So it's not Katrina, or Rita, but Hurricane Stan hasn't really gotten any press here in the US. I had the opportunity to visit Guatemala for a few weeks in 2002 and spent about a week in the central part of the country, where the mudslides and earthquakes post-Stan hit the hardest. Entire villages have been covered in mud and are being declared burial grounds because they can't dig through the mud to find bodies; the side of a volcano (which I have many pictures of) collapsed.

They sent helicopters into the teeeeny tiny village where I stayed (where many people have no running water and electricity just appeared in recent memory) to airlift out a group of Swedes. Communication with that region is tenuous in the best of times, and we have no way to get in contact with any of our host families or to fully understand the extent of the damage in the regions where we spent some time and got to know the people who lived there.

Tropical Storm Vince is now forming in the Atlantic, earthquakes killed thousands in Asia...it's quite a year for Mother Nature.