June 2010 

By Andrew Brown 

Sacatepéquez – El Hato is a really gorgeous, really poor town. There are only about five buildings, around which spread trails leading to houses (which are all made of corrugated metal and wood). After meeting at the school, we took a hike around the paths to see how the kids live. This dirt trail was probably one of the most picturesque paths I’ve ever gotten to walk on. Not to detract from other places, but seeing people living on such humble means definitely added to the value of the experience.

At one point we got to peek into a couple huts, which was a really interesting experience. These huts held hardly anything inside them, but they still had a remarkably homey feel to them. Each one had its own personality, whether by the contents of the shelves or the families that lived there. We also saw the cemetery. It had wooden crosses under which lay tombs. There were mounds of dirt over each grave, which I think served as a more poignant reminder of their nature, rather than quiet, grassy, level plains found in America. During our time there we heard stories of deaths, including one of a seventeen-year-old boy on a school trip who got stuck in the seaweed of Lago de Atitlán while swimming and drowned. For whatever reason, I felt a kinship with this boy, who, while from a vastly different place, lived parallel to me almost two thousand miles away. A few kids accompanying us also told us where some of their family members were buried. I think the cemetery made complete the experience of visiting the village: we were able to see the youth, adulthood, and death of a community.