So, I was in Guatemala way back in '95 for about a week and a half. Very neat country. The people were super friendly and extraordinarily generous. For example, I was introduced to some friends of my host, and one of them had a pretty nifty shirt on, so I commented "hey man, thats a cool shirt". Without blinking an eye, he had the shirt off his back and wanted me to take it. Ok, so maybe he thought I was trying to hint that I didn't have much clothes and I was envious of him, or maybe he was just really generous, I don't know. But everytime I met someone there, they were always asking if I needed anything, would I like to try this food, would I like to have some of this, would I be interested in trying that, did I have a place to stay, etc etc.

The thing that is really remarkable here, is how poor the people were. I was traveling on a "short term missions trip" which was basically myself and about eight other people traveling around the country working with very small (and I mean small!) churches to do some community work. One of the places we went to was a small school / daycare that was located about a quarter mile from a massive city dump. The place was horribly stinky, and everything (except the inside of the school) was dirty and muddy.

It turns out that most of the kids that were there -lived in shacks built in the dump-. Home = city dump. Playground = city dump. Primary food and clothing source = city dump.

I had a bottle of water and an apple in my backpack that I gave to this one little girl, she might have been 5 or so. I think it was the first taste of clean water she had ever had in her life, and she didn't quite know what to do with the apple. Had she ever seen a whole apple? Ever?

I started thinking about what her life had been like, and how she must have felt about some foreign white guy suddenly showing up and giving her this crystal clear water and a fresh red apple. I cried. You would have to have been there I guess. I cried again that night, but much deeper. I realized how shallow life is for us fat Americans, and how something as simple as a bottle of spring water and an apple can be such a huge deal to someone.

A few days later we were at some little gas station / grocery store thing, and I ordered a coke. The guy asked me (in spanish) if I wanted a coke in a bag. I was somewhat surprised at this, but curious, so I said sure. Then I realised I may have just asked for some drugs and I was about to tell him I changed my mind, when he opened a bottle of coke, poured it into a ziplock bag, stuck in a straw, and then handed it to me.

Talk about saving bottles to get your deposit back on the recycling. Geez.

So anyway, Guatemala rocks. Wonderful people, awesome landscape (I really want to go back with my camera this time), extensive history, wealth of culture and history, rain forests, and VOLCANOS!

I love Guatemala.

Who wants to go with me sometime?