Stories, part two

This story was told to me by a man who came this week for a conference at my school. Originally the conference was supposed to be about the Popol Vuj, the Mayan Bible, but it ended up being his story instead.

San Pedro was not always a hippie gringos paradise. During the civil war, there was a lot of violence in San Pedro and the surrounded villages perpetuated by the military trying to [get rid of guerrillas[ or so they said. Santiago Atitlan was hit particularly hard. At this time, if you heard a knock on your door late at night, someone in your household was probably about to disappear.

The speaker was at home with his parents late, everyone was sleeping, when they heard activity outside. They all ran out the backdoor, but there was very very little light. The speaker -TS- told us how he was sneaking around back, when a soldier came by, unable to see him. For whatever reason TS reached out and tried to grab the gun in front of him, and ended up with bullet wounds in his arm and leg instead.

He was taken by the military and held for 7 days. He was tortured and questioned about what he knew aboaut guerilla activity. He told us about many different ways they tortured him- putting cigarettes out on his chest, taking all the prisoners out in a boat and dunking them for extended periods of time. He saw someone die this way. They put guns in his mouth. They electricuted his genitals. He saw one man told he could go free, and as soon as he walked out, he was shot. At one point, he himself was told he was free to go, but refused to leave, afraid of getting the same fate.

After 7 days, they were all released, and he went back to his family. As he was telling the story, he said how important it was to him to be able to tell it, how it helped him deal with the memories. To this day, he doesn{t really know why the military came to his house- perhaps because he had studied in university.

He was remarkably calm throughout the telling. It was only when mentioning his reaction to fireworks years afterwards that he got choked up. For three or four years, any sort of fireworks - New Years is a big time for them, as are futbol games- would trigger flashbacks of his torture.