By Thomas

We woke up fairly early today to a fantastic breakfast of eggs, avocado and toast made by our very own Coach Dehm, Ms. Sinnenberg and Ms. Forbes. We had to head out the door quickly so that we could make it to the FAFG Field Site and make it back to Antigua, Guatemala for lunch with Janny and Jose. We made it to the FAFG field site after a two-hour drive through the mountains of Guatemala. We arrived at the field site and were greeted by two FAFG archeologists. There were two places where they were digging. There was a large group of more than twenty people that consisted of the family members of the bodies that they were searching for and community members that were supporting the family.

The bodies they were searching for were six children between the ages of 3-13. According to the archeologist, the children were killed because the army was searching for their father and because they couldn’t lead them to him they decided to kill them. The mother had to flee with her baby and leave her other children to die. The baby brother survived and was at the dig site, helping to dig for his long lost siblings. I was very surprised by the mood at the dig site; people were more hopeful than solemn and were very welcoming to us being there even though it was an emotional time. I think that most of us had prepared for a very sad day, but instead the people were hopeful and glad to be able to put their loved ones to rest. They were open to talking to us about their experience with the war.

Another interesting point was that people were trying to throw the archeologist off by telling them that the bodies were places that they weren’t. I found this incredibly interesting because even after 30+ years people were attempting to delay the truth and protect people who were most likely dead or in jail.