Today marks forty days since Loyola´s youngest son was shot and killed in the capital, Guatemala City. Xela, four hours or more away from Guatemala (as it is known to the locals), and is very safe, but the capital is not so. In fact, I recently read that a report from the U.N. some years back ranked Guatemala as the most dangerous city in the Americas (due to a host of problems, including the three-and-a-half decade civil war that finally ended in 1996, as well as the immigration problem that affects the U.S., believe it or not). Anyway, there is a lot of random violence in Guatemala, and it is not a safe place for tourists, nor, as it turns out, for locals.
Juan Rodrigo Sac de la Paz was 26 years old when he was killed on June 27th of this year. He was eating dinner in a cafe, and some random thugs came in and shot and killed him. There was apparently no motive; this was simply a random act of violence. Understandably, it has been an extraordinarily difficult time for Loyola and her family, as they try to cope with this devastating tragedy.
Juan Rodrigo was an up-and-coming talent in the national government of Guatemala. He was a software engineer, and he turned down numerous offers of more lucrative jobs to work in the equivalent of the Department of Education, where he was hard at work trying to revamp and modernize school curricula. He told his mother that he felt called to try to improve the lot of Guatemalans, and thus he felt he needed to work in the public sector, for the government. He was quite well respected by everyone he worked with; Loyola told me that the cathedral was full for his funeral, with many government officials making the full trek from Guatemala. It sounds like his death is not only a tragedy for his family, but for Guatemala itself.
Juan Rodrigo is survived by two brothers and a sister, as well as his parents. Alan Omar was born three days before I was, and is an electrical engineer in Guatemala. Claudia is the second oldest child, and is a lawyer with a family of her own (her daughter Dayla is scheduled to make her First Communion next week!). Gerson is 29 and is an architect. With a mother who has a master´s degree in psychology and pedagogy, and a father who is a department head at the university, we are talking about a highly educated family. I can try, but I think that I am very under-qualified to understand how difficult it has been for everyone in the family.
It is customary here to remember the deceased forty days after their passing. Loyola invited me to join her family at the cemetery to pray and remember Juan Rodrigo. The cemetery is actually pretty close to my host family´s home (I know that I haven´t really discussed them yet... coming, I promise!), but the cemetery is supposedly the only place in Xela that is not really too safe to go, especially for foreigners. However, during the day, with locals, there is absolutely no problem. So I got to visit the cemetery and share the experience with the family of Juan Rodrigo.
Here is a picture showing the family mausoleum. Juan Rodrigo is interred in the upper-right spot. Note the fresh flowers that the family laid at the tomb today.
The cemetery is very interesting. It is the custom here that families all have mausoleums. Only the poorer families bury their deceased relatives in the ground. Here are a few more shots of various mausoleums.
Here is a beautifully ornate one. Looks more like a chapel, to me.
It´s a community cemetery, even though it is somewhat attached to the Catholic Church El Calvario. Therefore, there are people buried there from all different places, who practices many different religions. As this next shot shows...
And of course, the cemetery is a place to be respectful. But I can´t help but be awed by the vista. There is always an amazing view in Xela, even when raining (even if I have singularly failed to capture the majesty of the mountains and the volcano with the camera). But this morning there were just some exquisite scenes that just take your breath away. Such as the following view of an aisle of mausoleums and the Santa Maria volcano.
Tonight, Loyola has invited me to attend the special "Forty Days" Mass in remembrance of Juan Rodrigo, and then to her house to share in some food afterward. I have not yet seen this particular parish, so I am looking forward to it. But I know that it is going to be a very difficult time for Loyola and her family as they continue to grieve.
Please keep Juan Rodrigo, Loyola, and the entire family in your prayers. Thank you.
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