Starving in McMansions: Big homes in poor Guatemala

Starving in McMansions: Big homes in poor Guatemala
Giovanna Dell'Orto, Round Earth Media 5:46 p.m. EDT June 10, 2015


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With money that three of his children working in the U.S. sent him, Alejandro Rojas was able to afford an
extravagant house in this desolate area of Guatemala. But Rojas, who struggles to feed his family,
cannot afford to live in the house, so he rents it out and lives in a nearby shack.

(Photo: Giovanna Dell’Orto/Special for the Republic)
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"We eat more or less, one can't say well. Frijoles, tortillas, this way we survive," Alejandro Rojas said. He was waiting for an evangelical pastor to start Sunday services in the outsized and empty house that Rojas rents out while hoping his older children will one day return to live in it.

"They went because of necessity, but I want them to come back," he said. "They have no papers."

There are many homes like this throughout Mexico and Central America, but they are most visible in smaller villages like aldea (or township) San Antonio, where so many young men have left for work in the U.S.

Many are deserted for a variety of reasons — the construction was never finished, the owners never returned or they're so different from the homes people here are used to that they're simply uncomfortable living in them.

The transnational dreams of Guatemalan migrants are especially evident in the clash between these McMansions — often decorated in red, white and blue — and the below-subsistence everyday life in largely indigenous areas like Cabricán.

"In the United States, the indigenous (migrants) go to the bottom of the ladder, but then coming back it's the opposite, they're at the top of the village," said Ruth Piedrasanta Herrera, an anthropologist at Guatemala's Rafael Landívar University, a private, Jesuit school.

More:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/06/10/round-earth-media-guatemala-mcmansions/28734071/