By: Meara Donovan, BTS cooperant (2026)

“Mira, ¡un perro de Río Negro!” (Look, a Río Negro dog!)
“¡Y un palo de Río Negro!” (And a stick from Río Negro!)

The students are joking around as our packed van pulls through the gates, inching towards the Chixoy hydroelectric dam and the boats awaiting our arrival.

I’m shocked by how heavily guarded the area is. Many armed officers patrol the area, even after the security check at the gate where they reviewed our entire group’s documentation.

After a five-hour journey that began before sunrise, we welcome the crunch of pebbles under our feet as we hop out of the van. There’s been a heat wave in Rabinal, and today is no exception; the midday sun is a blazing 34ºC.

As is typical during these activities, the male students are tasked with carrying heavy food-filled pots and a large insulated container of coffee down a gravel path towards the water while our boats cruise into view.

Photo of the students from FNE at the boat station getting ready to go to Rio Negro.

At the boat station. Photo credit: Fredy Tecú Osorio

A short 15 minutes on the water takes us to our destination of the aptly named Los Encuentros. Meaning “The Meetings,” this site is the crossroads of the Salamá and Chixoy rivers, as well as the rendez-vous point of Guatemala’s Baja Verapaz, Alta Verapaz, and Quiché departments.

We disembark at the foot of a cerro (hilltop) and begin a short but steep trek up a sandy path that sticks to the sweat on our bodies. In this heat, most of the plants are crisp and dry, coated with dust. When we reach the top, we find a small space cleared of vegetation for a capilla (chapel or shrine). This shrine serves as a shelter for remembrance, allowing people to hold vigils and ceremonies just as communities have done at other sites of tragedy, most notably in Pak’oxom.

The capilla is still under construction. To finish it, a group of students is sent back down to fetch sheets of galvanized steel roofing. Two days prior, Don Fidel Chen, Don Antonio Osorio, Don Mario Sánchez, Don Juan Chen, Don Juan Alvarado, and Don Sebastian Osorio travelled to the site to start work on the structure. They worked day and night to complete the construction in less than 48 hours.

Photo of three men playing marimba

Marimba trio. Photo credit: Fredy Tecú Osorio

To be completely honest, when we first arrived, I was uncomfortable – sand fleas everywhere that no amount of swatting could deter and way too many people crowded into a small patch of shade seeking solace from the heat, all covered in sweat and sand.

We’re here, as I am reminded by a fellow teacher, to be thirsty, to be tired, to be sweaty, dirty, and uncomfortable, because this isn’t about the pleasantness of our environment; it’s about holding vigil for lives lost. It was an important reminder to leave space for many truths.

I’m reminded of the way such commemoration ceremonies often unite grief and tragedy with joy and laughter. Time and time again, I’m met with these coexistences of seemingly opposite forces.

Once the heat really starts to get to us, I stumble down the steep sandy hill to go for a dip with a group of students. As quickly as the cool water splashes off sweat and sand, so too does it change our energy.

After two hours of aquatic antics, we sprawl out in the river grass, currently on land as the water level is low, and let the sun dry us off. It can be pretty easy to get into your own head, focusing only on your personal discomfort, but a little connection with others in nature goes a long way in reframing your perspective.

Photo of the students swimming and splashing in the river.

Splashing in the sun. Photo credit: Fredy Tecú Osorio

Feeling refreshed and present, we climb back up the hill towards the growing melody of the marimba. The musicians, three abuelos (elders), have started to play. Their ability to play for hours, from day until night in any condition is impressive. It is them, really, who dictate the cadence of a ceremony.

As the sun begins to set, Don Jesús Tecú Osorio invites us to take a seat; the students lay out their petate, traditional mats handwoven from dried palm leaves, to listen to survivor testimonies. Unlike the settlement of Los Encuentros, which was flooded by the Chixoy dam, the stories of survivors and community members will not be buried under water.

The first to speak is Don Mario Sánchez. What he wants most is for us to pay attention so that we can share the stories that pain them to tell.

Don Mario’s parents were from Los Encuentros. He recounts their journey to the community of Pacux in Rabinal to receive the homes promised during the construction of the Chixoy dam, a promise that was never delivered upon. In Rabinal, they faced discrimination, and at home, false accusations of insurgency, at the time used by the government as an excuse to justify the violent destruction of communities.

Don Mario highlights over and over that his family, his people, his community were not guerrilleros (guerrillas). They were peaceful resistors in the face of state-imposed injustice, trying to save their home. He points out:

“No somos peces para que vivamos en el agua, ni somos aves para que vivamos en el aire, sino somos humanos que vivimos de nuestra tierra y madre naturaleza.”
[We are not fish so that we might live in the water, nor are we birds so that we might live in the air; rather, we are humans who live off our land and mother nature.]

The next to speak is Don Fidel Chen. His family fled to Los Encuentros from Río Negro, in hopes to escape the violence. On May 14th 1982, while he and some other kids bathed in the same river as we did today, they watched as military trucks drove along the river towards their community. Before questions could be asked or conversations had, the soldiers opened fire on the community with guns and grenades. Don Fidel chokes up, recounting the bodies left for the dogs and vultures, with no one remaining to bury them.

He remembers how four days after the massacre, a helicopter, white in colour with a blue stripe down the middle, made four trips back and forth from Los Encuentros, forcing women and children to board, after which they were taken to the Cobán military base and never heard from again.

Our third speaker, Don Antonio Osorio, shares a childhood scarred by suffering and violence. He too recalls the violent and sudden onslaught of gunshots and explosions, and how they killed ten youth, including his older brother, Cornelio Osorio Lajuj. His next days were spent in hiding in fear and hunger until he made it to a nearby community. The man he was staying with, fearing the return of the soldiers and worried for his own safety, “gifted” young Antonio to a family in Tactic, a nearby town in Alta Verapaz.

In Tactic, Don Antonio was all alone. He was only nine years old. Having grown up speaking Maya Achí, he couldn’t speak any Spanish, and for three years, he endured daily physical, verbal, and emotional abuse.

After three years, he escaped and took a bus to Rabinal. When he arrived in Pacux, he enrolled in school as soon as possible. At the age of 13, he began his first year of primary school. Hardly four years later, he was brought by force to the military base in Cobán where he was forced to serve among the very people who took his family.

It is hard for me to stop the tears from welling up as I hear these men choke on the names of their slaughtered big brothers, their baby sisters, their mothers, and their fathers. The only way we can ease their burden is by listening to their stories. The more we can share them, the less they have to relive their trauma as the sole carriers and re-tellers of their experiences.

* * *

On May 14th 1982, armed soldiers and members of the Civil Defense Patrols (PAC) arrived in the community of Los Encuentros, where many survivors from the preceding massacres had fled. They murdered 79 people, and at least 15 others were kidnapped by helicopter.

In 2012, the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) began exhumations at the CREOMPAZ military base outside the city of Cobán, finding 565 human remains in one of Latin America’s largest mass graves. Many were found bound with ropes around their wrists and neck. Amongst them were victims from Los Encuentros.

This ceremony is the third in a series of commemorations honouring the victims of the four Río Negro massacres carried out in 1982; February 13 in Xococ, March 13 in Pak’oxom, May 14 in Los Encuentros, and September 14 in Aguas Frías.

Two women kneel to light candles for the ceremony

Candles lit to honour the victims of the Los Encuentros massacre. Photo credit: Fredy Tecú Osorio

Photo of the candles shining in the dark

* * *

The commemoration ended with a traditional Maya Achí fire ceremony. People sat around the fire, illuminated by the glow of the flames and the flicker of candles laid out in honour of the victims. We made offerings of sugar, sesame, and candles, while two elders performed the ritual.

The marimba music didn’t stop until five o’clock the next morning.

Watch the full ceremony here, including the performance by the marimba trio and the construction of the historical memory chapel in Caserío Los Encuentros (Rabinal, Baja Verapaz).

Group photo of the students and teachers from the FNE at Los Encuentros

FNE students and teachers at Los Encuentros. Photo credit: Fredy Tecú Osorio

Sources cited and resources to learn more: