Humanitarian Reflection: Reminiscence

Written by: Aldo Lemos

December 2016

I returned to Colombia in 2017, but my heart and mind stayed in Guatemala with its friendly people, smiles, humility and simplicity, their lives, stories and culture. My hope was to return someday and continue with the humanitarian work we had started.

In September of this year, I started messaging with Franco. I received his invitation to help with this year's humanitarian campaign. Now, I am back in Sibinal, San Marcos, Guatemala. I’m happy to be back and share with the host family who adopted me during my four years of humanitarian work and share with my friends and most of all, humbled to contribute to the transformation of lives.

Sibinal is a small beautiful town surrounded by majestic mountains and located between two of the highest volcanoes in Central America. It is a place with lush landscapes and the people are hospitable and friendly. Tragically, it is also a place with high levels of extreme poverty. For four years I closely worked and observed the difficult living conditions of most families due to a lack of job opportunities and financial resources.

In the past, before I left Sibinal to return to Colombia, I occasionally felt I didn’t have anything else to offer the people living in these communities. In spite of this, I discovered in the end that one of the most important things in life is giving my time to serve others. Whoever gives their time is giving part of their life because time goes by and does not return. Today, this is my way of saying thank you to a beautiful place that gave me so much.

I would like to share more about me and what brought me to this point in my life.

I was born in 1985 in Puerto Rico, Colombia, which is a small town in the county of Bolívar located in the southern coast of Colombia. I am the second of four siblings. I grew up in the countryside and spent much of my childhood surrounded by nature and a feeling of freedom. My father was a farmer and my mother a housewife devoted entirely to her home, family, and gardening.

Aldo's mom in Colombia 2015

Barranquilla, Colombia 2015

Throughout my early years in school I stayed with my family until 1998. That same year the violence in Colombia became extremely dangerous. Specifically in the area of the country where we lived. Suddenly, one day we had to leave our home to survive the increasing violence between guerrillas and paramilitaries. From that moment forward my life changed forever. My family constantly took refuge in different places to survive. My family eventually spread out seeking safety, we haven´t been reunited again.

Aldo's mothers home where she has currently relocated to escape the violence and war.

During an outing in 1999, I arrived to a small town in Colombia where it was customary to do guitar night serenades. It was during this time that I fell in love with this instrument. Since then, the guitar became my biggest inspiration, passion, and refuge in the middle of so much violence and uncertainty. I became a self-taught musician.

After relocating to different places to survive, I finally arrived to Barranquilla, Colombia in 2005. I settled and began a musical career by playing with different local bands while doing other side jobs. One day, I received an invitation from a friend to attend a religious event. I was accepted into this religious community and played guitar for the choir and in 2013, I participated in an international exchange program.

Later in 2013, I arrived to Sibinal, San Marcos, Guatemala to work in two communities, focused on community development. The main objective was to improve underprivileged communities and strengthen the economic growth of two cooperatives. This experience transformed my life completely because when I left Colombia I only had three semesters of college. However, I used what I had learned in college and gave the best of myself. I had the wonderful surprise of receiving much more than I could give. I received love, support, understanding, healing, peace and harmony.

One of the things that shocked me the most was the migration phenomenon. Sibinal is only an hour away from the state of Chiapas, Mexico. It is a route used by migrants from many countries to reach the US. I was surprised by the number of friends and acquaintances I would see one day only to find out the next day they had migrated looking for job opportunities. I analyzed and tried to understand why people from Sibinal were migrating out of Guatemala and could not find answers. I thought that perhaps they did not love their home land, but little by little I understood that the people who were migrating had basic needs which were not being met.

The Mexico - Guatemala Border 2014

In 2014, I met my friend Franco. We both had the idea of creating a humanitarian group in Sibinal, Guatemala. He had basic knowledge of Guatemala’s history during the 36 years of armed conflict and the oppression and genocide the Mayan people experienced for decades. He had also witnessed up close the poverty in many regions of this beautiful country. After much dialogue with Franco, I talked about our plan with a group of my closest friends in Sibinal.

December 2014

In December 2014, our first humanitarian attempt was the delivery of Christmas gifts for more than 200 children in a nearby community. The activity was successful and seeing so much happiness in the children motivated us to do more.

December 2014

Buying Christmas gifts December 2014

First itemized gift bag for Christmas for Guatemalan Children 2014

We decided to focus on developing something that would have a lasting social impact and strengthen communities. That is how the idea of selecting families living in extreme poverty originally started. Through donations we would attempt to provide and meet one family’s basic needs by providing items such as stoves, latrines, floor, walls, aluminum roofs and even homes.

Since then, team Project Humanitarian Efforts Lifting the Lives of Others (HELLO) was established in the US, and team Generacion Magnificat in Guatemala. Every December since 2014, both teams coordinate fundraisers to meet the basic needs of individual family’s and provide joy to children in the form of Christmas gifts.

Teams Project HELLO and Generacion Magnificat, December 2018

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