Plan Hormiga

As I walk though the fields of corn in Pachaj I can’t help but notice how familiar this town feels to me regardless of how different the corn appears due to the season. The community of Pachaj is home to Chico Mendes Reforestation Project, a long time friend and partner of Dragons in a reciprocal process of learning from one another. We have spent the last few weeks working together with Armando, the project organizer, in his Quiche village to plant trees for our collective future. Every day we learn more about the environmental issues of Guatemala, and the complexities of the systems that drive them. Armando speaks from his heart about both the problems he sees in the world, and the obligations he feels towards nature, as a form of repayment for all it provides him and his family.
At times I see the frustration of all the problems weighing on our students, and sometimes myself…they can seem so complicated and insurmountable. Throughout my trips with Dragons students I have heard so many times “but how can one person really go up against a system that seems so irreversible?”, a question I still ask myself at times, although less and less these days. I owe much of my optimism for the future of our environment to the community of Pachaj, and the time I have spent here. Armando talks with great passion about “Plan Hormiga” (The Ant Plan), which illustrates his philosophy on how to go about making necessary changes in our world that will benefit future generations. If you have ever sat and observed ants, you notice that they all work diligently, and selflessly towards a common goal. When volunteers and students come though Pachaj, their contributions are one step in the progression, their work will be picked up by the next person to arrive, and so continues the process, binding us all together by the this common desire to create a better future for all of our children through planting trees.
I don’t think until very recently I fully understood Plan Hormiga on a deeper level than just being a nice analogy created to give people hope, and a sense of purpose. This understanding comes from being lucky enough to see the links connecting into a chain through my student groups. The students this semester are planting trees in the plastic bags my group filled up in August. We have been hiking up into the mountains and revisiting trees planted by students from past summers, giving them care and making sure they continue to grow. As I watched my students clearing the weeds from the bases of these trees, it connected their work and intentions with those of my past students, and I realized that the Plan Hormiga is real. Even if students do not come back to Chico Mendes (although many do) they are taking a piece of this consciousness, a piece of Chico Mendes with them throughout the rest of their lives, creating a web that connects us all in a way that we may not even comprehend. I am only starting to understand the power of this solidarity that Armando has been watching play out over numerous years, through countless pairs of hands plunging themselves into the same tierra.
I am realizing although it may be easy to claim that our problems are too big to conquer, it is also easy to be part of a Hormiga Plan no matter where we are. I now know that when we pack up our bags and head out of Pachaj, when the season and corn fields change, other hands will take our place, and we will carry this new conciseness to our respective communities and beyond…and this gives me hope.