Guatemala: life-changing travel
This past March, a group of nine grade 12 students and two chaperones had the opportunity to travel outside of the familiar to the colourful country of Guatemala. We hiked volcanoes, blew bubbles with children, rode in the back of pickup trucks, toured community garden plots, stayed with host families, ate tortillas, played soccer and basketball with local youth, decorated a cobb house, drove through picturesque mountains, learned about MCC projects, soaked in hot springs, and roasted marshmallows in volcanic ash.
However, what we did paled in comparison to the people we met and the stories we heard.
We learned about Gustavo, a community leader in La Vega who shared his story about migrating to the USA to help send his sister to school; Toby and Yasmin – MCC workers in Nebaj are trying to give remote communities a voice against the mining of their ancestral territories; Marie and Maria are two women working to support their families and community through creative crop planting and farming; Gaspar, Elias and Juana are youth starting up an Ixil university to help preserve native Mayan culture; Roman and Limburg are community leaders working to support tourism in the remote village of La Vega by leading tours, running a cabin, and raising trout; and many other who shared their lives, smiles and laughter with us along our journey.
Through these interactions we were able to learn about a rich culture and its people, as well as challenge our own views and practices. In the words of the youth from La Vega: “We’re all human. We all live under the same sun. We just have different privileges”.
Lindsay Shantz, teacher chaperone
