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Carole L�ger is witness to...
I have lived in Guatemala for three years as a volunteer co-ordinator of international development. I am gradually discovering the complexity of the stakes that dermine Guatemalans� everyday reality. The exhuberance of vegetation masks the unpredictable power of nature: regularly, the earth trembles, volcanoes spit, the seas invade black-sanded beaches, hurricanes destroy� Amid this vulnerability, in the calm and regularity of sunrises and sunsets, we rejoice in splendid days that almost make us believe in an eternal spring.
Carole L�ger maintains her utopian ideals.
My involvement with indigenous, marginalized groups has exposed me to misery, poverty, almost indescribable conditions. Seeing these children, women and farmers fighting for survival, confined to helplessness and contagious hopelessness, I find myself split among looks of candour, expectation and deception.
Protected by my foreign status as a Canadian, always in demand and witness to so much, I go back and forth between indignation and anger. Driven by an ambitious, utopian wish for a peaceful, just and equitable development, I am still seeking the path to a better world. It is impossible to remain indifferent or objective in the face of social and economic exclusion of a society where discrimination, exploitation, oppression, repression, censorship and confrontation thrive in a climate of constant, institutionalized violence. Inequity of the distribution of wealth and privileges reaches a level of scandal when it condemns most to ignorance and deprives them of the fundamental right to human dignity.
All these signs and factors � of socioeconomic degradation and the unravelling of the fabric of community � manifest themselves in every layer of society. In an environment where fear, distrust and vengance reign, we no longer notice the threats, the attacks.
In this context I carefully take on the challenge of maintaining a constructive spirit and of preserving, with enthusiasm, my ideals.
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