GUATEMALA: The two villages sat side by side, one lost, one spared. In Panabaj, about 500 men, women and children are believed to have been buried under the avalanche of mud and rock which burst last week from the mountains that loom thousands of feet over the town.
Close by, the homes in Tzanchaj were largely untouched.
Survivors of Panabaj cooked tortillas on griddles over open fires, tended their children and talked, huddled in the rooms and plazas of the sprawling Catholic church which is their temporary shelter.
They talked of practical matters: Where will we live? How long will the help last?
But there was one other question: Why our village?
Their answers reflected the interwoven strands of Maya and Christian culture in this highland region of Guatemala, where a week of tropical storms washed away towns and roads, killing more than 650 people. Hundreds more are still missing.
Francisco Xhicay (29), a spiritual leader in Tzanchaj, said that the Maya shrine at his home and a strong belief in ancient ways had spared his village, while his neighbours' neglect of those traditions had caused them to be killed.
The Maya who live around Lake Atitlan clung to their ancient culture long after the arrival of Spaniards in the 16th century, absorbing some elements of Catholicism.
The majority are now split between Catholicism and evangelical Christianity, with only a small minority still believing in the Maya's Nahual spirits.
One member of that minority is Pedro Esquina (45), who said that the destruction and deaths did not come without warning. He said he had found an abandoned altar to Inox, the Maya god of water, during a hike in the mountains earlier this year.
"The next night I had a dream of water," Esquina said. He sought the counsel of a Maya priest, who warned that the dream was a message to villagers to participate in three ceremonies or risk catastrophe. Few people believed him.
Salvation might have come, he said, with the ceremonial lighting of candles in different colours to represent the sun, the night, the wind, the sky and the earth.
"I think people will return to the old ways because of this," he said.
Nicholas Ramirez Sojuel, a Christian, said that the storms were God's way of warning the community against drugs, corruption and violence. "When God shows his power," he said, "sometimes it is incomprehensible to man."
At the church shelter, Concepcion Ztizna cradled her young son and said that she and other Panabaj survivors had been "singled out to tell other people what happens when you don't repent".
But not everyone saw a divine hand in the disaster. Mudslides killed 14 members of Gaspar Tzina's family, including his wife, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews.
"Nobody can say it was for our sins," said the 32-year-old farmer. "A lot of cities suffer despite having good people. It was the weather that did it."
Guatemalan president Oscar Berger arrived by helicopter at the church plaza in Panabaj and made his own promises. He said building materials would arrive soon, enough to house the estimated 4,000 people who are homeless.
No decision has been taken on what to do with the dead who remain under the mudslide covering Panabaj. There has been talk of declaring the area a cemetery, but residents wonder who will pay for their land.