Maya village’s water, future threatened by Mexican train

By MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press

VIDA Y ESPERANZA, Mexico (AP) — Mexico’s ambitious Maya Train project is threatening the Indigenous Maya people it was named for and dividing communities it was meant to help. One controversial stretch cuts a more than 68-mile (110-kilometer) swath through the jungle between the resorts of Cancun and Tulum, over ancient, complex and fragile underground cave systems. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s signature project has drawn protests from environmentalists, who have blocked backhoes from knocking down trees. But the train will run almost through the Mayan village of Vida y Esperanza, a clutch of about 300 people and 70 houses whose name means “Life and Hope.”