Over the course of the Guatemala immersion trip, these three words went from a call to overcome our own apprehensions, preconceptions, and worries, to a symbol of our acceptance and connection to our newfound environment and to each other.
Now, “let Guatemala happen” might seem like an open ended invitation to lean back and relax as the experiences come to you, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“Let Guatemala happen” was a charge, a challenge given to each of us to explore, reach out, and open up our hearts to the land and people around us in order to better understand the corruption, poverty, violence, and discrimination which so many people are living every. I had heard this countless times before and expected the country and it’s people to be downcast with defeat.
Every single person I had the honor of meeting there showed me the exact opposite.
During out first week in Totonicapan, we spent our days along side scores of young boys from Esperanza Juvenil working to build new classrooms for the children of that area who would have to walk hours along dirt roads just to get to school.
Being with these boys presented me with my first realization of the type of people we would be meeting over the course of our trip, each of them working just as hard as we were. But what left its mark on my wasn’t the tenacity of their project, it was the project itself.
We were working along side boys younger than us who had raised money themselves for this project, sacrificing time away from their own educations that they had fought so hard to achieve. These boys had come from environments and communities very similar to the one we were helping and realized a need to give back, despite having so little themselves.
Whether I realized it or not, I “let Guatemala happen,” and it shattered my preconceptions of Guatemala and the people there. I had heard countless times about the trials facing the country and expected to find people downcast with defeat. Instead I saw a people who were unwilling to accept anything less than a future of hope arms success for themselves, their communities and their nation.