With increasingly scarce rains, Guatemalans learn to use every drop

In the village of San Pablo Las Delicias, in the north of GuatemalaMaría Baten cries for the lack of rain. “I don’t have water, I don’t have anything”says this mother of five children in the Mayan language, while wiping away tears.

The drought threatens a food crisis in this area of ​​Guatemala where the indigenous people learn to make the most of the scarce rains, conserving the humidity of the land where they mainly grow corn and beans.

“I envy the people who have water, I really envy those people (…) What suffering!”Baten, 36, tells AFP.

International organizations consider that Guatemala is one of the 10 countries in the world most vulnerable to climate change, the effects of which push tens of thousands of people to migrate to the United States each year.

Nestled between mountains, the department of Quiché is inhabited mostly by indigenous Mayans who live in poverty.

The NGO Save the Children, present in the area through multiple aid programs, assures that 3.5 of the almost 18 million inhabitants of Guatemala are under threat of “an unprecedented food crisis” due to the lack of rain associated with climate change and the El Niño phenomenon.

The organization trains villagers in techniques to conserve soil moisture, such as digging ditches to filter water on slopes, and building barriers to prevent landslides.

The techniques “They allow soil conservation, achieving better irrigation” and they teach communities to “take care of their crops,” explains Alejandra Flores, interim director of Save the Children in Guatemala.

The rainy season ran from May to October in Guatemala, but with the presence of El Niño in much of Central America, rainfall is now “quite irregular and deficient in some places”says meteorologist César George.

“Gift of the Lord”

Villagers are also trained to produce fertilizer from herbs and a natural insecticide from chilies and garlic.

Three out of five Guatemalans live in poverty, but the rate increases to four out of five in indigenous towns, where rains are vital for agricultural production and food.

Dressed in a colorful dress, Raymunda Itzol, from the community of Xecanap, removes weeds from her small bean field. “There is no water here,” only the rains “what the Lord gives us”, indicates.

Sitting on a bench, Francisco Carrillo, 87, peels ears of corn in his rustic home in the same village. “There was no rain and it didn’t turn out well” the harvest, he says while separating the edible ears from the rest. He will have to discard half.

“Children get sick”

In rural areas of Quiché, indigenous families live in precarious adobe houses, with tile or zinc sheet roofs and without drinking water.

For years they have collected rainwater, streams or that which accumulates in wells dug in the ground.

Sometimes water is contaminated by animals and by drinking it “children get sick” says Tomasa Ixcotoyac, 40, as he draws cloudy water from a well with a bucket.

The NGO also teaches villagers to purify water to avoid diseases.

With plastic bottles on a table, the trainers show the steps to pour the chlorine drops and on a stove they teach that the bubbling indicates that the water has boiled and is drinkable.

Thousands of families also receive monetary help from the NGO – about $80 a month for several months of the year – to buy food.

To confront the drought, the Guatemalan government and the United Nations Food and Agriculture agency (FAO) are implementing a $66.7 million plan to improve water collection systems.

The project aims to ensure the livelihood of 19,000 families in the Dry Corridor, an arid strip of northern Guatemala that also includes parts of Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua and that is vulnerable to extreme climate events.

The World Food Program (WFP) in turn promotes the harvest of vegetables in the area such as carrots, radishes, tomatoes and herbs that do not require much irrigation and reproduce in shorter periods. They also deliver fortified corn and bean seeds, explained the deputy director of the entity in Guatemala, Hebert López.

“Fear of the rain”

Although the drought hits vast areas of Quiché, there are other areas of the region that are affected by storms that destroy houses and crops, the virulence of which is also linked to climate change.

“When it rains it scares us”says Ilsia López in the Sajubal village, a Mayan area affected by hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020, outside the Dry Corridor.

Bordered by cliffs and pine forests, it rains more here due to the high peaks. A recent bean harvest “it rotted” due to excess moisture in the soil, says López, 31, showing the dry pods.

Central America and the Caribbean “It is the region that suffers the most from the onslaught of climate change” although “generates a tiny percentage of greenhouse gases”President Alejandro Giammattei said last week at the UN General Assembly. “We are the ones who suffer the most damage year after year.”

Source: AFP