Julio Sanchez, Mayan Leader and Conflicted Cartographer
When I came to San Pedro Columbia, bought a piece of abandoned land with no electricity or road access, and built myself a little shelter in the bush, many villagers predicted that a jaguar would eat me. But not Julio Sanchez. He offered to help build me a house. I paid him, of course, but he was also my friend and guide. He could have used yemeri trees cut in the wrong moon, and I wouldn't have known the difference, but he built me a good house, anyways. While others sought to prank me, advising me that the best way to rid my farm of leafcutter ants was to strip naked, cover my body with grease, and dig for the queen, Mr. Julio took me seriously. He called me Licia, the Spanish version of my name, and gave me wise advice. "It is good to have land, Licia, to farm and also to pass on to your children."
Mr. Julio stopped by often on his way to his pasture down the river, where he maintained cows and the white horse he rode. He mentioned his work with the Catholic Church, and once, when Church work had taken him to Copan, Guatemala, he mentioned that he was ashamed that he could not write as well in Kekchi as his Guatemalan counterparts, who found his use of the language "corrupted". Belizean Kekchi speakers mix in Spanish and even Kriol, saying "Chanxa qwil, bwai", but I told Mr Julio that the difference was culture, not corruption.
Mr Julio did not come to see me for a time and upon his return he proudly reported that he'd been to California with his work for the Toledo Maya Cultural Council, mapping the Kekchi use of the local land. He showed me a map he'd made of our area, and pointed out that my humble thatched house, located across the river from the village, was on it. The purpose of the map, he said, was to prove to the international court that Kekchi people used the land, so the government would not take it from villagers who did not have land titles. "What about the people who already have land titles?" I asked, thinking of course of myself but also of Mr Julio and all my friends and neighbors who had titles or leases on their farm lands. "Will it affect us?"
"No, Licia. The claim will provide security for farmers who don't already have papers for their land. It won't affect us in Columbia. We must support all villages, and not think only of ourselves."
Many years passed. Mr Julio no longer went to check on his cattle, the ranch having passed to his son. The TMCC joined other groups, forming the Maya Leaders Alliance, or MLA. I noticed that someone spray-painted the village bus shelter "NO MLA". I wasn't sure why. Fighting for the rights of all Maya people to have land was surely a good cause, and the MLA was working for the benefit of all Maya people. Or was it?
The court case had been won, and the MLA had interpreted the order to mean that all land within a few KM of each village should belong to Maya people communally. All private and leased land would be subject to seizure. That included my land and Mr. Julio's. I remembered how proud I'd been to be included on his map, and my stomach clenched in fear and anger. They couldn't, they wouldn't seize my land after I'd worked on it for these 30 years. Nor Mr. Julio's land. And they had used his map! I had to talk to him.
"The MLA isn't an alliance of Maya leaders anymore, Licia," he told me sadly, a few months ago. "The elected leaders have withdrawn from the group. Our village council stands against them. We don't want communal land in Columbia. That was supposed to have been for the villages where no land titles had ever been given. I am worried about my ranch, Licia. I spent my life working that land, and it should be for my children and grandchildren. We never elected these new leaders, Licia. They elected themselves."
Mr. Julio, who worked for the benefit of all, was a real hero. He even rode a white horse. But he lived, until his death, in a modest board house. The "leaders" who used his map against him live outside the Mayan communities, in cement houses.
Our community is poorer without you, Mr Julio.
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