AVP among Friends in Guatemala

This is the first time that the Alternatives to Violence Program (AVP) has been offered to Quaker participants in Guatemala. My experience with AVP had been mostly in prisons, but in these workshops the participants were members of the evangelical Friends community. The curriculum is set up to be non-religious, though it has spiritual elements in the same way that the 12-step program does. The core of the program is to discover how to call on “transforming power” to shift and resolve conflicts. In these workshops where most of the participants are practicing Quakers and strong Christians, I wondered whether they would follow our lead to be inclusive in their language, or whether they would refer to their Christian values which are an enormous part of their lives. As it turned out, they generally seemed comfortable using non-religious language in the program. Some of them told us that they appreciated this more inclusive language and felt that it would be useful in non-Quaker groups that could use the AVP program: universities, workplaces, and police departments.

Despite our shared Quaker background, cultural differences between us and our Guatemalan host community were apparent. One of those differences came up around corporal punishment of children. Most of the Guatemalans believe in spanking their children. So for me, the question arose: should I label spanking as violent, share my own viewpoint gently, or leave this unchallenged? My sense of integrity generally called for me to speak out my own viewpoint that physical punishment of kids is rooted in violence and is not helpful to building peaceful families. But when we visited a pastor, his wife showed us how she threatens to hit her three-year-old with a wooden spoon. She asked the older brother to “go get the paddle”, and she proudly showed us how the little guy immediately changed his behavior. I did not tell her I disagreed with this policy. Was it because I was in her home, and she was about to serve us lunch? I don’t know. Perhaps it’s not useful to call out all of our disagreements. Maybe more was gained by noting all the ways in which we agree, despite our differences.

Minga and I stayed with some wonderful Friends. It was a gift to get to know them, to share their lives, and to learn about their belief systems. Guatemalan Friends have three yearly meetings, occasioned by some disagreements in policy that led to various splits. The Santidad yearly meeting split off from the Nacional with a strong concern to return to practices of the early Friends: separate worship for men and women was among the changes they chose. The third yearly meeting, Embajadores, is very small. All three groups are evangelical Christian in orientation. Their worship services are programmed with pastors offering the service, unlike the unprogrammed tradition in which both Minga and I worship. The women generally wear skirts to meeting, and jewelry and dancing are frowned upon. In their personal lives, the Quakers we met call on their faith frequently, and many of them prefer Christian radio stations and entertainment. Music is a huge part of their services and I rejoiced to hear the beautiful harmonies of a mother and daughter pair, as well as the clear soprano voice of Karen’s nephew, who has recorded a CD to sing of his love of Jesus.

We left Guatemala with the satisfaction of having given out 55 certificates of completion, each for a 20-hour workshop. Our hosts and organizers, Celeste Gomez and Karen Gregorio, devoted incredible efforts to bringing people together and making the workshops happen. The participants each gave a full weekend to the work with positive energy and commitment, setting aside their other obligations to be there, fully present. Participants committed to continue the work, to pass the training on in other groups. We talked about the program on TV, in meetings and churches, and to individuals, all of whom showed an interest in using the program to try to bring peace to their communities.

Guns and Alternatives to Violence

To our surprise, two police officers signed up for our Alternatives to Violence workshop in Guatemala. I had never seen anyone come to one of the workshops packing a pistol, but they were on duty. Whenever there was any noise in the neighborhood, they explored it for us. Most of the time they were there as participants. They knew only one other participant, who had invited them to attend. But they opened up and shared their feelings, and soon we were all one community.

After the workshop one day, they offered to take us to a local hot springs. So off we went in the patrol car. The officers were on duty, so they wore their uniforms and black shiny boots and kept their firearms and handcuffs at the ready. On the way back to town, there was a church service which we decided to attend. They attended also, as they were Quakers. We were all invited: the swimmers with our wet hair and sandals, and the police officers with their uniforms, black shiny boots, firearms and handcuffs at the ready.  We made for quite a group. No wonder the congregation was interested in hanging around the church long after their usual departure time!

In Honduras, a respite from teaching nonviolence workshops

Gracias a Dios is the name of a town in the Lempira region of Honduras, in the mountains. The Spanish conquistadores gave it that name, praising God that at last they had found a flat bit of ground to place a town. It is a pleasant town, one that many travelers have given thanks to have found. Its cobblestone streets, ice cream shops, and bookstores create a quaint atmosphere that is quite different from the rest of the region which is generally poor and rural. After spending some weeks in Guatemala, we found our safety radar going down substantially in the Lempira region. The region as a whole is generally safe, with many joggers both local and foreign, and including women, running around the countryside by day and night. I went for a jog on a dirt road heading out of town, which led to the river. A woman was there washing clothes, and a young man with amazingly green eyes was enjoying the scenery with his young wife and their newborn baby girl.

We have been welcomed warmly into the Friends’ community in the Lempira region. The first evening we were invited to a special pastors’ celebration and met many of the local Friends in the community. The next day, we felt like locals, as we walked around the town and ran into many of our new friends. We visited Orlando Pineda’s bookstore, and were given a couple of his inspirational books to read.  We ran into the sister of our hosts in Guatemala, Mabel Henriquez, who invited us to a hot springs along with some relatives and friends.  Huge trees hung over the water, where steam rose from pools with stone floors. Since we were there on a weekday evening, we were among the only visitors. Swimming laps in the quiet pool was heavenly.



Elida's family at breakfast



We stayed with Quaker Elida Rosa Sanchez and her extended family in Gracias. Elida is a teacher and is active in her monthly meeting and beyond. First thing in the morning we were greeted by one of the children in the family bringing a bucket of chicks and the mother hen from the front yard where they are protected overnight to the back yard where they spend the day. After breakfast the three youngest children, none of whom are over twelve years of age, washed the dishes, swept the yard and watered the plants.  Their quiet faith fills their lives.



Our next stop was San Marcos, another town two hours’ drive away. Elida and other Friends gave us a ride, as they were on the way to organize the Friends’ library in San Marcos. San Marcos is special in a different way. It is not on the tourist route, as is the case with Gracias Lempira. A small town in the mountains, with mostly unpaved roads, it is a relaxed place. It also feels very safe, and residents are free to stroll around the central square at night, admiring the stars.  

 

Dionel and Glenda's stove



 We went to sleep to the sounds of frogs in the hills and woke to the contented snorts of the horse grazing next door. Our hosts have electricity and fuel for the stove in the kitchen, but they prefer to use the outdoors kitchen where they cook with wood using a traditional oven and stove. They obtain the wood from a friend, freeing them from using their limited church salary for fuel. The sweet smell of burning wood fills the yard. We stayed with Pastor Dionel Mejia and his family, Glenda, Nayansy and Anita, age 5. We were invited to the women’s worship, a small group meeting in one of the member’s homes. One of the group members, the wife of the pastor who is also a pastor, offered a Bible discussion. They ended their evening with fried rice from the Chinese takeout!



Anita in a favorite spot





The Black Christ, Esquipulas, Guatemala

 Last Tuesday was the annual celebration of the Black Christ in Esquipulas, one of the main pilgrimage sites in Central America. Minga and I went by bus with lots of other celebrants to take in the sights of this huge Catholic celebration. Surrounding the cathedral were hundreds of plastic tarps, housing families who had come for the two-week celebration. Beans were cooking on the sidewalk over wood fires, and children played among the tents and around the visitors strolling in the park. The diversity of visitors was broad: wealthy urban couples from Mexico City with Gucci handbags and shoes, side by side with Mayan women wearing their traditional brightly-colored woven skirts and blouses. Buses were parked on the side streets announcing their purpose and origin: Pilgrimage to the Christ of Esquipulas from Veracruz, Mexico, read one sign.

Many mementos are on offer: postcards, amulets, and local items including cowboy hats with multi-colored pompoms. Mayan girls get their photographic portraits taken in front of the cathedral.

Unlike in other parts of Guatemala, restaurants abound, offering meals to the travelers. Around the cathedral were several lines of people waiting. One led to the nave, where for a fee and a long wait one can visit the main attraction, a statue of Christ made out of dark wood in the eighteenth century. On the way there, one can place a votive candle in the anteroom where there is a replica of the same statue. Worshipers prayed all around the replica, rubbing their hands and important documents on it. The anteroom was unbearably hot, with thousands of candles, and wax dripping all over the floor. Inadvertently, we found ourselves on another line, and soon received the blessing of a priest who sprinkled us with holy water.

The “main stage” in the park hosted curious events, including a dance by people wearing huge animal costumes. They minced around rather sedately on their sneakers, bobbing their oversized heads to the music. It was an endurance contest given the heat. On a signal, they all took off their costume heads and received water and towels from their families.

We never did experience the mass, but it was enough to visit the sanctuary and pay our respects. After a few hours in Esquipulas, I was ready to retire from the crowds and heat, wishing someone would towel off my brow and give me a cool drink. Instead, we joined the crowded bus and made our way back “home” to Chiquimulas, with a sigh of relief.

AVP among Quakers in Guatemala

My friend Minga and I traded our winter clothes for cool skirts and sandals, and went to Guatemala to offer workshops through the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP).  We offered the first one last weekend in Ipala, a city in southeast Guatemala.



Part of the AVP group



The workshop was very much appreciated. Thirty-one people received certificates and more attended for part of the time but were unable to complete the three-day commitment. Most of the people who participated were Quakers, connected to the local Friends Meeting. They hosted us and provided two large meeting spaces for us, enabling us to provide two concurrent workshops. The City of Ipala provided food for all the participants, a veritable banquet with lunch every day, and two “snacks” which generally consisted of something I might consider an entire meal: ham sandwiches, tortillas or empanadas, and soft drinks. This is the first workshop to be offered to Quakers in Guatemala, and perhaps the largest to be offered in Guatemala at one time. It was so wonderful to see the enthusiasm and commitment to offering the program.  It is also humbling, as well, to see the importance they place on the training and their hopes that it will make a difference in finding peaceful alternatives to the violence we all face.

Ipala is a close-knit community, though a city of 25,000. Most of the attendees knew each other, either through participation in the Quaker meeting, schools or university. In some cases, they were relatives. Sometimes when people know each other they are hesitant to share their personal stories in AVP. But many of the participants said they had shared in pairs some issues that they had not shared previously with others. Many of them said they appreciated most an exercise called Empathy, where participants assemble into groups of four people, and each writes a paragraph about an issue that they are working on. Then the papers are redistributed and each reads and suggests solutions to someone else’s issue.



AVP in action



We talked about the violence in families: abuse, abandonment (many of the participants had absent fathers or husbands) and absence of respectful communication. We practiced “I” messages, trying for clear communication without placing blame. We also had lots of fun exercises. The Guatemalan and North American facilitators worked together with good sharing of responsibilities. The Guatemalan participants put up with our imperfect Spanish and we all understood each other well. There was a funny moment when I gave my name as Martha Magnetica (Magnetic Martha) but it was understood as Martha Maniatica (Crazy Martha)! We had lots of laughs.

I had heard that the region is one with quite a bit of violence due to the drug trade, but we are so relieved to see that it seems to be – on the surface – less dangerous than we had feared. We made plans on the last day to hike up a nearby volcano, and were told that the biggest danger would be getting lost. So we were pleased that two of the workshop participants agreed to go with us. It was incredibly beautiful. We started very early in the morning, taking a bus out of town and hiking up the road through the “skirts” of the mountain. Lots of birds and flowering trees. The dry season is just beginning and many plants are blossoming. There were farmers working with horses, and little houses up in the hills.



Laguna on top of Ipala volcano



After an hour’s walk, we got to the top of the volcano where there was a pristine lake filling the now-dormant caldera. On one side was a moist mini-rainforest, with trees covered with bromeliads. On the other (windy) side, a few minutes’ walk away, was a dry cedar forest, where the wind whistled through the trees. No underbrush, only beautiful cedar trees and birds. Between the two was the clear lake with its cool clean water, where we swam and enjoyed a peaceful quiet Monday picnic. It was an idyllic place to rest our bodies and spirits after the workshop.



Karen, cocinera de calidad!



Now we are back in the larger city of Chiquimula, close to an hour's drive from Ipala by bus. We are staying with Karen, an active Quaker who has traveled a lot among Friends and understands well the needs that travelers have. She and her mother are extraordinary hosts, offering us sumptuous and healthy meals as well as helping situate us in the community. This morning we took a tour around the Quaker sites in the community: the large school, church and many other projects and missions, including a radio station and a museum!



The Death of the Car

When we sold my mother’s car, she posed in front of it for a last picture. She looks so sad. She has her eyes closed, and the beginnings of tears which are not visible in the photograph but which I know were there, evidence of her anguish at losing this valuable part of her life. She herself described the loss of her wheels as a nail in her coffin, dooming her to a short future without the freedom to travel independently. In my heart I resonated with this loss, feeling my own dependence on my car and the freedom it gives me. It is true that we need the car as we need our limbs. Her life will be unbearably limited without it.

My mother’s generation had a special relationship with the car. They developed the car culture, the car world. Hers was the first generation to identify so strongly with the car. In the suburbs, the car became the sole transportation in her generation, the ubiquitous, irreplaceable mode of travel. Her car, her wheels, her busy life. So many images of the car are twined like a braid in my mother’s life.

My mother’s car was a mirror of her personality, from the huge station wagon we had when she drove her five children around, to the sporty Saab sports hatchback, chic when she purchased it in her seventies, but a pathetic ruin gathering dust by the day we sold it. On that day, she could not even start it as the battery had run out, and it had sat unused for six months. Yet we felt like we were cutting off one of her limbs to sell it. A swift decision occasioned by a surprise offer from a mechanic willing to take it off our hands and sell it for scrap metal. She felt like she was being sent to the junkyard along with the car.

When I was very small, the golden station wagon carted us everywhere. I sat in the “way back”, which along with its own seat, and no seatbelts, had inexplicably, its own power window control. Lucky kids could operate their own electric window, introducing puffs of air from the exhaust pipe, and possibly risking falling or jumping out while at high speeds. We, however, were not allowed to operate the window. My mother had it turned off by the mechanic, for safety’s sake. She promised me that when I turned six, she would turn on the electric window. But by then my brothers were four and one, and the promise did not come true.

So many stories revolve around the family car. The gold station wagon was the car that my brother Bruce actually did fall out of, when they headed around a corner, in the midst of a backseat tussle with his brother. Luckily he landed in the bushes, with no harm done. In those days, kids perched on the front of the wide bench seat, turning their own pretend steering wheel or toy that was hooked over the front bench seat.  How many times did I hear “Sit down, boys, don’t stand up on the seat!” while we were driving down the road.

This was the same car that I used to learn to drive; in effect it was my first car. I remember careening down the impossibly dangerous Jamaica Way into Boston. It was on those trips that I learned to take care of the front half of the car, and let the other cars look out for the back half, a habit that I overcame only when I moved out of Boston.

One day on a visit to the doctor, my mother left my brother Chris, then a preschooler, in the parking lot, and apparently was so busy with the rest of us that she left the keys in the car. Chris quickly discovered how to lock the doors from the inside, and was only persuaded to unlock them when the scary pediatrician came out to the parking lot and ordered him to with his meanest demeanor.

The gold station wagon was also the same car that killed our family’s dog. He followed us as we headed out the driveway and was clipped as we turned onto the street. I remember the police carting him towards the house, holding the dog’s front and back paws in his two hands, the head lolling back. For a long time, I held that last gruesome image of my dog in my heart, my first experience of personal tragedy.

Dangerous cars, fast cars, cars bringing an incredible freedom to a new generation of post-WWII Americans. Families going places fast, nuclear families taking care of their own.  Highways crisscrossing the landscape, replacing trains. Carbon levels increasing inexorably, but unexamined in those early days when metal and chrome were king. The car: a rusting hulk that must be carted away, a family member that must be ripped from the arms of its family, dying before we learn how to create a life without it. December is death and old habits that die hard. Maybe with the spring we’ll learn new ways to live that do not destroy our earth.

Another trip to a country no one wants to visit: Prison

 Recently I conducted another workshop in Spanish at a Massachusetts medium security prison, co-facilitating with inmates Luis and Miguel and community member Betty (names changed). We all took on equal facilitation powers, which in itself is revolutionary in the prison setting. Most of the prison educational programs involve blackboards and desks facing front. In our program we sat in a circle. The facilitators took equal responsibility for sharing leadership.

The inmates who signed up for the program did not get any reduction in their sentences, unlike in most of the programs offered at the prison. As a result, they signed up because they were truly eager to learn the skills offered, how to resolve conflict more peacefully in one’s life. Luis and Miguel received their training in the program several years ago and have been offering the program as volunteer facilitators since then to other inmates, to help them in turn learn new skills.

What is the program? It is called the Alternatives to Violence Project. It is a curriculum that was designed by Quakers and prisoners at Green Haven Prison in New York in the 1970s to respond to the Attica prison riots and try to have a positive impact on life among the incarcerated. The program has since expanded to a number of prison and community settings and has found uses internationally, through a related program especially designed to help reconcile perpetrators and victims after a period of extreme violence, including in Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya. It is useful for healing after conflict, and for understanding the roots of conflict. It is a program that asks the same of all of us: to practice non-violent methods of dealing with conflict in our lives.

It might be expected that someone who has never been personally involved in the criminal justice system would find it unsettling, to say the least, to sit down and share one-on-one with an offender experiences of trying to resolve conflicts non-violently. At first, I felt some fear, anger, and resistance to sharing with people many of whom have admitted to have done terrible things. I also felt concerned that my place of privilege in life has spared me from having to deal with the terrible decisions that most of the inmates have experienced. How can I, who has never had to stand up for my rights physically, preach non-violence? Non-violence is indeed a tough sell in prison. Yet what I found is that there are islands of non-violence even in a place like this medium security prison. Those who have taken the Alternatives to Violence Project, or AVP, constitute one such island. And the results are life-changing for many of the inmates who participate.

After having facilitated the program in English in partnership with inmates, I found that there was an unfilled need to offer it in Spanish. Many Latino inmates do not feel comfortable speaking out in English in such a workshop, and they asked us to help them offer the program in their own language. After we had offered the basic workshop in Spanish several times, we were asked to offer the advanced one. So I found myself in a windowless room in prison with Luis, Miguel, Bonnie and 13 other Latino inmates.

I learned some remarkable stories from the inmates with whom I worked. Javier has a roommate who is Native American and who has a history of homelessness. Javier had joined the Christian church in prison and was writing inspirational songs for church. His roommate asked whether he could also write some songs, and Javier stayed up most of the night helping him compose a song. The pastor of the church did not encourage the project, and as the time approached, he asked frequently whether the Native American inmate would be able to carry the project forward. Javier bought his roommate jeans, a new shirt, and clean sneakers. He told the pastor that his roommate would do fine, that he was well prepared. He said to him, “Father, what would Jesus do here? I’m counting your questions. I have told you three times now that he will be fine. You don’t need to worry.” On the day when the song was offered, there was a full three minutes of applause. The prison congregation was moved by the beauty and inspiration of the song composed by Javier and his Native American roommate.

Luis killed someone at 18 in a drug deal, and was given a long sentence. When he was released on parole, he very much wanted to visit his victim’s family. He did so, and was invited to a tearful reconciliation with the victim’s brother. He told the story during our workshop, and the inmates were visibly moved. He was able to do something that they all clearly yearn to do: to apologize and be forgiven. In his case, the victim was someone in his home community, so as a result it was more likely than in other situations for him to meet the family of his victim. Luis is held in high esteem in his prison community, in large part because he has been lucky enough to have had this experience.

It is striking that the yearning for reconciliation is a large part of most, perhaps all, inmates’ lives. They want to heal relationships with family members and other loved ones. They want an opportunity to apologize and be forgiven. This became most apparent when we conducted an exercise called Magic Carpet. I had steered clear of this exercise previously, concerned that it would be too challenging for the inmates. It turned out to be the most important one we did. In Magic Carpet, participants write down the words that they would most like to hear from important people in their lives. This could be their loved ones or – and they adapted the exercise to include this – from their victim’s family. Those who have trouble writing describe verbally to another inmate the message they would like to hear. They form partner groups, and each pair has an opportunity to sit on the Magic Carpet (a block of newsprint in the center of the circle) and hear from their partner the words they have written. Their partner kneels behind them with a hand on their shoulder while they conduct a dialogue in the voice of the chosen individual.

What I heard blew me away. Participants were truly able to suspend their disbelief and “hear” the words they so wanted to hear as coming from their deceased parent, their estranged teenager, or their son. Spontaneously, a dialogue began, in which the inmate conversed openly and with great emotion with the person they had chosen, and their partner entered into the simulation, inventing the words that the person might have said had he or she been present. It was a beautiful opportunity to communicate one’s deepest emotions with an important person, and much love was shared. “Te quiero, papí.” “I love you, daddy.”It was truly amazing to observe this level of emotional openness inside prison! I myself did not participate in the sharing part of this exercise due to lack of time.  Yet I considered how meaningful an exercise it would be for all of us to experience. Everyone has made mistakes in their lives for which they yearn to apologize and be forgiven. Even if we do not have the opportunity to forgive and be forgiven by our loved ones, we can forgive ourselves, and that is a good part of the journey.

My intention here is simply to shine some light on a dark corner of our world. Most of us do not have any idea what happens behind those high walls that surround the prison. Given what we often hear, we assume that it is a brutal place where people cannot ever relax or trust each other, where everyone is completely alone and at risk of being victimized by others. Yet I have experienced a sense of community being built, people who are trying their best to build a new life and move away from a violent past. I have observed people who help hold each other to a high moral standard and support each other towards doing good. The prison system is a vast, wasteful empire which is not built to encourage rehabilitation. Some recent reports in the Boston Globe and on National Public Radio indicate that perhaps we are ready to move past vengeance and towards rehabilitating lives, even in prisons. I certainly hope so.