Coeur d'Alene family finds new calling in Guatemala

The Bourque family of Coeur d’Alene is fighting history.

Nearly six decades ago, the fallout of a U.S.-backed coup d’etat hit the farmers and peasants of Guatemala, pushing the country into a civil war. The chaos of the nearly four-decade conflict ended in 1996, but not before the small Central American nation bore witness to war crimes, untold deaths and genocide, the effects of which still resonate with the local population.

Estimates of the civil war’s death toll range between 140,000 and 200,000; the vast majority of the casualties were of Maya descent. Of the more than 43,000 human-rights violations that occurred in the country from 1960 to 1996, 93 percent were carried out by state-sponsored forces against indigenous people.

Between the 626 massacre sites, the half-million displaced refugees and the nation’s history of government corruption sits the village of Chajul, 90 miles inland on the side of a mountain.

Though the war ended 23 years ago, its aftermath haunts Chajul to this day. The most basic of services are luxuries. Three-quarters of villagers are illiterate. Many of the villagers saw the genocide first-hand, which created a devastating emotional toll. The people are desperately poor, with most subsisting on on less than $3 per day.

Enter Janet and Fred Bourque.

“At first,” Fred said, “I thought it was great because it kept her busy. Then, after a while, I started helping out, packing up boxes, looking through garage sales for backpacks, materials, tiny shoes, that sort of thing. It’s very rewarding, and there’s no financial reward for us. It’s just satisfaction.”

“Ninety percent of the village is malnourished,” Janet said. “There are no social services, not like we have here in the United States, so it’s very difficult. The schools have been closed there for 36 years [because of the war], so we have a generation of adults down there who have no formal education.”

Janet volunteered to travel to the war-torn nation in 2011 to teach English through a foundation devoted to educating Maya students. There, in the city of Antigua, she met a young man named Manuel Laynez Anay, a student who walked 92 miles through the Guatemalan countryside to attend school.

“He’s such a bright young man,” Janet recalled. “He’s very kind, very honest, very honorable. You could tell right away he had a future ahead of him.”

Anay did not respond to a request for an interview. Janet said the Chajul native walked this journey because of his one goal: to learn English.

The Bourques covered Anay’s university tuition. Education and language skills can provide a local with the tools to negotiate export costs and crop prices — the particular crop, in this case, is coffee.

Erosion, disease and a recent blight left the village’s soil in peril and its coffee trees sickly and damaged. Hence the need for tiny shoes: Mothers in Chajul typically carry their children until the age of 3 out of fear that they’ll contract disease through their feet.

In 2016, through a series of nonprofit outreach programs, the Bourque family bought 2,800 young coffee trees, as well as equipment so locals could shuck beans at industrial scale rather than by hand. The saplings take four years to produce a crop.

“I think this is the first year they’re producing,” Fred said.

The Bourques enlisted help from their three sons: Tom and John live in Coeur d’Alene; Victor lives in Bellevue. The family continues to collect clothing, shoes and backpacks, as well as pieces for a popular game in Guatemala.

“They love chess,” Fred said, “so we send them as many chess sets as we can find.”

Daughter Renee, of Whidbey Island and California, established scholarships for students in the area. The family solicits support from neighbors and area organizations. A Spokane Valley church, for example, is collecting feminine hygiene starter kits to donate to the women of Chajul.

“What’s sort of interesting is a lot of the young men in the village have joined the [migrant] caravan,” Fred said. “There aren’t a lot of people left there now. If we can make life better down there, maybe they won’t feel the need to risk their lives to come all the way up here.”

Coffee was not the only thing to grow from the Coeur d’Alene family’s generosity.

Anay did more than just learn to read. He’s about to graduate with a master’s degree in business. With help from the Bourques, he founded a farmer’s co-op in Chajul in 2013. He serves as coordinator at Academia de Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala, which promotes Maya culture and regulates the 22 Mayan languages within Guatemala’s borders.

Last month he was also elected the youngest vice mayor in the history of the Chajul municipality — Guatemala’s version of a county — and its 50,000 people.

“I’m so proud of him,” Janet said. “It’s so difficult down there, because they only have electricty four hours a day, and they had no Internet. They don’t have the services we have up here.”

When asked why they contribute, Fred spoke matter-of-factly.

“Because it’s there,” he said. “The Good Book tells us to take care of ourselves and our neighbors, so why not do it?”

“I think it needs to be done, and someone needs to do it,” Janet agreed. “It started out very small, and it’s just grown from there.”

The Bourques aren’t done. They’re looking to help locals continue their education, which in Chajul typically end somewhere between the third and sixth grades.

“We’re starting a sewing school [in Chajul],” Janet said. “Some of these kids come from families with no resources. They’re really bright people who sacrificed to stay in school through the sixth grade. Now we’re going to help get them through to the ninth grade.”

“The parents of these kids help as well. The parents donate their time and talents to the school to help support the program.”

To donate clothes, backpacks or shoes, call Janet at 208-964-0402.