We had just turned in for the evening. The four of us were sharing a dorm room in a seminary within walking distance from the city dump. The surrounding neighborhoods were cordoned off by concrete barricades, presumably to prevent unknowing persons from driving into the wrong area and to hinder the escape of vehicles involved in drive-by shootings. We were told that even the police dared not go into some of these communities.
Pop-pop-pop. The sound was close and distinctive. Unlike the resonance of small explosions that most Hollywood sound editors use, the blast of real gunfire is one of staccato echoes piercing the quiet. Pop-pop-pop-pop.
Minutes later we heard the sirens, followed by a rapid volley of shots. As quickly as it began, it was over.
Guatemala’s three-decade civil war fostered a culture of violence and left almost 200,000 people dead. By most accounts, that many juveniles are now part of vicious street gangs, causing the country to be one of the most violent in the world. The homicide rate is astronomically high, almost ten times that of the United States.
Three people were killed in our neighborhood during our short stay in Guatemala City. The week before our arrival, a shootout in the housing development next to one of our church projects resulted in the death of four gang members who had kidnapped a six year-old girl for ransom. Days prior, they had invaded her home, murdered her parents, and were demanding money from the extended family. Multiple drivers were also executed on their routes while we were in the country. In response to bus companies’ failure to pay protection money for driving through gang territories, the drivers are routinely killed by these wayward youth, to the tune of dozens of deaths each year.
In this decade after the civil war, Guatemala remains a country beset by savagery and unrest, this time at the hands of fatherless youth – either orphaned or effectively so because of absent fathers.
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