Since we started Project HANDS and have been telling people about the work we are doing to help the indigenous Mayans in Guatemala, the most common question they ask is - “Why Guatemala?”  For those who would like to know I have prepared this short summary which will hopefully answer some of the questions: Guatemala is a country about which little was known until recent years. It lies in Central America between Mexico and Honduras and has a history of human violation stemming back to the Spanish Conquest of 1524. Ever since that time the indigenous Mayan people have lived under the domination of Spanish rule and a series of Presidencies that have done their best to repress them.  To this day many Mayans continue to live much the same way their ancestors have done for hundreds of years. They live simply, growing corn on their tiny "milpas" and live in what can only be referred to as shacks. They are one of the "lost peoples" of our world in that it was not until the 1980s, when Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu wrote her biography about her life as a Mayan woman, that news of their plight began to eke out. Despite this exposure today few people know about the level of poverty and malnutrition that the Mayans continue to endure.