“It’s just so rough here in this country right now. Doing some river fishing to survive.”

Mark and I met many years ago when I was teaching a tropical ecology class in Belize. He was a teenager with an entrepreneurial spirit. He knew where the little boats would meet folks like me to take us out to the research lab thirteen miles off the coast, and he was always there to meet us, and to sell us things he had made. I always bought something: a flint knife, a toucan carved of volcanic rock, a couple of bracelets.

In his forward-thinking way, he asked me for my email address fifteen years ago, and every couple of years he sends a quick note to find out when I’ll be back. Unfortunately my university has replaced that class with another, and I no longer teach it. It was one of my favorite classes. We’d live with local families while learning about the history, culture, and languages of Petén, then we’d go on a forty-mike hiking and camping trip through the rainforest that ended at the Tikal national park. We’d end the course with a week on a barrier island, snorkeling and learning about coral ecosystems. It probably wasn’t a very efficient course, but wow was it good.

And one of the best parts of it was meeting people, and spending time with them.

As my friends and family know, this is also one of the hardest parts for me, because the danger of getting to know people is that you might start to care about them.

When a hurricane makes landfall in Central America, I look at the map and think of where my friends are. Are they safe? Merlina’s roof in Guatemala wasn’t in good shape when I saw her last time. The ladies who are building that business in northern Costa Rica got flooded out last year; I hope they’re okay. My Itzá and K’ekchi’ friends who work in the forest—are they safe at home or are they riding things out with the other guides and rangers? How are the kids? And so on.

It’s similar when the challenges are more local. A friend’s daughter was killed in an automobile accident last year, and my friend is struggling with the loss of her job shortly after losing her daughter. When Covid hit, I knew my friends in Central America would be among the last to receive help. My mentor and teacher died of Covid and my heart still aches for his family and for the whole community.

I hadn’t been back to Guatemala or Belize since my class was last offered seven years ago. I’m in touch with my friends there almost every day, and while texting and emailing is great, not much beats having a meal together. Last month my wife and I decided to buy tickets and fly to Guatemala to reconnect.

In some ways, things have gotten better. The town where I have spent most of my time has seen some new investment, and the lakeshore has all been developed. The downside is that the investors are generally from other places, so the locals have a harder time getting access to the lake they’ve known since time immemorial. Hopefully the new restaurants and resorts boost their economy and some of that trickles down to the poor?

But the hardest part was hearing story after story about how recent changes in our government have devastated the local economy. I visited a forest reserve where the rangers’ bathroom is half renovated. The remaining renovation was going to be funded by a few thousand USAID dollars. That got cut off, and so the bathroom has no water other than what falls through where the roof used to be.

In another part of the country friends told us about how one small community lost 40 jobs that were funded by USAID. When you consider the median income in Guatemala (it’s a few thousand dollars a year last I checked) that doesn’t amount to much money. When you consider those jobs were helping to create other jobs, to protect natural resources that make life easier, to promote agriculture and business, and to prevent contraband trafficking, we were likely getting an extraordinary ROI on that money.

There are times when I wish I had taken a different line of work, one that kept me comfortably within the borders of my own country. Or maybe I’d only leave my country to go to resorts, and never rent a bed in a home with questionable plumbing, a corrugated tin roof, and walls that crumble if it rains too much.

The danger of my job is I get to know people. I play games with their kids, and I have meals in their homes. I learn their names, we exchange gifts and phone numbers, we start to care for one another. When those storms hit, or when economic storms hit, or when we suddenly cut off funding that others hoped might help them to help their country become healthier and stronger, my heart aches.

I only know Mark from that one dock in Belize. Maybe his email isn’t about fishing for food but he is actually phishing, a ploy to get me to send him a few bucks. Thing is, I’ve met him often enough that I worry about him, and his family, and his community. I’ve seen the fragility of his ecosystem, and I’ve seen the fragility of his country. And I’ve known so many people in poor countries who find themselves in despair. Does no one hear our call for help? Does no one care?

Don’t mistake me for someone with great solutions. I’m not an economist, not an international development expert. I don’t have great wealth or great influence. I’m a teacher who specializes in philosophy, religion, classics, and ecology. I know a little, not a lot.

But some of the little I know remind me of that phrase “the least of these” and I find it hard to turn my back and ignore those whose hands I have clasped, who have shared their morning meal, who have prayed for my children even as I have prayed for theirs.

In another, imaginary world I’d have all the answers, all the money and power to solve all the problems.

In this world I have only a heart that aches when Mark writes to tell me he is fishing in order to survive.

(In the image that accompanies this text: a white bus is parked near a rickety wooden seaside dock in Dangriga, Belize. That’s where I first met Mark. I don’t know when I’ll be back again, but I’d be glad to see him again, and even more glad to know that he and his family are thriving.)