¿Cómo se dice?



Everything we did in Guatemala was memorable. Whether we were building stoves and latrines, buying food at the market, or trying to pet the stray dogs without Mrs. Miley seeing, we always found a way to entertain ourselves. My personal favorite pastime was talking and interacting with the people that lived in San Lucas Toliman, the village we were staying in. There was a group of kids that lived next to our hotel and they took interest in us right when we arrived there. At first, they saw us as gringos that are easy to pickpocket, but after a couple days they decided we were their amigos. We played soccer with them, walked by the lake with them, and communicated with each other as best we could. After 5 days of us trying to learn Spanish from them one of the oldest boys there asked, “Como se dice en ingles?; How do you say it in english?” The kids that were unintentionally teaching us more Spanish than we ever thought we would learn in a weeks time, wanted to learn english from us. This turned into a game. They would point to an object or think of a word in Spanish and we would teach them it in English. It was amazing seeing people from two completely different ways of life come together and try to learn from one another. I don’t think those kids realized how much they taught us not just about their language, but about life. After teaching them some words in English we asked them if they would ever want to visit America. They all looked at each other and laughed and said a word that doesn’t need to be translated from Spanish to English; “no”. Even though we often think happiness comes from what we own, these kids growing up in poverty were happy right where they were. And so were we. -Maria

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