On the shores of Lake Atitlán

On the lakeshore, a way of life is sustained.

There, an elder man named Pedro begins his day the same way he has begun most days for the last five decades — climbing into a cayuco (a narrow wooden canoe) banked along Lake Atitlán in Guatemala.

With the soft sound of water lapping against the shore, Pedro braces himself in the middle of his canoe and guides it onto the lake using a long paddle. One of the lake’s three cloud-capped volcanoes dwarfs him from where it rises on the opposite shore.

Alone, the 74-year-old battles the wind and sometimes choppy waves, standing as he paddles for 20 minutes across Central America’s deepest lake.

In the Nahuatl language (the main language of ancient civilizations in Central America), “atitlán” means “between the waters” or “at the water,” a fitting description when one considers the centuries of Indigenous communities that have settled around the lake and depended upon it. Between these waters, memories flow. At the water, people have lived, worshipped, found sustenance and eked out livelihoods.

Some local Indigenous Mayans feel a deep and spiritual connection to the lake and call it “Grandmother Lake.” Others fight to environmentally conserve the lake. To them, the lake means life. They say, “We belong to the lake and the lake belongs to us.”

Pedro slowly secures his canoe on the opposite bank and retrieves the only item he brings with him on this journey — a machete.

Before him, clusters of towering reed-like plants sway gently in the breeze. “Tule,” he calls them; they thrive on this shore. And when the tule thrives, Pedro’s burden is eased, so he nurtures them.

This is what the lake has given Pedro, and from the lake, he takes hope.

A community that relies on the natural world

Before his 10th birthday, Pedro went with his father to the mountains as part of their community’s customs.

From his father, Pedro learned skills in farming and agriculture and how to tend livestock. Eventually, his father taught him how to nurture tule (pronounced “too-lee”) from the lake and how to weave tule mats.

Pedro is Tz’utujil, an Indigenous people and one of the 22 Maya ethnic groups living in Guatemala. It’s estimated that over 100,000 Tz’utujil people inhabit the southern watershed of Lake Atitlán in the Sololá region of the Guatemalan highlands.

With a deep and enduring connection to nature, the Tz’utujil are known for relying on the natural world for food, medicine, materials for crafting and dyes for their vibrant textiles. Preserving knowledge and beliefs passed down through the generations, their communities — such as Santiago Atitlán where Pedro resides — are described as places that blend rich Mayan traditions with the natural beauty of the lake and mountains.

Though tourism is an increasing source of income in the region, many Tz’utujil still practice traditional methods of farming including two main crops, coffee and maize (corn), fishing and creating handcrafts with natural fibers.

Tule is one such natural fiber used in weaving and crafting items like baskets, trays, rugs, skirts and mats, among others. Along with its relatives (such as papyrus), tule has been useful for Indigenous cultures throughout the world for millennia.

The plant source grows 3- to 10-feet-tall in any type of freshwater — along rivers, lakes and estuaries, both near coasts and inland marshes.

Tule has many benefits to the lake. It provides a natural habitat for an assortment of wildlife, while its roots improve water quality by acting as a natural filter for pollutants and heavy metals. In addition, it offers a buffer during strong winds or waves and inhibits erosion.

The deep connection between the Mayan people and the earth has made them natural environmental stewards of their surroundings. Many Tz’utujil that live around Lake Atitlán feel a responsibility for preserving the beauty and balance of the lake.

Pedro understands balance. Using his machete, he cuts the tallest of the tule he grows on his rented planting site along the shore of Lake Atitlán. Next, he’ll spread the reeds in the sun to dry before bundling them to carry back across the lake to his home. He said harvesting tule is a tiring seven-step process that will end with him qualifying each tule stem before they are ready for weaving.

Pedro has deeply ingrained knowledge of the life process of tule. Traditional cultivation and harvesting of the plant have been shared from generation to generation among members of the local committee Pedro is on, called “Comite de Tuleros de Santiago Atitlan” (the Committee of Tuleros).

The committee works together to plant, cultivate and harvest tule to make traditional mats. Instead of their harvesting efforts disturbing the delicate ecosystem the tule creates, it helps with wetland renewal.

“Some people with studies have told us that the tule is wildlife,” Pedro said. “But, for us, it is not like that; for us, it is [about] a sowing.”

Indigenous communities as stewards of the environment

“You reap what you sow” is a proverb with historically biblical origins. Sowing has often been used as a metaphor for one’s actions, while reaping is the result of those actions.

Pedro’s context for “sowing,” however, speaks more to survival and maintaining the balance of not only nature, but a traditional and sustainable way of life.

Lake Atitlán is renowned as one of the world’s most beautiful lakes and is a major tourist site in Guatemala.

But climate change, population growth and land management have led to the environmental degradation of the lake and its wetlands and impacted the livelihoods of the local fishermen and users of the lake’s natural resources.

Today, the lake is under severe threat from rising pollution levels because of untreated wastewater, runoff from pesticides and fertilizers, and waste such as plastic. In addition, the biodiversity of the lake was decimated by the carnivorous black bass, a popular non-native, sport-fishing species introduced by outside investors in the 1950s to attract more tourism.

While only 6.2% of the global population is Indigenous, the World Bank estimates Indigenous people safeguard 80% of the world’s biodiversity. Around Lake Atitlán, local Indigenous groups — like the Tz’unun Ya’, a group of Tz’utujil women considered the “Guardians of the Lake” — work to preserve the lake from further harm.

The cultivation and preservation of tule by Indigenous communities along the shores of Lake Atitlán aids in wetland health and ecological integrity, according to an assessment conducted by researchers from SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in 2023. The study delved into how Indigenous communities actively steward the wetlands using their traditional ecological knowledge (called TEK for short).

Despite the ecological, economic and cultural importance of tule, its cultivation has become limited by shoreline development and urbanization. In Pedro’s community of Santiago Atitlán, however, wetland plant TEK was found to be most intact out of four communities studied, and their wetland had the highest concentration and diversity of tule. The assessment found that traditional TEK in Santiago Atitlán, including the planting and cutting of tule and removing invasive species during this process, had sustained the wetlands (which are also important habitats for fish spawning and waterfowl nesting).

To bring awareness of the importance of wetland conservation around Lake Atitlán, the Tuleros committee has worked with government, academic and the private tourism sector to offer novel experiences for tourists. While rowing wooden canoes along the marshes, tourists are taught how to plant and care for tule, craft making and plant diversity.

Pedro’s Tuleros committee organized after the widespread destruction left by Hurricane Stan in 2005. According to Pedro, the community had planted 60,000 tule seeds and lost most of this planting in the hurricane.

Tule can take five to eight months to reach sufficient height for cutting, while the cutting and drying processing cycle takes eight to 15 days.

The committee, consisting mostly of fishermen, formed to pool their resources to replant their crop. Tule health and growth is greatly impacted by the water level of the lake. If the levels lower, the tule becomes exposed and dries up.

“To avoid that, we tear out what is exposed and replant it in the lake,” said Pedro, explaining their TEK. “This is how the tule is kept alive because the life of our lake depends on rain.”

If the lake rises and begins to drown the tule, the Tuleros will also move the tule further ashore. According to the SUNY study, it’s the process of transplanting and clear cutting the tule in small areas that creates a small-scale and intensive disturbance that benefits waterfowl, fish and the health of the tule itself.

A legacy of mat weaving, an uncertain future

Pedro learned the art of mat-weaving from his father when he was 9 years old.

The basket and mat industry are important among several cultural groups that lived, and continue living, in the Mesoamerican region. Mats, or petates, in particular are one of the earliest documented forms of weaving in Central America. Throughout time, mats have played an important role in Indigenous communities during ceremonial and religious occasions and in everyday activities.

There are a variety of mat-weaving techniques common throughout Central America, but Pedro uses a peculiar technique specific to male weavers in Guatemala. Using his big toe, he manipulates the reeds during the weaving process so that he can weave more rapidly with his hands. Pedro’s mats are used as bedding and as placemats when sitting on the floor.

Sometimes Pedro’s wife Concepción, 67, will join him making mats, but the process is a bit different for her. Concepción lost her vision 37 years ago; she weaves entirely from practice and instinct.

Despite his age, Pedro continues the tedious work of tule planting and mat-weaving today to help pay for his wife’s health care. But the business is not the same as it used to be when his children were growing up — then, mat-weaving was his main source of income.

Part of that change is due to his own health, while the other part is because of outside circumstances beyond his control, such as globalization.

Weaving the mats requires lots of bending at the waist. Pedro suffers from body aches and has lost vision in one eye. As a young man, he could complete 36 mats in a week, but these days, he can complete 10 mats.

Sponsorship through Unbound for the last seven years has helped Pedro keep his mat-making business in operation. Unbound is the largest U.S.-based international development organization offering sponsorship for older adults.

In Guatemala, poverty affects 75% of Indigenous people compared to 36% of non-Indigenous. Pedro uses his sponsorship support to buy tule seeds and to pay the rent for his planting site.

“When you are young, you can do anything,” Pedro said. “I could sell everything I make. Now, it is not like that, but we still have many needs.”

While Pedro sells his mats to individuals in the rural communities and merchants from outside Santiago Atitlán, demand for his product has dropped off in recent years as customers buy more modernized furnishings from larger retailers instead.

It is a way of life itself that seems to be fading from Pedro’s community, as fewer of the younger generations learn the Tz’utujil language each year and less of the knowledge of their ancestors is passed down. None of Pedro’s own children will carry on his legacy of tule cultivation and mat-weaving.

Pedro himself dreams of a more stable line of work that would allow him to stay closer to home to care for his wife — a job that’s not as dependent on the health of his body and a body of water that was once nominated to be one of the world’s wonders.

“Even if I don’t get paid much, [a little] would help me a lot,” Pedro said.

Sponsorship, he said, gives him the motivation to keep moving forward.

So, he’ll keep returning to the shore for as long as he can, for as long as the lake can sustain him.

Sponsorship provides steady support to older adults living in poverty through direct cash assistance. Support an older adult like Pedro in meeting their individual needs; sponsor an elder through Unbound today.

Unbound Regional Reporter Oscar Tuch contributed information, photos and video for this story while Multimedia Producer/Editor Danika Wolf provided video editing.