A Journey for the Soul: Zach's Gap Year With Thinking Beyond Borders

Life in Tecpan has been going great! Tecpan, the Guatamalan city I´m living in, is an odd mix of rural and urban feel. When you walk down the street you will pass both tightly packed storefronts and men pulling along goats and ox. There are plenty of coffee shops (although coffee shops are only open in the afternoons here, which I´m still slightly confused about) and restaurants as well, although it is impossible to know at which restaurants you are completely safe from the threat of parasites. My Spanish is getting much better as well! I am able to have pretty consistent conversations with my host family at this point, although when I try to speak Spanish while tired I usually end up just stuttering and creating some odd mix of English and Spanish that no one can understand. Being here has definitely reignited my desire to learn new languanges. The ability to converse with someone in their native language, especially as an American, many of whom never bother to sincerely try learnin...

For these last two weeks, our group has been rising absurdly early in order to get out to the farms we are working at by eight o´clock. Divided into three groups of five, we rotate farms every day, so that we all get to experience different farms and work with different farmers every day. This past Tuesday was my favorite day so far. My group hiked deep into the forest and, after being handed machetes, was instructed to clear all the brush and small trees in order to make room for more big trees to grow. I had never used a machete before, and the feeling of hacking my way through the jungle thicket was pretty thrilling, I'm not gonna lie. Most days, though, we spend hunched over strawberry plants, pulling off dry leaves and rotten berries. This is grueling and monotonous work, especially as the oppressively hot sun rises higher and higher in the sky. The farmers we work with will zoom through rows, leaving us in the dust as we all squint our eyes trying to differentiate the dry l...

¡Hola de Guatamala! My first few weeks here have been absolutely incredible. The first twelve days of the program served as an orientation to help ease us into things and get to know each other. For this, we stayed at an eco-hotel on Lake Atitlan. It was a quaint place overlooking the beautiful waters and the lush green mountains on the opposite side of the lake. For those two weeks, we ate food served by the lovely staff of Uxlabil (the eco-hotel), attended Spanish school often (my Spanish is coming along, but I´ve still got a ways to go...), attended seminars asking some base questions about what development is and whose job it is to develop whom, and had free time in San Juan, the small town on our side of the lake. One of the most fascinating things I got to do in San Juan was take a textile tour, where I learned all about how cotton is produced and turned into sellable products. I got to try spinning cotton too, and let me tell you, it was not as easy as they made it loo...

Offensively early on Monday morning, I'll be heading off to Guatemala with fourteen other teenagers and two leaders for the beginning of seven months full of learning, personal development, and a once in a lifetime experience. The journey, however, has already started. In preparation for the year, I've read a few books, including Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins, and Half the Sky by Nicholas D Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn. I would highly recommend all three of these books. Each one resonated deeply with me and got me asking some important questions: How reliable is our culture's narrative about who we are and how we should live? At what point do we have to assume responsibility for our own ignorance? How can we assist in creating meaningful and culturally respectful social and economic change in developing countries? These are just some of the many questions that I hope to find some answers to over the course of the year, albeit pr...