Personal narrative: rough draft Pete Nichols


This summer I went with my church's youth group to Guatemala. We went for ten days, three of which were home stays.
the time I spent there was truly life changing.
It seemed like days but we had finally arrived at the small town of Pana Winton. A small settlement, high in the eastern
mountains of Guatemala. At least half the homes are connected to family owned tiendas, which sell snacks and fruit that we
weren't permitted to eat because of our susceptibility to food born diseases. The largest buildings are simple dirt floor churches.
These churches are the center of the community. Anything from town meetings to soccer games are held there.

Stepping of the bus, I was immediately greeted by shabby flea bitten dogs. I reached out to touch them but they retreated as if I had attacked them. I later learned that dogs in poor regions of Guatemala are often beaten and starved, so they fear humans. We walked down a long winding path to a preacher’s house to have lunch. Looking out across the mountains, you can see hundreds of small scrap huts made of anything available. The preacher’s house stands in the middle of a cornfield. The small clay compound is home to countless children, animals and family members of the preacher.
While the house is very modest there is a make shift sauna in the back, its barely large enough to fit three people, but it shows how the attitude of these people is overwhelmingly positive.
Lunch was in what I would call the dining building, another small hut with miss matched tables in it. The hosts laid pine on the ground for us, a tradition done for special guests. They served us chicken soup with corn tortillas. It amazes me how much work was spent making food that so many of us barely touched, everything set before us was grown, harvested, washed, and prepared by the people.
After lunch we played games with the children. Games like duck duck goose, Frisbee and soccer. After an hour or so I was completely out of breath, the thin mountain air and the tireless