This is really amazing work.

For those of you who read about the genocide and want to understand more of the background, I highly recommend "The Art of Political Murder." It starts in 1998, when a Catholic Bishop was found bludgeoned to death in his own garage two days after publishing the report that detailed the Guatemalan army's role in the genocide. It covers a lot of the political and racial history, the efforts of the army to cover up the genocide, and the ensuing trial. http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Political-Murder-Killed/dp/080...

This is still very relevant today since the dictator from the 1980's, Rios Montt, was recently on trial for human rights abuses, and his daughter just announced that she is running for president: http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Guatemalan-Ex-Dictator...

EDIT: another good book is Popular Injustice, which is about what happens when a whole part of society loses faith in the criminal justice system and starts resorting to lynchings: http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=10027

(Disclosure: I took Professor Godoy's classes in college and traveled to Guatemala in a study-abroad that she organized: http://faculty.washington.edu/agodoy/Guatemala%20study%20abr...)

Is there any reason to think Zuri is particularly worse than the other mediocre candidates Guatemala fields every election? Well apart from being affiliated with a Christian political group, which are usually pretty clued out (not judging religious groups overall, just saying the ones in Guatemala are pretty moronic - a funny point, they hate Catholics so much, they tend to downplay anything Catholics do, including Easter... which IIRC, is sort of a cornerstone of the faith.)

More concerning was that Rios Montt was nearly re-elected no so long ago. What was surprising was that they didn't pull any stunts, despite having bussed in lots of people to downtown to protest. I had an indigenous maid once and she fully supported him because she recalled that when Rios Montt ran things, the place was safe. Probably because the police could just carry out summary justice. Good, I suppose, if you're an old lady not wanting to get mugged, but not so great if someone falsely accuses you.

It feels very unlikely that Guatemala will pull itself together without a strong outside force. The current president's motions about legalizing drugs would be a good step, but is probably just posturing to get more USAID or whatnot. Foreign forces probably do more harm than good, as they love to give money or material, which gets quickly misused. Guatemala would be far better off having e.g. foreign police officers than getting 2000 new pickups for the current police.

This is a bit off-topic, but I'm not happy about the simplistic and demagogic message of throwing a line separating indians and spanish and just stating that "The fighting started 500 years ago" and that "the arrival of Spanish colonists marked the beginning of a dark history". Oh really? Before Columbus they were all happy people in Eden? And all rulers have been oppresor spaniards for the last 500 years?

These are poor people, and there's not one only factor that keeps them poor. The reason for inequality is not based only on racism. It is not a clash of races. It's a little more subtle.

And further: it does not matter! You don't need to make this kind of points to raise awareness. Focusing on specific people, as they do immediately afterwards, is much more effective.

That said: this is great!

I mean that is pretty much what happened. of course the tribes fought against each other and everything wasn't amazing, but the arrival of the europeans absolutely destroyed the native peoples of the americas. that can't be in question. Disease and forced labor took a serious toll on the native populations, not to mention the loss of land. If you are interested in a first hand account of these atrocities I recommend reading Bartolome de las Casas (he was a near contemporary of Columbus and has secondhand accounts of 1492, plus his 1st hand accounts of the new world from the early 16th century).

Is it overly simplistic to say those atrocities directly lead to where Guatemala is today? of course, but discounting those factors is also a disservice.

Parachute journalism.

I'm happy to be donating to Watsi, but I think this post? press release? is a bit frustrating. Showing us lots of happy Guatemalans is really a distraction from the basic message. It's a little like advertising which doesn't show the product being sold (I suppose you could argue that the people are the 'product' for Watsi). But maybe I'm unusually resistant to aspirational marketing...

Thank you for offering your perspective, and it's awesome of you that you're donating to patients. I actually found the article refreshing and hope-inspiring. I think there's a considerable amount of variation between each person's interpretation of the 'basic message'. IMO the basic message of this work in particular is that organizations like Watsi and Wuqu’ Kawoq are bringing healthcare to natives in Guatemala who need it but have been restricted from it. The new hope Watsi and its partners provide in areas like this is shown through the happiness of those in the photographs.

Also, I hadn't known specific details about the troubles natives were suffering in Guatemala. This article gave me some clear events and dates to start researching to learn more. So I'm glad I was able to read it.

Not everything has to fit into a framework of product / consumer.

The point is for Watsi to show the need they are filling. Even in places where we might think healthcare is universal, people end up not being covered due to various social / cultural issues.

Completely OT from this beautiful piece, but this is my first time noticing a web site using images with a "click to see smaller version" feature.

I've been in Guatemala off and on for over 17 years[0]. My parents came down later and started a free medical clinic.

Healthcare for "Indians" here is often terrible[1]. There's tons of discrimination, and "indian" is often used as an insult ("que indio!"). There's a feedback loop, because the people distrust hospitals and thus go less since "people die there".

It's further compounded by local villager beliefs. My mom has several stories of kids dying, literally because their parents insisted on having a priest do something first, delaying critical care by hours. Or not treating things and losing a leg or more because of a simple cut. Stuff that we might take as basic, obvious things, are simply not.

Oh, and medicine compliance is extra difficult when the patients can't read and have relatives telling the patient that medicine is an evil trick.

Even giving out birth control faces opposition. Apparently a lot of the men think if their wife doesn't get pregnant every so often, she must be seeing another man on the side. Often women desperately don't want to have more kids, but "must". (And mix in a high infant mortality rate, and sometimes women won't even name the child for a while after birth to avoid attachment. Pretty fucked up.)

I'm alternately amazed and repulsed regarding the people that work and try to fix this. It's an unending stream of fucked-up-ness. My parents' clinic sees 50-70 people a day (3 days a week), and that's just from 3 small villages. Sure, it's great that they save people and no doubt that's what motivates them. But I step back and look at the overall horror and the constant onslaught -- it seems so hopeless without real large scale efforts. (Which really, probably translate to having another country come in and run things.) I just don't know how people deal with this - I certainly cannot face it.

Finally, keep in mind that overall, Guatemala is a rather messed up country with too much violence and incompetence. Healthcare is just one aspect. When there's essentially zero police response, things tend to go downhill quickly. Anyone can get away with anything, so long they aren't stopped in the act. (Hence every place, down to McDonalds, has "guards" with shotguns.)

0: I visited when I was 15 and realised I could drink all I wanted without being carded and it was cheap, so I dropped out and moved down. Ended up staying a bit too long.

1: Well healthcare in Guatemala is pretty shitty overall, even if you're paying and trying to find decent doctors. Bad education or just straight-out fraud (insisting on unnecessary surgeries, for the money). Some things, if done in the US or proper countries, would be viewed as outright criminal, beyond negligence.

Totally OT, but is that a Tencent logo above the phone booth in one of the first few pics?

As in China's Tencent? All the way in Guatamala?

Coincidentally, Tencent is a founder donor of Watsi (https://watsi.org/about)