In the summer of 2016 health leader Domingo Alvarez Ajanel, Guatemala Project founder Ila Abernathy and I drove from Tucson to Guatemala to deliver a donated Jeep and medical supplies for indigenous Guatemalan communities. Other than minor car trouble and striking teacher’s roadblocks our one week drive through Mexico was mostly uneventful. Once in Guatemala we quickly made our way to Guatemala City and the office for the Guatemala Project. It is there where Ila, Domingo and others coordinate healthcare assistance for hundred of Maya living in remote communities in the highlands. During the next week we visited and stayed in several communities including Nebaj and Union Victoria where the team tested men, women and children and provided vitamins and healthcare recommendations. We also transported a mother and daughter to a clinic in Antigua.

While in Guatemala I learned about the civil war and how it affected indigenous Maya now living in resettlement communities throughout the highlands. For more about that history, go to my book Guatemala: The Face of Innocence & Genocide.