Matt stranded in Guatemala

As most of you know, I rarely read the news. It's not that I don't care about the world. It's that the news is always bad (does that make me a deeply superficial person?), and when it isn't bad, journalists will find something bad to write about anyway. Also, I rely on my friends with stronger consistutions than my own to tell me what's going on.

Well, today I learned about the Hurricane Stan's impact on Guatemala (and probably the rest of Central America) bc my dear friend Matt emailed from Panajachel. So, my google fingers found all sorts of photos and other writings about this natural disaster, and, my friends, I have to say that I'm worried. Here's what Matt said:

From: matt baze
Date: Oct 8, 2005 7:35 PM
Subject: the last gringo
well not really the last, there are probably about 12 still in town. so i´ll try to make this short. justine and i arrived in panajachel about 11 days ago. as soon as we got into town, it started raining and pretty much never stopped. i decided to take a few days of language classes and after that we agreed to head on to sunnier horizons. yeah right. on the last day of my classes the rain really picked up, torrential. and it really didn't ease up for about 72 hours. as a result, the river overflowed its banks, landslides were everywhere and rumors circulated and were later confirmed that the only road in had been completely washed away. at this point, it dawned on j and i that something big was happening. we took a walk to the river and that's when the magnitude of what was happening hit us. the river had tripled in size, walkways we had walked on days before were washed away, homes & business were being washed down the river right in front of our eyes.
more rumors of more severe damage around neighboring areas circulated. it seemed every 15 minutes or so the magnitude of wahat was happening grew. this is a full on regional disaster. gas is being rationed as is water and food. shelters are full, thousands are homeless and many have died in the region. aid is in short supply, because the roads in are destroyed and the helicopters can't fly in this visability. though some coppters have made it in. there are a lot of conflicting stories and facts are scarce, its like that game broken telephone, where somebody whispers a story to someone and it gets passed around until the end where the story is completley different from the original. doesn't help that my spanish still completely sucks!
regardless, j and i have been hanging out at the biggest shelter helping where we can, mostly slinging food and playing with the kids. i'm not sure how much help we are actually doing, but at least there is a novelty of a big ol´' hairy gringo hanging around that invokes a lot of smiles and a few hugs, mostly fromthe children. (oh yeah, i AM BIG here).
now to the last gringo part, there was a mass evacuation of all foreigners, prior info was short and again often conflicting (although, at least 200 foriegners got the memo) in the end j and i missed the boat, literally. ah well, we'll help where we can and hope the next storm isn't as bad.
one more thing, the people, the mayans are incredibly courageous and perservere with a lot strength and even smiles. its heartening.
i'm well, safe and sound as is justine.
hope this finds everyone well
mb