Environmental Crisis, Community Opportunity

There’s an algae-bloom crisis in Lago Atitlan – one that has affected over 40 countries besides Guatemala – and because people in this community bathe and wash clothing in the lake, it’s a crisis that intimately affects everyone.

The community is responding according to its understanding: huge groups are going into the lake to bail out the algae onto the shoreline; other groups (especially of women) meet to sing, pray and walk in the lake with a statue of the Virgin Mary. (I am surprised at how many people respond with a comment such as “God will take care of us” when I ask them what they think or what they are doing about the crisis.)

As phosphates are a major culprit, fortunately many people are also demanding an end to heavy fertilizer use in fields along the lake shore, and that a community pila, or washing place, be built in the center of town as well as along the lake shore. However, this doesn’t take care of the bathers, unless they put showers in, but I’ve never seen that in any community. It also doesn’t take care of people who depend on fishing. And, of course, the folks in this community who serve the tourists are worried; they have already been hurting due to the long rainy season. The community is also demanding a revitalization of the sewage treatment plant across the lake – destroyed by Hurricane Stan – and that new ones be built in all the communities.

As volunteers, we extranjeros walk a fine line. We are trying to be respectful of all these efforts, for each has its value; trying to impart what information we have, and offering to help in ways they are requesting (like money for buses to take community members to the capital to demand government response). Some extranjeros feel none of these efforts will be sufficient, insisting that the bloom is imminently dangerous and that even boiling or Clorox won’t kill the toxicity. But this is a difficult stance to take. We might have the choice to bathe in agua pura or construct a well, but the average Guatemalan family does not. As usual, delicacy and sensitivity, along with honest responses to close friends, is the rule.

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