© Girls carry water jugs after filling them in a nearby stream in Tizamarte, Camotán, Chiquimula, Guatemala, 18 May 2019.
Girls carry water jugs after filling them in a nearby stream in Tizamarte, Camotán, Chiquimula, Guatemala, 18 May 2019.
At sunrise, the misty fields around the village of Guior are already dotted with men, women and children sowing maize after an overnight rainstorm.
After several years of drought, the downpour brought some hope of relief to the subsistence farmers in this part of eastern Guatemala.
But as Esteban Gutiérrez, 30, takes a break from his work, he explains why he is still willing to incur crippling debts - and risk his life - to migrate to the United States.
"My children have gone to bed hungry for the past three years. Our crops failed and the coffee farms have cut wages to $4 a day," he says, playing nervously with the white maize kernels in a plastic trough strapped to his waist.
"We hope the harvest will be good, but until then we have only one quintal [46kg] of maize left - which is barely enough for a month. I have to find a way to travel north, or else my children will suffer even more."
© James Rodríguez/The Guardian
Wilson, 8, son of Estéban Gutiérrez, stands in the family’s coffee plants holding mangoes.
Comment: It's hard to say how much effect environmental upheaval is having on migration flows, but it's a sure thing that the elites are wary of it and believe it will loom large in the coming years.
That may, in fact be why they're pushing acceptance of mass migration (which is the result, to this point, of their wars) so hard - to get people in host nations (usually Western) familiar with it.
They may not be far off. Another 'Great Wandering' may be in the cards.
It has happened before...
Comment: This comes on the heels of a heatwave followed by snow and hail in some parts, and, earlier in the year, unseasonably dry and warm conditions which led to wildfires across the UK: