Lords Of Atitlan

The conservation of San Lucas Tolimán´s smaller bay, el Relleno, proceeds without corporate support, foundation money, or U.S. work groups. The clean-up gets little help from the municipal government. Even the Parroquia of San Lucas isn´t involved. The project is the vision of two men of humble origin, Don Pedro Jacinto and Don Francisco Ajcot.Pedro and Francisco themselves own nothing, but they love Lake Atitlán and so have assumed responsibility to protect it.

Pedro rents a small house at the base of a hill along the bay.The house is of wood planks, dirt floor, and few possessions.Pedro lives there with his extended family. Every morning he walks down to the lake to fish.After a time, Pedro found he could no longer ignore the sight of the yellowish-green algae clogging the bay.Seeing the sprinkling of plastic bottles, cups, shampoo and detergent packets, old shoes, and rags floating above the scum, sickened him. Oaring out of the bay in his cayuco became a chore. Algae frequently engulfed the tiny craft in its strangle-hold. The seriousness of the situation became clear to him.

Pedro is a life-long fisherman, eaking out just more than subsistence living. His wife sells his meager catch in the market. They struggle. Nonetheless, Lake Atitlán provides for Pedro and his family, and he is grateful. Pedro shares an intimacy with Lake Atitlán that I, who love it, could never comprehend. Ever since Pedro´s childhood, he and the lake have shared many days and nights, alone together.

Francisco, a close neighbor, has looked out over the bay every day of his life.He´s seen its steady, exponential decline. A bit older than Pedro, he remembers el Relleno as it was in his youth: clean potable water, tall, thick stands of tul, and, then as today, the ever-present washerwomen.

Today algae stretches three hundred meters out to the mouth of the bay.El Relleno´s conservation appears a daunting task, almost insurmountable. But Pedro and Francisco took on the job by themselves. One Sunday morning they began yanking algae from the bay with large hooks and rope. The next Sunday two neighbors joined them. The third week came 30 volunteers, a number never approached since.HectorXep, a school teacher, got involved. He´s the one that asked me to help one evening as we met walking along the bay. It wasn´t by chance. He´d been looking for me. Don Carlos Maldonado donated hundreds of meters of rope. Don Cristóbal Ajcot loaned a weak pick-up truck and a strong son, Carlos. Two sisters from Jutiapa serve the workers chuchitos and frescos. The community pulls together.

I adore and admire the washerwomen of San Lucas. No sight in Guatemala, few in the world, is more beautiful than Luqueñas washing, visiting, and bathing in the lake front. Nowhere is there more sense of community; nowhere, greater sisterhood.I don´t want to chase off the washerwomen; nor do the others working on the clean-up. The washerwomen are their wives and mothers. In large part, the clean-up is being done for them, and with their help.

The fact is parts of San Lucas have insufficient water. Women have little choice but to walk from their homes in Colonia San Juan, cantón la Cruz, finca Venezia, and cantón Pacóc to wash clothes in las Conchitas. Those from Colonias San Gregorio, Nuevo Amanacer I and II, and la Unión have no option but to wash in el Relleno.

The friends and neighbors of el Relleno welcome suggestions. We´d like to know about less harmful soaps, herbicides that might attack the algae without harm to the water and fish, and plants that might aid in the filtration of the water of the bay.We welcome pressure upon municipal governments to stop draining raw sewage into Lake Atitlán, and upon farmers to reduce excessive use of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers. We welcome folks, who don´t mind physical labor and getting dirty, to pitch in.The friends and neighbors of el Relleno don´t have much.However, together they are giving back to Lake Atitlán and making a difference.