Bringing power to rural Guatemala
By Bert Lehman
Mack Yarbrough embarked on a journey to Guatemala on Sept. 30, to help families in a rural village get electricity for the very first time.
An operations crew leader for Central Wisconsin Electric Cooperative, he joined 11 other volunteer linemen from Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa.
The trip was part of the Partners for a Brighter Tomorrow project.
Yarbrough said he volunteered because Guatemala is a country he probably would never visit otherwise.
He also expected the project would be interesting and eye-opening.
“I thought it would be pretty cool as a milestone in my career,” Yarbrough said.
Yarbrough said the work to bring electricity to the remote village of Salinas 7 Cerros, located in north-central Guatemala, would be challenging.
Making the work tougher was the fact the linemen would not be able to use bucket trucks to get to the top of the poles. The poles were already set, but the poles did not have any electrical components on them.
“We have to climb every pole, drill holes, put all the hardware on, and then we have to put dollies on them to pull the wire through,” Yarbrough said prior to the trip. “Then we’ll have to go and tie it in. There is going to be a lot of climbing.”
The desire to help those in need made the decision to head to Guatemala an easy one for Yarbrough.
Humbling experience
“It’s going to be a lot of fun to go build lines over there, just in general, that’s why I’m in this career because I enjoy that,” Yarbrough said prior to the trip. “Just going and seeing the country because we’re going to be in such a remote area. It’s really nothing tourists just go see. It will be quite an experience. And I think it will be a humbling experience.”
Returning home after three weeks in Guatemala, Yarbrough confirmed the experience was humbling.
“It makes you feel kind of guilty the way we live here compared to how they have it,” Yarbrough said.
The homes in the village consisted of boarded walls, thatched roofs and dirt floors.
“They are very happy,” Yarbrough said about the residents in the village. “They are just so genuine, which was really nice to see.”
He said residents happily invited the linemen into their homes to do the electric installation.
“Everyone was very good to us,” Yarbrough said. “They don’t have much, but anything that they did have I think they would have given us. But they helped us, and that’s how I knew that they were very receptive to us. The locals, homeowners, villagers would start pulling wire with us and help us when it came time for wiring the homes. They would move anything we needed and help us run wires throughout the house.”
“The goal of everybody (linemen) there was we were just hoping to make their (villagers) lives easier,” Yarbrough said. “They work all day just to survive. They have a hard road. We’re pretty pampered here in America.”
He said most of the residents of the village were farmers.
“They do everything by hand. They plant, harvest, everything is by hand. They are very hard workers,” Yarbrough said.
And when the light switches were turned on for the first time, Yarbrough said residents smiled and gave the linemen a thumbs up.
“Everybody knows what that means,” he said.
First time seeing electricity
In all, Yarbrough said 50 homes in the village, as well as a school and health post, received electricity as part of the project.
Yarbrough said seeing the residents get electricity for the first time was more satisfying than he thought it would be.
The linemen stayed in Playa Grande, Ixcan, and made an hour-long trip every day to the job site in Tierra Blanca Chixoy, and the village of Salinas 7 Cerros.
“The roads were so bad there, its hills and winding, dirt roads with huge pot holes,” Yarbrough said. “The roads are very narrow. Bridges that are in very rough condition. One vehicle passes at a time. You hope that they make it.”
Because of the condition of the bridges, the linemen made the hour-long trip back to their hotel before dark.
While at the hotel, Yarbrough said he and the other linemen explored the city a little, but spent most of their time sitting around getting to know each other better. The time together allowed the linemen to work as a cohesive unit.
“Going there everybody was on somewhat of a mission,” Yarbrough said. “It wasn’t about the money. It wasn’t about any of that. When you take out all those factors, you’re going to get 12 guys who genuinely want to be there and want to help. You have guys who want to work together.”
Climbing in the heat
Yarbrough said there was a lot of climbing, and all the linemen did their fair share of it and other work.
“It was all very evenly distributed,” he said. “We climbed every pole a couple of times. The work itself wasn’t bad, but it was just the heat that made it a little harder.”
As precautions against the sun and the heat, Yarbrough said plenty of sunscreen was used, as well as cooling towels.
The linemen also kept an eye on each other.
“It was probably only in the 90s, but I’ve never felt that kind of heat in my life,” Yarbrough said. “It was hot. We were soaked, top to bottom all day.”
The trip was not all work for the linemen.
Through donations, they provided children in the village with shoes, as well as soccer balls.
Water filtration systems were also donated to residents.
The CWEC Board of Directors and employees donated $500 toward the purchase of the water filtration systems, which cost around $50 each.
“We’re definitely making a big impact because they don’t have clean drinking water,” Yarbrough said. “I’m hoping this has a big impact on their health.”
Looking back, Yarbrough said he is glad he made the trip to Guatemala and hopes someone else has that type of opportunity in the future.