None of us is as strong as all of us

I have been thinking a lot about Miles these days. We need this more than ever.

Last week, as everything seemed to change, I was with a group of students in Copal AA, Guatemala, a small Mayan village formed by 86 refugee families in 1995 in the wake of the genocide in Guatemala. When we got back in internet range and the scale of what was happening in the US became apparent, I kept thinking about how our experience in Copal AA could be useful in this time of social stress. They so embody the sentiment expressed on Miles' headstone.

For example, I was deeply moved by the micro-hydroelectric project the community is working on -- with families donating labor. Since I was there last summer, they had dug a 3/4 km long trench - 1 meter x 1 meter in cross section, with walls and floor of reinforced concrete -- along the contours of a steep jungle slope. Every bit of concrete and rebar had to be hauled in on their backs up a 1 km long muddy road (after the 3 1/2 hour kidney-jarring drive from Coban, the nearest city) and mixed and formed on site. Here's a photo of the mayor of the community telling us about the project and the way they have designed it to protect the river behind. Below is an image of the channel that will carry the diverted water to the turbine. None of us is as strong as all of us.