Miracles in the Mountaintops US Businesspeople aid the poor of Central America by Phil Caldwell The wounds of recent battles are

Miracles in the Mountaintops
US Businesspeople aid the poor of Central America
by Phil Caldwell

The wounds of recent battles are slowly overgrown within a land of stunning beauty. Homeless people squat lands on hilltops of scattered trees & rustling brush. Descendants of Mayans, the once dominant force of Central America, they are worn thin from lifetimes of cruel & punishing work. Clothing of magnificent and brilliant colors sharply contrast the oppression they have experienced as the lowest level of society in Guatemala. Women roam the muddy streets barefoot, slipping over the broken concrete as they sell hand-woven garments. Small children sent to the hilltops to gather, strain from huge loads of firewood strapped to their backs.

The villages of the Ixil triangle in northern Guatemala are not unlike remote regions of El Salvador, Honduras or Nicaragua. All were targets of four billion dollars in military aid from the United States from the 1950’s through the early 1990’s. The huge amounts spent to fight communism caught the weakest members of society between armies, unwanted by either side.

Seattle attorney Chi-Dooh "Skip" Li, born in India, son of a diplomat raised in Columbia and Guatemala, was at Mercer Island Covenant church listening to visiting speaker Juan Carlos Ortiz in early 1981. "Juan Carlos pointed out that if the US Government had simply purchased land with half the resources they were spending on military aid, and given it to the landless, there would be no reason for the war," explains Skip. "It just made too much sense. So I decided to do what I could to change that, privately without government aid."

Skip founded the fledging organization of Agros, with offices now located above a used clothing store on University Way in Seattle, just blocks from the University of Washington. Soon thereafter he made numerous trips to Central America to see for himself what should be done. With each trip came more conviction, that something could and had to be done. After pondering and experimenting with options for over a decade, offices were eventually added in Guatemala and El Salvador. Despite President Bush’s recent proposal for Government aid to private religious organizations, Skip vowed flatly "We have no interest in government help. Governments have been a large part of the problem historically."

Today the board of Agros is staffed with a handful of Seattle residents who have each grown to love & appreciate Latin America and it’s people. Business success stories are teamed with middleclass women and college students. Gradually Agros hired local representatives who grew up in their respective areas, children of the oppression, to seek out plots of land for purchase. Normally done in 100 acre blocks, hired locals Tomas, Diego & Nicolas of Guatemala, Arnulfo of El Salvador, and Filesiano of Nicaragua find and recruit landless poor as occupants. Twenty five families are set up in organizations similar to condominium associations to design the new "village" of separate homes and farmland, each with multipurpose buildings, churches, and sometimes private schools. The first challenge of each community is to elect a president of the association to help lead and motivate. "There are far more people that need help than we can ever hope to help," says Agros employee Diego.

"But we don’t only develop land," says Jon van Keppel, operations director for Agros, "We develop people." Former Starbucks senior vice president of research and development, Don Valencia, is current co-chairman of the Agros board in Seattle with Skip. Don adds: "We must rebuild dignity without losing the identity of the individual." We deal with the most helpless people we can find and restore confidence and belief in their lives. Those who have spent their entire lives wandering the hilltops and farmlands without ownership, are prime candidates for the Agros program.

"When we first meet people needing help," says Arnulfo, who is employed by Agros in El Salvador, "They usually won’t look us in the eye. They are shy, and embarrassed to be asking for help. They don’t believe in themselves. But during the process of building the village they learn they can succeed. Their dignity is restored. They learn they can do this."

"Often effectiveness is measured by how many developments are built within the shortest period of time, " says van Keppel. "It is how we differ from government programs. If the government built villages, the primary concern would be the number of housing units with ratios of money spent, and they would hire others to do the building.

We’re as much concerned with the mental health of the individual as we are the physical side. It can take a generation to accomplish what we need to accomplish. We have to recognize and appreciate, that slower

development may be the sign of deeper success, not failure."
"It is very difficult for extremely impoverished individuals to believe that they can overcome the hardship they have experienced in the past," adds Valencia. "Convincing them otherwise is not a quick process, and it requires that we respect the culture and listen to those we are trying to help. We want to help them gain what THEY feel they need, not what we feel they need. The challenge is in how you help. Americanizing the culture of the area is not what we are about. We ask the people to tell us how we can help them, then we work with them as a team to achieve those goals. They tell us what they want us to do."

"When I first visited the village of El Pariaso," says van Keppel, "there were no buildings. We had purchased the land and the people had moved to the area, and they did what they knew to do. They built rickety structures with roofs made from plastic. We had to convince them that they could do more. That they could have real houses with brick walls and metal roofs, real concrete floors. At first we were met with disbelief, first that we would help them do this, and secondly that they could do it even if we would help. Today there are buildings and schools and homes with horses and animals."

"One year after we purchased the property I first brought my wife to Belen," says Valencia. "She was overwhelmed with hopelessness & the amount of work that had to be done. I on the other hand, wept with joy at how much had been accomplished. Only months earlier the place where we stood had been an empty field with dying corn stalks, and now it was a village of life filled with giggling children."

"When the building begins," explains local president of the village of El Paraiso, "the work seemed overwhelming. What you see today is the work & effort of each family. But without the funding from Agros, these villages would not have been possible."

"The Western stereotype blames lack of economic development in Latin American on laziness," explains van Keppel. "But as you can see, these people work extremely hard and have done so for centuries. Some in this community get up each day at 3am to catch bus rides of two hours or more, working jobs that most of us rejected in high school. Local leadership is our goal. By having locals be the leaders, the theory is that they will be more effective working with their own. And they have been."

Indeed part of the program involves teaching building skills to the individuals in the villages as they build their own homes, so that after construction, the people retain marketable working skills. A handful of residents from El Paraiso started their own construction businesses after completing their village, and now are sub-contracted by the government to build schools & other commercial ventures.

"Agros is not a welfare program. We believe strongly in fiscal responsibility and require all villagers to repay amounts used as they are able," says Valencia. "Government giveaways just don’t work," adds van Keppel. "We’ve learned that repayment is as critical to the long term success of a village as the physical needs. If they don’t personally invest, they don’t take ownership & the system does not work."

"At the village of Xetzel, we adopted a village that was already in progress. The French government decided to donate solar panels for electricity rather than having them work to buy it as a group. We disagreed with the government plans, but did nothing to oppose it because the villagers own their village once the construction is completed. After the village was given this government-sponsored electricity, wired to the village by the government, the villagers refused to replace burned out light bulbs and insisted that maintenance should have been part of the government grant. This is the reason we insist on repayment. When people don’t invest, they don’t appreciate. The government created a welfare mentality, which was shooting themselves in the foot. People must learn to support themselves."

The debate in Agros is balancing charity with responsibility. How to care without creating dependency. "We’ve talked about creating an after-built job training program" says Destiny ("my mother was a hippie") Williams, one of the "Corp members" of Agros who is spending this year on-site in Guatemala. "We’d like to teach them how to educate themselves, so that THEY can teach their own children to read and write. The villages have always been far more effective at outreach than anyone from the States will ever be. They know how to relate to each other. They know the needs, the mindset. They know the culture."

Nonetheless, how do people who once survived by eating roots and wild fruits in the woods, face the prospect of debt repayment of thousands of dollars when some only have three figured annual salaries to begin with?

"Well, we hope to teach subsistence as these communities are constructed. We must emulate real life with real issues & consequences. If we just give it all away, the most important lesson of the program is not learned. We specifically advertise that this program is not a give-away, but rather that it will take very hard work with lots of sweat."

In fact Agros feels they learned hard lessons about early failure, specifically from being too generous with the first properties. "Our job is not to be providers, but rather to be enablers. To give a fish or teach to fish is the age-old argument" says van Keppel.

In the inner-city of Seattle, Emerald City Outreach Ministries has learned similar lessons. "Look," says the Reverend Harvey Drake, who visited the Agros properties in Central America recently and wholeheartedly agrees with the philosophy. "People need to feel that they made it happen on their own, and not that someone did it for them." Drake leads a ministry that itself has been the recipient of more than one mainstream donation. "When I traveled to the Congo, the missionaries in that program said that in 60 years, they’d only seen two African-American pastors come to help Africans. One other pastor ten years ago, and now me. I’m the second black pastor in sixty years! The lesson that all of us in ministry are learning, regardless of skin color or economic background, is that God wants us to serve, not take. Giving is not effective ministry unless dignity and respect are part of the program. How does one feel respect when the life lived is totally based on being rescued? You must learn to get your eyes outward, not focused inward."

"See part of the problem," continues Drake, "is that people sometimes fear success because it had never even been considered before. Sometimes it takes the next generation before real progress can happen, because the stability of life as it is, is actually the very stumbling block that keeps things from improving."

At the village of El Paraiso, the former homeless villagers are showing those within Agros that the philosophy does work. The villagers built their own buildings with months of hard work and sweat as they did their regular jobs. For most, this is the first non-dirt floor they have ever known. Some of the villages have piped-in water with irrigation systems for crops that they raise on their own. There are stoves with chimneys, and a medical center. At El Paraiso, each house can do laundry and wash dishes. People now feel honor and privilege in living in the village.

Other villages do not have electricity yet, but van Keppel feels these are matters for others to deal with. "Working together as a group is part of the process of learning to be successful. We want to get them housed and on their feet, and leave the non-essential projects for them to achieve on their own."

"Before," said one unnamed villager who we met at El Pariaso, "Women had to travel miles to get corn ground or basic needs. We now have our own corn grinder and water that we use to help surrounding villages." John van Keppel adds "The people had to walk 1-1/2 kilometers for ground corn each day, and consequently they spent half of their productive time doing things that were not necessarily productive. Or as productive as they could be. They cannot care for their children when they are walking five hours a day for corn meal. The village has developed one of their own to care for the corn grinder engine. They share the ground corn with some villages, and rent time on the grinder to other villages. It has truly been a success story."

Part of the Agros vision is to repeat the success at new villages, but also be adaptable to other ideas. "Just because it worked once doesn’t mean it will work a second time, or doesn’t mean it can’t work better done differently" explains van Keppel. "We never want to lose our willingness to experiment. At Trapichitos in Guatemala, for example, we have a group of 80 Catholic & Protestant families that had already built homes but needed land to cultivate. We bought a track of land that they are working, and they are now seeding 80,000 coffee plants. They will pay us back from the profits on the crops."

In El Salvador, at the Agros property of Milagro near the former Guerilla stronghold of Suchitito, Agros partnered with Habitat for Humanity for 19 new homes on a track of land purchased by Agros. "We had mixed results," says van Keppel. "Habitat likes to do things like "building blitzes," whereby Agros feels the relationship with the people is more than half of the issue. Habitat has standardized homes but Agros likes the people to decide how big of a house they want to build for themselves. One of the residents wanted a front porch to his house, because porch life is a huge part of this culture, but Habitat refused to add a row of brick to the walls that would enable her to do this. Don’t get me wrong, however. Habitat for Humanity is a terrific organization and their track record speaks for itself. But we have a different philosophy at Agros and so sometimes great organizations have to compromise. When you’ve had success doing what you do, it is understandable to be reluctant to change what has already worked. Agros likes to stay involved with the people long after the building projects are completed, whereby Habitat likes to build homes and house as many as they can. Both are good motives from great organizations, but we just have different ways of achieving the same tasks."

"In any event, we’re not concerned about who performs the model. We don’t want proprietary rights. We want to give the franchise away if we can. Our goal is to have locals, like Diego and Nicolas, deploy the vision so that eventually Guatemalans help Guatemalans and so on. We don’t want to get legalistic about how we do things. That’s why we’ve experimented with different systems at certain projects, and why we hope we retain that attitude in the future."

On-site at Agros’ headquarters in Cotzal, Guatemala, are three "Corp members." Recently graduated in Psychology Destiny Williams from Seattle Pacific University, Dan Bailie, graduate of Washington State University in agriculture, and Kira Stoltenberg from Taylor University in Indiana. All are fluent in Spanish, and all are working on one year commitments to stay in villages far removed from typical American life. "We’re like family," says Kira blandly, "but these guys can wear on you." Destiny, a handsome Ricky Martin look-alike and former high school soccer star, frequently can be seen lifting small Cotzal children on his shoulders or carrying loads of wood for them up steep pathways. "It’s about building relationships plain and simple," says Williams. "We come to learn as much as we teach. If you show up with the attitude that they need to learn from us, you will fail. These are our brothers and sisters and they are beautiful people who have suffered more than I can ever know. I need to learn first, teach second."

The Agros team sleeps and showers at a building once occupied by Guatemalan government troops. "During the later stages of the civil war," explains Bailie, "Army officers requisitioned what once had been a neighborhood restaurant. Agros rents the building from the same owner who was victimized by the military."

Behind the building is the former school where locals claim are four mass graves. "See, this town of Cotzal is the former hot bed of government resistance. It was like Viet Nam. Worse in many ways. People hid in the mountains and the government did anything to seek them out. Helicopters would sweep down the valley here. If you were male, you would be killed. It didn’t matter which side you supported because the other side would come looking for you. Most of the people we work with were enemies of BOTH sides. Rumors got you linked to virtually anyone, and rumors were grounds for being eliminated. Suchiquil Meadows just above us, is the site of one of the upcoming villages we are developing…..it was a killing grounds where government troops would drag suspected Guerillas before firing squads. There is a spot of scorched earth up there that we walk by on our way to Belen, where locals claim a village of 300 families was massacred. There is nothing there today. Consequently everyone in these hills is starting over from nothing. We found the first villagers for El Paraiso, hiding in the highlands. Every one of these people have been the victims of untold atrocities. Children watched their fathers be tortured and killed, mothers raped before their eyes. There was no right side in this war, only two wrong sides. With the help of Agros and churches and individuals in the USA and elsewhere, we are trying to help these people start over. You can only imagine the mental battles these people must overcome, to be helped by former enemies."

Indeed, Agros employee Nicolas, who was victimized during the war by troops from both sides, knows the man who killed his parents during the war. "Nicolas has forgiven them," Bailie says quietly. "He knows where they live and yet he doesn’t seek revenge. I don’t know if I could be so strong myself. But Nicolas is an amazing man with an amazing faith in what comes from helping others. It is why he is such a valuable team member, and why others in this community follow his lead. He has their respect."

The "Mil-Agros" vision & goal is to create 1000 villages by year 2020. Helping people is the cry of Agros. It is the tool American businessmen use to reach the impoverished and learn about themselves; how college students learn direction. American society has much to learn from the poor. Whom is teaching whom seems to be in question.