by Jim McCarty | jmccarty@ruralmissouri.coop
Drop a Missouri electric cooperative lineman into a place he’s never been before. Take away most of the tools he normally uses in his job. Task him with building lines to serve people living without the benefits of electricity far from home. His response?
“No trucks? No trouble. Count me in.”
That was the reply from 16 electric co-op linemen when word went out asking for volunteers to build power lines to bring electricity to a remote mountain village in Guatemala for the first time. The project would send two teams of eight linemen each to Viucalvitz, located in the highest mountain range in Central America.
“It was something I was wanting to do years ago,” says Tobey Bennett, superintendent of operations for Ozark Electric Cooperative’s James River office. “I just never had the opportunity. I love volunteering and doing things like this. If I’m not at work, I’m working somewhere, helping somebody. It’s a rewarding experience to go and help somebody in another country and see things that I’ve never seen before.”
The mission for the linemen: Build 3 miles of power lines down the mountain to connect two villages to a line built in 2020 by another group of Missourians, while also wiring more than 100 homes, schools, churches and businesses. The project — the fourth for the Missouri International Program — proved to be one of the most challenging efforts undertaken since the program kicked off in 2016.
Missouri electric co-op linemen have brought electricity to a pair of villages in the Bolivian Amazon. They built lines above 12,000 feet in the Andes Mountains of Bolivia. They spanned deep ravines in the Guatemalan jungle. All of these projects posed significant challenges. But this one certainly called for skills never taught in lineman school.
“This was definitely the toughest terrain we’ve ever dealt with,” says Craig Moeller, who coordinates the international projects for Missouri Electric Cooperatives. “It wasn’t as high as Bolivia, but the terrain was extremely steep. From pole 45 to pole 1 it dropped 3,500 feet in elevation. It had its challenges and struggles, like the thought process you had to do to make sure we minimized travel up and down the mountain as much as we could.”
The work was the latest electrification project in Guatemala through the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association’s International Program. The program began in 1962 to export the success of the U.S. rural electrification effort to developing countries where people were living without the benefits of electricity.
Over the years, volunteer lineworkers have wired villages all over the world, bringing electricity to more than 160 million people in 45 countries. In the past 5 years, 285 volunteers have brought electricity to more than 7,000 people in rural Guatemala.
Just weeks before the Missouri team traveled to Guatemala in August 2024, a road was bulldozed down the mountainside to a small village called Vilacam. This was close to the path the new line would take. But the road washed out. That meant every pole had to be accessed on foot, forcing the men to carry everything from pole to pole.
“That hike down the mountain, you really can’t put into words how steep it actually was,” says Clayton Kemp, a lineman at Black River Electric Cooperative. “Even that last stretch we did, that hike up the mountain. I would have hiked down three or four times with the same energy as walking up a half mile.”
Adding to the difficulty were monsoon rains that came every night. The skies would clear in the daytime, but the near-vertical paths remained slick. “I was in one of those cornfields and that ground is soft,” Clayton says. “I rolled three or four times. I thought I was a goner for sure, with my climbing gear on my back.”
Somehow the herculean effort moved forward, despite the high altitude and steep terrain. Even more amazing was the effort of the villagers the linemen were here to help. Short compared to the Americans, they proved to be incredibly strong, agile as a gazelle and capable of running up and down the mountains in the rarified air. They packed material — including 30-foot poles and heavy reels of wire — down the mountain with ease.
Determined to realize the dream of electricity for their homes, they showed up every day to assist the linemen. Some of the locals worked ahead of the linemen hacking the right of way out of the brush with machetes. This often involved scrambling to the tops of tall trees. Others pulled miles of wire down the mountain or helped carry drag bags with the linemen’s tools from pole to pole.
“They carried the poles down the mountain, they carried the wire down the mountain. They carried the transformers down the mountain. Everything by hand,” says Tobey. “They would work their butts off and then at night take their machetes off and go play soccer for an hour, still wearing their boots.”
Over the course of two weeks the new power line reached Trapichitos, the village wired in 2020 by another two groups of Missouri linemen.
The benefits of electricity from the 2020 project could be seen throughout the village. In the stores and homes, bright electric lights were glowing. New homes had been built in the four years since the project was completed. A new restaurant — the first in the village — had opened. Cold drinks and ice cream were offered at many stores.
One of the Missouri linemen, Tim Thoenen from Co-Mo Connect, had his hair trimmed by a local barber. Previously the man worked by dim light amid exhaust fumes from a gas-powered generator. This time his shop was brightly lit from the electric grid and the fumes were gone.
“I was one who got the benefit from the electricity project and I am grateful for that,” Rosa Maria, a woman tending a store in the village, told the linemen. “Now here in Trapichitos life is better because I have a refrigerator at home. My life has been improved. I appreciate all the help you have given us.”
Once the line reached Trapichitos and was tied in, the homes in Vilacam could be energized. The Missourians had wired the homes, a church and a school early in the project while waiting for more materials to arrive. On a Saturday afternoon they carefully energized the line, then went from house to house testing the lights.
“They don’t show emotion,” Clayton recalls. “Then you turn the lights on and you get a small smile from them.”
Clayton answered the first outage call the next day. One of the men clearing the right of way dropped a tree into the line and it broke. He climbed the pole and spliced the wire, thankful he didn’t have to do it at night.
When the first group returned to Missouri much work remained. On Dec. 1, a second group flew to Guatemala and made the all-day drive to the village. Their task was to wire another 40 poles, hang streetlights, then focus on wiring 80 homes, several churches and the village school.
Before they energized the power lines, no lights shown in the village after dark. Far off streetlights in villages that did have electricity could be seen strung like pearls in the darkness. Now activity can continue past sundown, which comes early in the mountain valleys.
Both groups found time to visit Nebaj, the largest city in the region. Here they bought two refrigerators and a sound system for the school, using money donated by their friends back home. The men also bought soccer balls, shoes and clothes for the kids.
In the evenings, they played with the kids, showed photos of family to the locals and bartered for souvenirs such as machetes in leather scabbards and handmade slingshots. They bathed with water heated on a wood fire, then mixed with frigid spring water coming down from the mountain. They slept on uncomfortable cots with the only electric power coming from a noisy generator.
No one complained. Even after working all day and then hiking back up the mountain, they were determined to get just one more span wired for their newfound friends.
These projects always end with an inauguration ceremony and this one was no exception. The entire village turned out in Viucalvitz. Many speeches were given, with the common theme being amazement that the Missourians left their homes and traveled so far to help out.
For the linemen who left the comfort of their Missouri homes to help a people they had never met, it proved to be a life-changing experience.
“There’s a lot of things that we are so accustomed to that would be over-the-top luxuries there,” Tobey says. “But when you live for 14 days up there, you realize there’s a lot of things we thought we needed but we don’t need. That’s where it changed me. Just the outlook of how happy people can be with so little.”
The effort to turn the lights on for these beautiful, humble people became a labor of love as the linemen got to know the people in the villages. No matter how big and tough the lineman was, when a child reached out their tiny hands, they took it.
For a short span of time, the world became a lot smaller. All too soon the project ended, but the memories and lessons learned will stay with these volunteers forever.