The ancient Maya first inhabited Guatemala nearly 20,000 years before Christopher Columbus was born. The struggles between the Mayan descendants and the citizens of European descent, with each group comprising approximately half of the country’s population of 12.5 million, have gone on for many generations, and a 36-year civil war finally ended in 1996.
The first peacetime election since the 1950’s was held in 1999, and Alfonso Portillo, a conservative and admitted murderer (he claimed to have killed two men in self-defense) was elected president of the nation. With a country about the size of Tennessee, the geography varies from dozens of volcanoes in the mountainous central areas to virgin rainforest along the Mexican border.
Education in Guatemala is initially free to all children. However, only 79 % of eligible children are actually in school during the “primary school” years, ages seven through 13. Additionally, secondary education is not free, and this is a tremendous deterrent to any significant education for the vast majority of Guatemalans. It has been estimated that 95% of rural women (who are mostly Mayan…..and poor) are illiterate, and “modern” changes in culture continue to push the Mayans farther and farther into the background of Guatemalan society.
Although most in the country speak Spanish, 20 Mayan languages survive, many completely unintelligible to each other. The majority – but not all – Mayans speak Spanish.
Roman Catholicism is the most common religion practiced in Guatemala today, but the growing number of evangelical Pentecostals has reached nearly 30% of the population. Many of the ancient Mayan customs and religious practices have been blended into the modern religions and their activities.
Both traditional Mayan animism and Catholicism have rites of baptism and confession, and both include religious partaking of alcoholic beverages and the use of alters. Today, the Mayan practice of Catholicism is actually a fusion of shamanist-animist and Christian ritual. These traditional religious ways are such an important part of Mayan life that some who become ill may seek the advice of a religious shaman rather than a medical doctor.
The Methodist Church in Guatemala is still a rather young church, and an office of Guatemala VIM (Volunteers in Mission) located there has served as the in-county coordinator for this mission team and their trip.