Saturday, August 16, 2008

The returned refugees of La Quetzal, 10 years later


Guatemala has been in a civil war for 36 years. In the bloody conflict over 200.000 people fled to refugee camps in Chiapas. When the peace agreements were signed most of the refugees slowly came back to their home-land.

They settled together in little refugee villages deep in the Peten jungle. The first of these villages that was build is La Quetzal. They started out with nothing.. We visited them exactly ten years later to see how they are living now.




El camino hacia el futuro mejor

Early in the morning. The children are on their way to school. A new school is now being build outside of the village.



´Macheteando´

Pascal and his father are cleaning their lands to prepare for a new season of growing maize.



Centrado

Three sisters walk back from the river, carefully balancing a heavy water jar on their heads.





El puente al juego

Straight after school the kids run down to the river. As their moms wash the clothes they spend most of their afternoon playing in the water.



La Milpa

This girl comes back from the cornfields. She uses the two sticks to make holes in the ground to sow new corn.



El Rio de Oro

The happy woman is balancing a jar of water she got from the river near the village.


Griton

A girl from the village of La Quetzal is trying to comfort her baby brother who is crying his lungs out.



La honda


Kids are playing with a slingshot next to the river. La Quetzal is a village located in the middle of the dense jungle and life is abundant here...



Pura vida

None of the kids wear shoes in La Quetzal.



Abrasso



Sombras del pasado

The boy enjoys the morning sun as he walks past the building of the cooperative...



Mayan sombrero

Boy uses a plastic bowl as a hat to escape from the strong sun

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