Lifeline to a Devastated Guatemala

SANTIAGO ATITLAN, Guatemala -- When landslides smothered his village earlier this month, burying dozens of flimsy houses and hundreds of people under mounds of mud, Jose Mogollon, 70, and his wife, Antonieta, were safely tucked away in a strong, eight-room house in this nearby town on the edge of Lake Atitlan.

The elderly couple, a retired janitor and cook, are far from wealthy. But when disaster struck, they had a distinct advantage over many of their neighbors. Their grown children, scattered from Fairfax to California and Canada, had built them a second home, farther from the steep volcanic slopes that surround the village of Panabaj.

For families across Central America, transfers of cash from children abroad can mean the difference between poverty and plenty. But when a calamity occurs, such as the torrential rains and mudslides that devastated regions of Guatemala in the wake of Hurricane Stan, believed to have killed at least 1,500 people, a personal link to the north can mean the difference between comfortably recovering and barely surviving.

In the case of the Mogollon family, the first days after the devastating mudslides were far more harrowing for their children overseas, thousands of miles away with no means of knowing whether their parents had survived.

"For three days, we had no news of them at all," said Amanda Mogollon, 42, who lives in a neatly decorated brick house in Fairfax with her brother, Luis, 37, another sister and their children. "We were desperate. We called and called. The highways were closed, the bridges were falling. There was no communication at all."

After a week, phone service was restored and Jose and Antonieta's phone rang at 3 a.m. It was Luis. Antonieta told him that their old wooden house in Panabaj had been spared, but that many friends had lost their homes in the avalanche of mud and debris and several had been killed. She told him that drinking water and supplies were scarce in town, and their funds were running low.

Luis, who owns a floor installation business, wired $200 to his parents the next day.

Across the metropolitan Washington region, home to an estimated 60,000 Guatemalan immigrants, many others rushed to help. Some, like the Mogollons, had relatives directly affected by the crisis, but most were moved by an equally strong bond of concern for their homeland at a time of need.

The U.S.-Guatemala Chamber of Commerce, which represents dozens of small-business owners in the Washington region, raised $65,000. Three Spanish-language radio stations here held fund-raising marathons the previous two weekends, broadcasting live from Hispanic groceries and clubs. Other local groups, including the Guatemalan Fraternity and Pueblo a Pueblo, raised more money for medical aid and emergency supplies.

"We have very few people from Atitlan, not many from the affected areas, but people were very generous -- not only Guatemalans, but Salvadorans and others," said Marco Sanchez, president of the chamber and owner of tax preparation and Internet design businesses in Adams Morgan. He said the cash was being flown to a bank in Guatemala, accompanied by volunteers to make sure it arrived safely.

Jack Page, an American physician who was working this week in Santiago Atitlan, said that "anybody who has family working in the United States is helped enormously when something like this happens."

"Even in good times, Santiago has a 50 percent unemployment rate," he said. "Now it's even worse, and it makes whatever help they can get from the States more critical."