I managed to finagle my way onto the walk up the Volcano de Agua. We set out at 4:00am to catch the buses from Antigua to the town of Santa Maria where the hike began – at 5:30 we started the hike up the volcano.
One of the narrower parts of the trail
The altitude, terrain and number of participants made for a hike that was fairly strenuous. As I was walking I found it interesting and encouraging that the majority of the participants were men since this was an event to bring about awareness to and reduce domestic violence.
Above the clouds
After about 4 hours I made it to the top where people were waiting for the announcement to create the human chain. There were plenty of reporters and helicopters with film crews to document the event. Spread out across the crater was a gigantic piece of nylon with a huge heart printed in the middle of it. Everyone gathered around, picked up the canvas and began to wave it up and down.
Preparations to form the heart in the center of the crater.
At the heart of the crater
Further down the volcano thousands of people lined up to pass a flag up the mountain to the crater. The trip down with thousands of people trying to negotiate a mostly one lane path, in addition to the dust they created made for a very long and uncomfortable descent. Once we were back in Santa Maria the number of people that took part in this event overwhelmed the busses that were designated to take them back to Antigua. I understand that some people waited about 3 hours for a bus.
The dusty trail
The masses waiting for a bus to return to Antigua
On a whole I commend the organizers – while there were many things that could have been done much better, the idea and the amount of work and organization to pull off something like this was still impressive. This event was organized by Ensena Amor: No Violencia (Teaches Love)
Nina
Thank you for sharing this. It’s great that people take action in bringing awareness to issues that are difficult to even talk about.
Stacey White
Phil, you always manage to take part in such amazing events. In case you haven’t seen it yet, Huffington post has an aerial image of the heart.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/24/guatemala-volcano-protest-domestic-violence_n_1228333.html
Thanks for sharing
Phil Borges
Awesome, thanks Stacey!
rebeca donoso
hi just want to congratulate you! amazing job hopefully with it more of the social needs and problems will be noticed by it
best wishes keep going
Richard A. Heckler
Phil: Very much enjoyed this blog. Such playful creativity applied to serious social change. Kudos to you and all. Wanted to point you to some new blogging of mine, that very much has had your wonderful influence. Safe returns and best to you. RH
http://rhalexanderphotography.com/live/reflections-of-a-buddhist-photographer-2
Phil Borges
Richard,
Thank you very much – both for checking out the blog and your thoughtful words!