Louisa Reynolds /

Pz

P

68

XXIX

We arrive at the pier in Flores, hop into a small motorboat 
and make our way to the village of San Miguel, located on 
the opposite side of Lake Petén Itzá.  During our short ten 
minute journey, Elvia Luz Granados Rodríguez tells me 
that she was fourteen years old when she found out that her 
parents and siblings had been killed. Next to her sits Esdras 
González Arreaga, the son of María Esperanza Arreaga, 
the woman who entered Dos Erres after the massacre and 
realized that she would never see her two daughters again 
when she found their tiny shoes and socks tucked away under 
the bed.

When she hears the name “Dos Erres”, a middle aged woman 
who sits next to me, asks Elvia if she is a survivor from the 
massacre and then repeats “Holy Jesus, Holy Jesus” over and 
over again, ask if she were trying to exorcise a demon. For 
that woman, the name Dos Erres evoked unspeakable horror, 
which is unusual, as many people in Petén, even those who live 
in Las Cruces, are unaware of what happened on December 
7, 1982. When we arrive in San Miguel, we walk to a house 
overlooking the lake where Lesbia Tesucún, a middle-aged 
woman with a matronly figure and small almond-shaped 
eyes with a cheeky sparkle, meets us at the door. She smiles 
wistfully when she remembers the day when she arrived in 
Dos Erres, young and frightened, riding  Gamaliel’s tractor, 
and began her new life as the village’s first school teacher.

The children had never sat in a classroom before, and had to 
walk ten kilometers all the way to Las Cruces to buy stationery, 
but they were studious and the young teacher rewarded their 
efforts by taking those who achieved top marks back home to 
Flores during school vacations.