A while back I posted a Wordle thingie based on an article I had read on the NPR website - a piece about the rise in vigilante violence in Guatemala. I said I was eventually going to try and write a poem about it ... someday. I guess today is someday; I suppose now is as eventually as any day ever will be.

Shall I presume to share some resources? I shall.

Want to see what Volcan de Agua looks like? [link]

Want to know more about Guatemalan traditions for celebrating The Day of the Dead? [link]

Curious to know what chicha is? [link]

Ever wonder what Guatemala's national anthem is? [link]

The original article that sparked my interest (like you care at this point ) can be found here: [link] where it goes a little something like this -

Fed Up, Ordinary Guatemalans Turn To Vigilantism
by John Burnett

Taking Back The Streets

Fourteen months ago, the people of San Juan Sacatepequez took matters into their own hands. Every night, men gather in the plaza to go on patrol with machetes, truncheons and two-way radios. On a recent night, a group of 20 men — bundled against the mountain cold, some in balaclavas — walked the darkened, hilly streets of their sector.

The patrol leader, a local veterinarian nicknamed "The Jackal," says the gangbangers have mostly left San Juan Sacatepequez, and their security patrols have been so effective that other cities now want to copy them.

"Right now, nothing happens anymore because they know we're patrolling at night," says The Jackal. "If the delinquents try to rob anyone during the day, everyone in the marketplace has whistles to sound the alarm. And everyone comes out and captures the thief."

And what happens then?

The patrol leaders say they hand the thief over to the police. But San Juan Sacatepequez's police chief, whose officers have effectively been marginalized by the citizen patrols, says there have been six vigilante killings in the 10 months he has been on the job — and an attempted lynching last month. Townspeople caught two Nicaraguans they said were thieves. They tied the men up, stripped them, beat them bloody, and paraded them around town.

"They were at the point of pouring gasoline on them and setting them on fire. But it was avoided when the police intervened," says Arbol Pavilla, local representative of the Office of the National Human Rights Ombudsman. "They were lucky. I saw the gas can with my own eyes."

Dave Prisk