Welcomed by a Guatemalan fire

3-14-14

Christine Rushton, Murrow College Backpack Journalist

As the world opens to welcome a global community, journalists gain the opportunity to explore cultures beyond the limits of their backyards. Foreign reporting has existed successfully since the days of Edward R. Murrow reporting from London. However, students breaking into the industry have to combat a dwindling availability of jobs. The Murrow College at WSU offered me the chance to enter the embargoed borders of Cuba in May 2013, and now I venture with Hearts in Motion to Guatemala. During my 10 days on the ground, I will blog, interview the doctors and students performing surgeries on the locals and report on the issues. Follow along as I pursue the visual and written long-form journalism I hope to soon call my career.

Rushton Guatemala 3-23-14 from Christine Rushton on Vimeo.

Fire hung in a rim on the horizon. Tipped in blood red, the wings of the airplane tilted in descent toward the valley’s mouth, noted for the nearby volcanos. The ground drew closer; the flames climbed higher.



Christine Rushton | Murrow College

It was 5:30 a.m. on Friday and the plane leading toward Guatemala City had just made the dawn-hour landing. Flat ground filled with litter-strewn streets seemed to cower against the highlands surrounding the city. With my group of students and professionals with Hearts in Motion (HIM), we started the trek from the airport to Zacapa, the area in which we would spend most of our time working on the medical mission trip.

About 19 HIM volunteers crammed in a bus meant for 12 for the three-hour journey. But one side-look at the Guatemalan public transport with people hanging off the sides just to catch a ride, and I knew we fit in. Just like when I traveled to Cuba, I put the peoples’ behavior in the perspective of the limited resources upon which they must rely.



Christine Rushton | Murrow College

For one man, this meant hiding under a blanket in the back of a truck.

I noticed the man as we headed out of Guatemala City. Truck bed teaming with rubber tires, the brown-stained blanket set in the corner rustled slightly. His head peeked out when he adjusted his position, but I’d already witnessed the attempt to catch a free ride.

Heading into a week of observing people  support solutions to medical, construction, dental, or social problems Guatemalans face, I know this man isn’t the last I will see take a dangerous chance. As I learned in Cuba and will continue to learn in Guatemala, people in underdeveloped countries often turn to a concept foreign to our own: risking life is worth gaining life.