No Country For Old Men

So, where should I begin? Before coming to Guatemala, I was convinced, due to the state department’s website and overall hearsay, that the country was laden with crime, violence, drug trafficking, and more violence. However, after spending considerable time traveling through the various departments of Guatemala, I came to realize that the country wasn’t as dangerous, on the whole, as the international reputation often lauded.

I’ve now been in country for almost 17 months and due to the events of the last two weeks I can say that my previously stated opinion about the overall atmosphere of safety and security in Guatemala has changed. It was just days ago that 27 people were rounded up, tortured, and beheaded with a chainsaw in the country’s most northern department (Peten). While there are currently no PCV’s in Peten, I was still shocked that an atrocity of such horrific proportions could’ve have happened in my country of PC service. It was this breaking story ,Wolf Blitzer’s recent disparging of the PC organization as a whole for its poor treatment of rape victims in the past 10 years, and the escalating crime statistics in Guatemala that has left me wondering whether I will make it to my COS date(Close of Service).

Apart from the shocking news that links Arnold Schwarzenegger to Guatemala through his 14 year old half-chapin son, the international media sees Guatemala as a failed state whose people could be enveloped in a chaotic world of violence and crime at any moment. I believe the failed state of Guatemala is due to a lot of factors like domestic gangs, foreign gangs, lack of education, the unfortunate location along the drug route from South America to the U.S., and extreme poverty which many times feeds desperation among the people. It’s this desperation that constantly supplies gangs with young and malleable members who with little to loose will do anything to gain acceptance, respect, and make a buck or two to support their family or increase their own personal financial well being. It’s desperation that can make even the sanest person due something outside their normal realm of reason and thinking. I believe desperation is making the country’s current atmosphere that much more dangerous than it has been in the past 17 months.

Recently, while talking with PC Guatemala’s safety and security officer about current events he said that this is “No country for old men”. This was a clear allusion to the 2007 blockbuster hit starring Tommy Lee Jones while also admitting that the present situation is ever worsening in Guatemala. Yet, I wonder if he realizes the irony in his statement? I understand what he’s saying about the country’s deteriorating situation in regards to safety and security but I wonder if he realizes that the most ironic part is that 40% of the country’s population is under the age of 14 , which many people believe is a cause for a lot of the country’s problems. The statistics below have been taken from the CIA world fact book regarding Guatemala’s age structure; they indicate that Guatemala truly is “No country for old men”.

Age structure:

0-14 years: 38.1% (male 2,678,340/female 2,582,472)

15-64 years: 58% (male 3,889,573/female 4,130,698)

65 years and over: 3.9% (male 252,108/female 291,272) (2011 est.)

So, with the country’s current situation worsening daily, I’m left to wonder how long I will be here as a PCV. I’ve attached an interesting article that sheds light on the present problems in Guatemala as well as helping one to understand how things are in Central America as a region.

http://www.economist.com/node/18558254?story_id=18558254