Since 2010 I have been working very hard to build a school for the arts. Working as an artist has been very difficult in Guatemala because we do not have many well-paid contracts in the country, but we have had opportunities to travel abroad, and have participated in international festivals and have given talks at universities in the USA. With scarce work in the arts I had slowly been able to build the house/school. I worked for 10 years building this dream. The building's wood had many carvings, it was practically a sculpture, my piece of art. On April 8 thieves broke into the house to steal my tools. I filed a complaint with the police and the municipality but there was no response.
Unfortunately, on the morning of May 10 at 1am two boys came to wake me up, they informed me that my house was burning because they saw it from the other side of the hill. I ran to the house, I also thought it could be a kidnapping, but to my misfortune when I arrived, the fire had already spread and there was no water to put out the fire, and I could not get close because it was a great column of fire. The fire consumed the entire wooden house, and burned everything around the house: the avocado trees, the corn plants and the bean plants. The area was devastated, and the house was burned in its entirety, except for the stone foundations that were the only thing that was saved.
The fire was deliberately caused, since there was no gas or electricity in the house ... I started to investigate and found indications of where the fire started. I found the papers they used to start the fire, papers that I did not have in the house. I also found caps from beer bottles and a can of food. We have suspicions of people who live near my house, because they have a known record of frequent criminal activity. The complaints were presented to the Public Ministry, an entity that is dedicated to investigating crimes, but due to the coronavirus, they are not attending to this type of crime, the judge told me.
All the dreams were lost, years of work disappeared.The most painful thing is that we have space problems with my family, because we live in a very small house, a house that already needs to be demolished because it has cracks in the walls, and especially during the rainy season it gets very wet. I feel it is dangerous for our health, especially in these times. We were looking forward to being able to move soon into the new space.
Now I can no longer travel to the United States. The concert dates are canceled, and also during my last entry to the United States they asked me to begin using another type of visa. Previously I used a tourist visa, but now they are asking for an artist's visa, and it is a slightly more complicated and expensive process to obtain one.
This is all like a bad dream that I want to wake up from, I lack the strength to understand that my home / school no longer exists.
Fortunately, many people from my community came to donate food and financial support, as well as all the friends, friends from different countries, who have sent me moral and financial support, I sincerely thank you all.
www.gofundme.c...
10 июн 2020
