Steep slopes, sweltering weather, poverty and malnutrition: this is Camotán, a town in south-eastern Guatemala, home to the brothers Luis and Antonio Mejía. They have no monetary income: they live off the maize they harvest. Both are married fathers of young children and live in a small concrete and sheet-metal house, with no bathroom or electricity.
“My family and I eat around eight pounds of corn daily. Because I don’t have money, we usually eat tortillas without beans, about five or six per day, which will keep us full,” said Luis.
You can’t be healthy on that kind of diet. Ninety percent of Guatemalans living in extreme poverty eat the same food every day. They have very little opportunity to have a balanced diet rich in protein. And in Camotán, 41.1% of the population lives in extreme poverty, according to data from the Guatemalan Institute of Statistics.
