My Story

Chuchuca, where your child lives, is an area located high on the side of a mountain in the state of Quiché, Guatemala. Life in this area is very difficult and very isolated from the outside world. It is more than a two-hour walk to the nearest market town of Zacualpa. Chuchuca is a farming area where corn and black beans, the staple elements in their diet, are the major crops. The Quiché Indians who inhabit this area trace their ancestral roots to the ancient Mayan civilization. They normally speak an Indian dialect called Quiché - however, Spanish is becoming more common. Very little money ever changes hands in this area as they live on a barter system.

Hello! I am Jeyson Sergio Gomez Gutierrez. My birthdate is March 28, 2014, which makes me 10 years of age now. This year I attend 2^nd grade at school. I like hens, and my favorite color is yellow. The meal I love the most is fried chicken. I enjoy playing ball in my free time. I have two brothers and one sister. My family and I are healthy. My biological father´s name is Jacinto Gomez Garcia. However, he abandoned my mother when she was pregnant with me. My mother´s name is Maria Gutierrez Garcia. Most of the time she stays busy with the chores, and she also raises hens. My stepfather is Rolando Simaj Luis. He makes a living by working as a day laborer in our village, and he also goes to pick coffee beans on the coast for three months to get more income. We do not grow anything due to a lack of space; we have to buy corn to make our tortillas.

We attend the Assembly of God Church. The house in which we live belongs to one of my mother´s cousins and fortunately, we do not pay anything to live there. There are three rooms and we use two of them. The kitchen is separate. The house is made of adobe, tin roof and a dirt floor. We do not have running water and we get it from a natural spring with the help of a jar and plastic containers. We have electricity and my mother pays for it every month. My family and I are in need of corn and groceries; those are the essential for us. I thank God for allowing me to be registered in the feeding program and I usually walk one and a half hours to get to the program. I appreciate you are interesting and reading my information. Every kind of blessings over you!

Warm regards,

Jeyson Sergio Gomez Gutierrez

Translated by: Violeta Hernandez / A-A-C Secretary-Antigua Guatemala