Guatemala Service Trip

     I was 12 years old the first time my understanding of the world and poverty were strongly challenged during a service trip to a rural part of southwest Guatemala. While it wasn’t my first time out of the country nor my first experience volunteering in marginalized communities, it certainly was my first authentic view into another culture different from my own and experience, albeit brief, of absolute poverty. It was because of this trip I began to question my worldview and what I had previously taken for granted at a young age, which ultimately sparked my passion to continue learning about issues of poverty and food sovereignty, both internationally and domestically. Throughout my experience, I distinctly remember feeling incredibly uncomfortable during most points in the day. Despite being challenged by being in a new place, learning new social customs, attempting to navigate with very little grasp of the local language, and other challenges I had not fully anticipated, I enjoyed doing my best to communicate with local community members in the broken Spanish I possessed, loved learning more about the town hosting us, relished devouring the delicious local food prepared by our hosts, and embraced many of the differences I saw in daily life. This discovery of a way of life that was so different to mine was novel to me then, and left me with a hunger to learn more.

     Since then, my understanding of poverty has continued to grow through my work as an educator for my farm, my academic coursework, such as my research on peasant farmer movements and agro-industry in northern Argentina and capstone project on homelessness, and well my experiences abroad.