Guatemala RPCV John Prybot revisited Guatemala in 2003 to get the Central Educational and Cultural Center started at San Pedro La Laguna and to begin collecting historical information so the people, mainly subsistence farmers and farm workers, "can learn about their past history and have a better control over their future."
Ebb & Flow: Goodwill trip nearly cost man his life
By Peter K. Prybot
Gloucester Daily Times
Gloucester, Mass.
April 11, 2005
"He grabbed my shirt and put the machete right to my throat, and then he pushed me into the bushes," recalled 59-year-old John Prybot of Gloucester.
My brother nearly lost his life in Guatemala in February during a two-week goodwill trip. Prybot now forgives the attacker and plans to return to the Central American country in the near future.
Prybot is a Boston University biology major and graduate and veteran employee of the Sawyer Free Library. He helped administer a Peace Corps Crop Diversification Promotions Program among the Tzutuil language group of Mayan descendants from 1970 to 1979, primarily at San Pedro La Laguna, a village in the southwestern highlands, and Santo Tomas and San Antonio, towns in the tropical lowlands off the Pacific coast.
During his Peace Corps terms, he also learned to speak the Tzutuil dialect fluently.
Prybot revisited Guatemala in 2003 to get the Central Educational and Cultural Center started at San Pedro La Laguna and to begin collecting historical information so the people, mainly subsistence farmers and farm workers, "can learn about their past history and have a better control over their future."
This project has already involved five trips to the country, mainly during the dry season from January through March.
Trip for goodwill
After flying from Boston to San Salvador to Guatemala City this February, he took a bus from the capital southwest to Mazatenango, Guatemala's fourth largest city - about 60 miles from the Pacific Ocean and his base where he rented a hotel room and kept most of his belongings.
He wanted to gather historical information and photographs of the lowlands that formerly had been part of that language group's influence.
"Sugar cane plantations today have largely replaced the old chocolate and banana plantations and cattle ranches," he said.
Prybot took another bus from Mazatenango to Santo Tomas. He traveled lightly and carried his three 35 mm cameras, Guatemalan money equivalent to $70 US, a photocopy of his passport, and some geographical maps in an inconspicuous bag.
Once at Santo Tomas, he planned to walk and photograph a 10-mile cobblestone to dirt colonial road, which connected this town to San Antonio.
After hearing of his mission, friends at the Helena Montana Missionary and Health Clinic at Santo Tomas told Prybot he would only get so far because a plantation had taken possession of the road that once connected the towns and planted on it.
He would have to walk in a foot path from there.
"It wouldn't be a good idea - you would be taking a real risk," local government officials cautioned him at Santo Tomas.
"I said to myself, 'I will try it. I might never get a chance again,'" said Prybot.
By late afternoon, the brisk walker happened upon the plantation which took possession of the old road. People here pointed to another unkempt road, which they said would lead to San Antonio.
"No one hardly ever uses it any more," they warned, "and furthermore, it could be dangerous. There are a lot of bad people around here."
Horrifying encounter
It didn't scare Prybot. He had been approached by soldiers with guns and also had them grab things from him back in the 1970s during the country's brutal civil war.
"I was more afraid of getting lost," he said.
The road soon became choked up by weeds, he said, and a man also came along carrying a load of wood on his back. The man guided him to a footpath that led through a corn field that eventually came out on a clearing where there was still another road.
"I felt I was finally on the right track," Prybot said.
But shortly afterward, at that clearing, "I just had a funny feeling. I looked around, and there was this man running straight toward me wearing a black mask and cap over his head and carrying a huge machete. It was a paralyzing sight.
"I was afraid that if I ran, he would chop my head off from behind. I had no alternative but to face him. He had probably followed me and must have waited for the most deserted place to get me where there would be no witnesses.
"I pulled out my passport copy and told him (in the Tzutuil dialect) of my business. I warned him if he harmed me, there would be an investigation.
"The man didn't say anything; he just gestured to go off of the road and into the bushes. I shook my head and said, 'No, no,' fearing if I did that, that would be the end. The thin-built, approximately 5-foot-6 tall man, who looked like a plantation worker, next grabbed my shirt and put his machete right to my throat. Time just froze then. I said to myself, 'This is the end; he is going to kill me; there is no way I can get out of this.'
"Next, I stared him right in the eye. He looked like he was capable of cutting my throat. I didn't struggle, and he then pushed me into the bushes where he grabbed my bag and dumped everything out and ripped off my pockets. Remarkably, after this, the man gave me two $5 bills and gestured to go. I took off like a shot."
Luckily, that clearing road eventually got a very shaken Prybot to San Antonio as darkness fell.
"From there, I took a bus right back (with the $10) to Mazatenango. I was ready to leave Guatemala for good just after the third day of the trip if I could have gotten on a plane then," he said.
Change of heart
Once back at the hotel, "I felt victimized. I was very angry that someone would do that to anyone."
But by the next morning, Prybot had a change of heart.
"After the thief gave me some money back, I felt he had some decency," Prybot said. "This kind act showed me this person was in extreme desperation. His actions also illustrated to me that conditions in Guatemala are very bad, and that the Mayan descendants are on the bottom of the social totem pole.
"The Mayan descendants are normally honorable people, but the country's unfair living and working conditions for most of them must have driven this man to this desperate act. I also realized that people here have to live with what I had just gone through all the time."
Prybot neither reported the armed robbery to police nor told anyone else in Guatemala.
"I chalked it up to a hard lesson learned," he said. "The attack made me realize that the countryside and lowlands are dangerous, too. I also came to the conclusion it's just not worth taking risks under these conditions, and I was just lucky before, and the people who warned me knew what they were talking about."
Prybot later bought another camera at Mazatenango, where fortunately, all his other important possessions, including more money, were stored.
Prybot said he still has attachments to people in Guatemala and added he had wonderful experiences later on during the trip at Santo Tomas and San Antonio. He wants to go back July and next January to conclude the field work for the Central Educational and Cultural Center.
As for his most recent trip, Prybot said, "All I wanted to do was complete my assignment."
That he did.
