What is going on in Guatemala today?

Contributon from Joel Roszmann
Bram and Chinto will leave for Guatemala in two weeks. That means that the Demotech Lab is a flurry of activity as we prepare to get everything ready for them to go. A half dozen StorageStools, in various stages of completion, litter the workshop and provide constant reminder of the task at hand, lit by the mid afternoon sunshine which drifts into the room through cracked and dusty windows.
Bram is working at one of the work benches carving sticks of bamboo for Reinder to test in his latest concept for the base of the bag inside of the stool. Working next to him, the 74 year old man stands over his own bench, quickly picking up Bram's finished pieces and putting them together in the correct shape. With work going on at a steady pace, I sit at a computer and find myself wondering what is going on in Guatemala. What does the world look like that these stools are about to enter into?
A quick internet search is reveals a few bits of news. There is a general election due in September, and two candidates, one a General and one an ex-rebel have been chosen to represent a party for presidentship. The "hunger season" is coming some time in May or June, and higher than normal maize prices are a concern to poorer inhabitants. There was a murder reported recently near the capital. Coffee and Sugar cane production are normal, but there is worry that the rainy season may come late this year due to climate change. There is a whole country alive there where I have never been.
But somewhere in that country, and I must admit with a bit of guilt that I still haven't asked bram exactly where, there is a village which will be invited to start producing the stools that Reinder and Bram are working on as I type. Somewhere, I tell myself, there will be people whose lives change because of what we do here.
I then remember the stool I built a week ago, with a group of children here in Maastricht. It occurs to me that for the moment, somewhere is not so important to me. My stool, sitting in my living room, seems somehow more real than the entire nation of Guatemala. It makes me laugh to think that somewhere people are going to enjoy making and having that stool in exactly the same way that I am enjoying the one that I have and made.
More. I bet they will enjoy it more.