with an admirer in Fronterizo. (Photo © 2003 Sue Ellen Kingsley. Reprinted with permission.)

May 10th is, of course, a big deal when you live in a place called Fronterizo 10 de Mayo. The village was named for the date of its founding in 1995 by families of resettling refugees. Eight years later, with dark memories of war, flight and exile slowly fading under happier memories of babies, harvests and community, the village decided to throw a weekend-long celebration. 

The newly crowned Queen of the Fair threw the party open with a call to "celebrate the eighth anniversary of this beautiful place where you hear the singing of the birds and the roaring of the tigers." I think the line about the tigers was added for dramatic flair, unless I just haven’t heard them over the past six months. But there was roaring of a sort, during the commemorative soccer tournament. Eight teams had come from neighboring communities to vie for a $100 prize. The home team finished a respectable second to the cheers of kids perched on tree branches above the field.

And then the music started.

Beauty queens and soccer tournaments are nice, but the real business at village celebrations is the dancing. A live band came down the river from Mexico in canoes stuffed with equipment and electric generators. They set up on a makeshift stage in the center of town. Once night fell, boys from all around the region lined up in their nicest cowboy hats and bluejeans. Girls strolled arm-in-arm admiring the decorations strung under an open sky. And only after the band played to an empty dance floor for about an hour did the ritual start.

First the married couples ventured out, kicking up the dirt to their favorite Mexican love songs. Then the boys took their cue and rushed the girls, dancing away one of their few chances a year to mix, flirt, and scout out a future partner. Messages were sent back and forth through dedications read by the band. One apparently-spurned young man wrote, "I request 'The Traitor' and dedicate it to all the girls of Fronterizo." His night’s failures aside, Fronterizo’s anniversary party was one of the nicest ceremonies I’ve witnessed in Guatemala -- people using sports, music and dancing to connect with their past and connect with each other.

Connections. We all feel them, whether they’re to a land we were forced to flee, a song we request for a loved one, the singing of the birds, or the roaring of the tigers. Strengthening connections has been the goal of our accompaniment project in Guatemala. Your and my connection to the people of Fronterizo gives them an extra layer of security in a dangerous, unpredictable country.

And we benefit from the connection as well. Who impoverishes the rural farmers when free trade agreements allow cheaper American products to flood local markets? Who is at the muzzle-end of military aid given to corrupt regimes? Who could we be helping by purchasing fair-trade products that guarantee a just salary for the producers? Now through our links with the people of Guatemala we have human faces to apply to such complex global issues. We have motivation to hold our elected officials -- AND OURSELVES -- accountable for decisions that reverberate in far-off places.

And the connection means we, too, can celebrate when the dancing continues for years to come.

A popular song I've been taught in Fronterizo goes, "Today I find myself very, very far/ From the land where I was born/ From my parents and my siblings/ And the neighborhood that watched me grow up/ The nostalgia shatters my soul/ And I'd like to return to see them."

The song is about an immigrant in the U.S. thinking of home, but it obviously works both ways. I've been humming it a lot as I get ready to pack up and come home in two weeks.

Once again, thank you all for the interest you've taken in the safety of the people of Guatemala. Unfortunately, in my time here I was unable to report that Guatemala's barriers to justice have crumbled; I can't tell you that threats against human rights defenders are on the decline; we didn't see power structures reformed as promised in the 1996 Peace Accords.

So the need for non-violent international pressure on the leaders of Guatemala has not diminished.

*To receive the CCGAP Newsletter and read more about Fronterizo and the Copper Country Guatemala Accompaniment Project, email Sue Ellen Kingsley at sekingsley@pasty.com. 

Editor's Note: Hancock resident Sue Ellen Kingsley established the Copper Country Guatemala Accompaniment Project (CCGAP) after serving as an accompanier herself in Fronterizo in 1997. CCGAP is committed to maintaining a long-term relationship with the Guatemalan village of Fronterizo 10 de Mayo, a community established May 10, 1995, by a group of refugees who returned to Guatemala after 12-15 years in refugee camps in Mexico. CCGAP recruits and financially supports accompaniers to live in Fronterizo as human rights observers in accordance with the agreements signed by the Guatemalan government in 1992. CCGAP attempts to strengthen ties between Fronterizo and the Copper Country by developing individual relationships and giving financial support to small projects planned by the Guatemalan community.** CCGAP offers educational talks on Guatemala to groups in the Copper Country and offers the opportunity for involvement in this community-to-community relationship with the Mayan indigenous people of Guatemala. **Read Sue Ellen Kingsley's May 15, 2003, article, "Water Pots come to Fronterizo." In November 2001, a family from Fronterizo visited the Copper Country. See "Guatemalan visitors offer Copper Country cultural exchange."

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