Day 11

Lots of stories of disasters:
floods
mudslides
earthquakes
caving in of the ground (there must be a name for this)
civil war

In Vieja, a town nearby that was the old capital, the story goes that the volcano Agua just south of Antigua one day belched up the water that was in its crater and flooded the entire town, resulting in total devastation and pretty much the end of the town. It has reemerged now although it is just a small village with, as far as I could tell, just a nice church to speak for it.

In a town on Lago Atitlan, there is a village that was wiped out by a mudslide. The people were sleeping, and basically ended up buried. It was a town of indigenous people, and the families wanted their dead buried in proper tombs. They wanted the government to unearth the bodies, but the government decided it was not a good ideal because the bodies would basically end up mutilated. Depending on who you talk to, you end up with different opinions on the government's decision. Some people think that the government did not care much because it was a village of indigenous people.

The authorities do evacuate people at times- if you hear unusual moans of the earth or feel something apart from the usual tremors, you can call a number. But people often do not leave. Someone told me that they cannot leave behind their animals, which are considered family members or are their livelihood. So, they stay. There is also a story of robbers who ran through the streets in the middle of the night banging on doors, saying that the water pipes broke and the village was going to be flooded, which turned out to be a total lie and the burglars were caught. 

The people are used to these natural events and talk about disasters in their history with names and dates as though every country constantly had natural disasters waiting to happen.They grew up in this environment, seeing ruins from previous disasters, and for them it is part of life.