Why Should We Donate an Ambulance to San Carlos Alzatate?

It started your as a typical lame firefighter joke. While visiting the fire station of San Carlos Alzatate, Guatemala, I innocently asked what year their ambulance was… “Which part?” they replied. As it turns out, the sole ambulance of Alzatate is something of a Shelleyan monster built from of the corpses of other dead vehicles.

“Like Frankenstein?” I asked, laughing… and a new nickname was born.

_{A tongue-in-cheek logo for San Carlos Alzatate’s Ambulance}

The major parts of the body came from a mid-eighties Toyota van that still bears the scars of a roll-over accident in an earlier life. The motor is from an anonymous Datsun found in an auto graveyard. The windows, bumpers and other body attachments were likewise grafted on to the vehicle in various automotive transplant surgeries. There is more Bondo than metal. Even the Emergency lights appear to have once served as a half of a light bar from another emergency vehicle. All it lacks is a lightning rod to jump start it.

The firefighters managed to raise 900 Quetzales last year (about $116 usd), enough to have a little body work done and get it painted white by a local man with a spray gun. Like makeup on Frankenstein’s monster, it does not hide the scars. The tires are bald and undersized, the suspension worn out and sagging. When it rains, it can no longer climb the few paved streets in town, much less the rock and mud tracks that lead to the municipality’s rural villages.

But the firefighters are proud to have anything at all. If they can’t reach the patient with the ambulance, they will bring the patient to the ambulance. Even when it means carrying people several miles over rocky roads strapped to their one backboard.

Getting to the Ambulance is only the beginning of the adventure…

San Carlos Alzatate is a medium sized town (pop. 23,000) in the remote mountains of the Jalapa Department, on the slopes of the volcano that shares its name. The people are largely indigenous Xinka (pronounced Sheenka). They are POOR, with over 85% living in poverty. Most are subsistence farmers. The largest part of their annual cash income comes from working the coffee plantations during the three month winter harvest season. Coffee is the only real “industry” in the area.

What little health care they have is provided during the day by the Clinica Salud, a government run family practice clinic with little in the way of supplies or medicines. Anything more serious, and any emergency, requires transport to the hospital in Jutiapa… well over an hour away…ON A GOOD DAY.

There are not many good days.

There are two routes into or out of Alzatate. Pavement is non-existent on either road, In fact the word “road” is a generous description. The southwest road is rarely wider than single lane, rocky, muddy, steep and very windy. It requires fording two rivers to pass. Yup, fording… driving through, not around, the shallow rivers. In times of heavy rain, which is often, the route becomes impassable without four wheel drive and the skills to go with it. We came in this way, with the AMEDICA-mobile, and will not do so again. (We kind of like having the differential and oil pan attached to the car). The northeast “road” isn’t any better. Though without the rivers to ford, it is extremely steep, often muddy, and a harrowing trip without a 4×4.

Doing so in a 35 year old, two wheel drive, ambulance assembled from used spare parts, at night, in the rain, with bald tires is a little frightening.

There is Dedication, then there is well… Alzatate Dedication

The life of a firefighter is never easy, but here in Alzatate it is an order of magnitude more difficult. The city pays the five firefighter’s salaries (about $300 usd a month for a 24-on, 24-off schedule without additional days off.) and allows them the use of a former small elementary school for a station, but not much else. What firefighting equipment they have was provided by the national firefighting association, ASONBOMD, (a few extinguishers and two SCBA) and a donation from AMEDICAusa (Helmets, turnouts, boots and more SCBA).

Firefighters here have no fire engine, but rely on the “Frankenlance”, assorted ABC and CO² fire extinguishers and bucket brigades for structural fires and a handful of hand-me-down tools for wildland fires. EMS supplies are purchased through the fundraising efforts of the firefighters themselves, who must often spend part of their shift and days off trying to elicit small donations from passers-by on the main road. They would like to build an auxiliary corps of volunteers, but the expense and difficulties in send prospective volunteers to Guatemala City for training is beyond their means.

EMS supplies are purchased through the fundraising efforts of the firefighters themselves, who must often spend part of their shift and days off trying to elicit small donations from passers-by on the main road.
_{Fire Chief Erick Najera & firefighter stand at the main entrance into town collecting donations from passing motorists and pedestrians. This is also what keeps the doors open and the lights on .}

A Firefighter’s life

Twenty six year old Fire chief Erick Najera is a prime example of the firefighter’s life in remote Guatemala. Sitting over cups of local coffee in his modest home, he shared a little of his story with us. (The coffee, home roasted, and stone ground, is phenomenally good. Interested in coffee from San Carlos Alzatate? Let us know .)

The son of a campesino (farm worker), he, his wife and newborn son still live in the old adobe home in a nearby aldea (village) along with their extended family. He managed to finish high school, doing an enlistment as an infantryman in Guatemala’s army. (No small feat in a country whose rural children rarely progress beyond 6th grade before leaving to work in the fields.) He proudly displays the certificate and small medal he received while training with the U.S. Special Forces during his time in the military.

On his discharge from the army, Najera returned home to Alzatate and came into contact with the local comité, a group of local business men and government officials, who were trying to start a new fire company in town. Erick wanted to serve. He began the arduous process of training to become not only a firefighter, but an officer as well. He travelled to distant Guatemala City to attend the required classes at the ASONBOMD fire academy. With nothing in his pocket, still trying to provide for his family and organize the new department at the same time, it took five long years.

In 2019, the 119 Company of Alzatate received it’s certification from ASONBOMD. It became the newest of the sparsely scattered 250 official fire companies in Guatemala, and Comandante Najera is at its helm. They provide fire/rescue services not only to the town but also to the surrounding villages and hamlets. They must struggle daily to reach their people who live in this remote region.

AMEDICAusa’s effort to Donate an Ambulance to Alzatate

Unfortunately, the trials of the firefighters in Alzatate are not unique in Guatemala. AMEDICAusa has long been supporting the fire companies who provide emergency services in the most hazardous country in the world. San Carlos Alzatate is but one, and each presents its own challenges.

The chief obstacle in Alzatate is its terrain and primitive roads. While we can’t fix the roads, we can search for and donate a vehicle that will suit their specific needs. We need your help. We are seeking one (or more, we have other companies that could really use them) 4×4 ambulance(s) that might be available for donation. The vehicle would hopefully be:

Four Wheel Drive
Of a common make that would not present a huge parts availability problem.
In good enough condition to allow immediate use in the field
Be diesel powered. Gasoline is expensive in Central America, Diesel a little less so.

If you have or know of one that is available, contact us at AMEDICAusa. There may be significant tax advantages to private parties/companies for their donation.

This is not a political story. We will not be discussing the merits of international policy decisions, the linkage of ideology to food, nor the wisdom of alienating your neighbors. Rather it is simply our purpose to point out that, in the absence of United States international aid, the challenges for non-governmental agencies, such as ours, become both greater and more important. We should never give up in Guatemala.

In short, it is a plea for donations.

Some humanitarian programs formally supported by U.S. aid will wither and die. Defunding the U.S. backed security programs will cause the Guatemalan government to shift monies away from social programs to security and military uses. In either case their absence will leave a vacuum that can only be filled by the charities and NGOs operating in the northern triangle countries.

It is your concern when your neighbor’s house is on fire.
Horace, Roman Poet 65 BC – 8 BC

Because of it’s unique geology and geography, Guatemala suffers from repeating natural disasters. Sitting on the nexus of four tectonic plates, earthquakes are an ever-present threat. Three of the thirty volcanoes in Guatemala are actively erupting as you read this. Tropical storms and hurricanes strike from both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. The rainy season brings floods and life threatening landslides, the dry season brings wildfires and drought.

Against these threats stands Guatemala’s Fire Service, the only dependable and organized emergency services in the country. Made up of roughly 250 fire stations nationwide, they subsist on little but donations. Their personal gear, equipment, ambulances and fire engines are largely donated, second or third hand tools from the United States. (For comparison, Tennessee, roughly the same size as Guatemala, but with only a third the population, has over a thousand fire stations to serve it’s citizens.) .

Why Guatemalans Flee

Poverty, violence, poor education, endemic corruption and natural disasters mar the country known as “the land of eternal spring.” Still recovering after four decades of a bloody civil war, the poverty rate, those who live on $2.00 a day or less, hovers around 65%. The rate is much higher among the indigenous Maya peoples and the rural population. (260 people own 56% of ALL of the wealth of Guatemala.) Education outside of Guatemala City rarely extends beyond 6th grade. Eight in ten indigenous Maya children suffer from chronic malnutrition. Ninety percent of all the physicians in the country practice in Guatemala City, leaving few resources for the remainder of the country’s 17.5 million people. Violence in the cities has reached epidemic proportions, fueled by the maras (gangs) and narcotraficantes. Police services are suspect at best and governmental corruption is the norm, with both the last president and his vice president awaiting trial for various corruption schemes. Awash in international debt, abandoned by the foreign corporations that profited by exporting their natural resources, and struggling to make it’s way forward in the developing world, the Guatemalan government is simply unable to meet the needs of it’s people without aid from the outside.

Rising need, dwindling resources

Since 2015 our annual small donations have dropped by half. Other NGOs we have spoken with in Central America have reported similar declines. Whether this is the product of changes in political rhetoric and attitudes about Central Americans or the decline in tax advantages in the changing tax code remain to be seen.

What is not in question is the result. With fewer funds, charities are unable to reach many of those most in need. With the coming vacuum in U.S. foreign aid to Central America the numbers of people in need will rise.

From a humanitarian view, it is very bad math.

So, it is our purpose to reach out to the private citizens and corporations to step up and help fill the void. Yes, we would be honored if you would donate to us. But, if not us, find a charity working in Central America that you trust, whose mission you want to support, and send them a few bucks.

Author: Neale Brown

Frankenstein & Coffee Beans