Over 15 years ago in a ‘flash’ my life changed both figuratively and literally. It’s a cool spring evening in May with plenty of stars lighting up the night sky in the rural highlands of Guatemala. My wife and I are living in a small home on the hillside just outside of town. We’ve been in Guatemala for over a year working at a boarding school overseeing a large construction project, working with volunteer teams and supporting a local women’s weaving cooperative. We finish dinner and are winding down for the night when we are interrupted by our dog who is clearly upset and incessantly barking about something outside. Suspecting there may be a stray dog looking for an evening meal by preying on our chickens behind the house, I begin to lace up my boots, which I rarely did in these instances, as my wife jokingly teases, “Why are you putting on your running shoes?”
Rounding the corner of our house I’m immediately met by a man coming out from behind the overgrown brush about 12 feet away. He’s wearing a black ski mask and quickly raises the sawed-off shotgun aims and fires directly at my head. In an instant, all I hear is a deafening bang, as I see a bright flash of light hitting my eyes and feel the heat from the blast on the right side of my face.
Fleeing the scene and unable to reenter our house easily, I instinctively escape over a steep embankment while fearing I will be shot in the back at any moment. The embankment, which is surrounded by a barbed wire fence, leads to the dirt road below our house which can’t be seen from above and ends up being the lead I need to avoid any additional attempts at taking my life. After sprinting to a neighbor’s house, I am finally able to feel the side of my face to ensure I have not been hit by any pellets from the blast.
After staying in a different town with some friends for a few nights, we are on a plane back to the U.S. to meet with trauma counselors and determine whether or not we would like to return to continue our work in Guatemala. We decide to return while making some changes to our living situation and normal routines but after six months the burden of the unknown and constant vigilance has taken its toll, and we reluctantly return to the U.S. indefinitely. Sadly, the pain of leaving everything behind is just as traumatic, if not more so in a different way, than the trauma of that fateful night. Ultimately we leave friends, jobs, home and what we thought would be a long future of living in a community that we love.
Through all this I’m grateful. I am grateful because this experience has afforded me a small glimpse into the struggles faced by individuals who have needed to leave everything they know and love behind; however, my experience pales in comparison to the plight of refugees, asylees and others fleeing war, persecution, gangs, violence and economic destitution. I cannot imagine the level of trauma one must experience to be driven to such extremes. My wife and I were fortunate. We were able to hop on a plane and depart quickly and easily. We had somewhere to go. We didn’t need to travel hundreds of miles on foot. We had resources to start over. We didn’t need to learn a new language. We had family waiting for us. We were simply heading home again, not starting our lives all over again in a strange land.
As the CWS Emergency Preparedness Response and Recovery team implements our work, how we respond to the needs of newcomers is just as important as what support and resources we provide. Our work must always be cloaked in listening and empathy that recognizes and seeks to understand the extreme hardships endured by many of the individuals and families we work with. Our focus on preparing individuals and resilient communities is invaluable as these investments, prior to disaster, yield untold results that prevent loss of life and property while preserving dignity and avoiding enduring devastation brought on by compound trauma.
Zach Wolgemuth is CWS Director of Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery. You can learn more about the EPRR program by clicking here. You can donate to the CWS Emergency Response Fund here.