![\"K'ekchi](\"http:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8382\/8497014521_8e6d5cc79f_m.jpg\")
<\/a> Last week we were paired up with students from K\u2019ekchi indigenous families who attend school in Copan.\u00a0 We visited their homes and experienced many different ways of life through their families and their hospitality.\u00a0 The following is a reflection on one of those experiences.<\/p>\nThe visit to the village of Leticia was such a good learning experience and view into a life completely different from my own.\u00a0 One of the things that most stuck out to me was the open curiosity toward Randi and I.\u00a0 The children were the most open about their curiosity and in some ways the most interested in us, as could be expected.\u00a0 When we unpacked our bags for the night they stood around us, following every move closely.\u00a0 If I sat down in the yard somewhere it wasn\u2019t long before they crowded around me laughing and crawling onto my lap or sitting close beside me.\u00a0 They were also very excited to act as our tour guides, leading us to their gardens and animals and watching our faces to see what we thought.\u00a0 It was really fun and kind of an honor to spend time with them because they were so interested in us.<\/p>\n
The adults, I think, were just as curious toward the pair of gringas in their village, but their age made them more cautious than the kids.\u00a0 When we walked into the small Catholic Church, all eyes immediately went to us, examining our clothes, skin, faces.\u00a0 Never in my life have I been such an object of fascination, and normally this kind of an experience would be really uncomfortable, but the open curiosity of the people was more innocent than menacing.\u00a0 It was such a neat opportunity to share friendship with the children and people of the village (whenever I caught someone looking during the service and smiled at them, they smiled really warmly back; it was fun) and to take memories and a good look at a vastly different lifestyle and way of living.\u00a0\u00a0 I will remember these two days for a long time.\u00a0 I connected this experience to how Columbus and other European explorers must have felt upon arriving in Central America, but will never be able to understand how someone could ignore the beauty of a new culture and opportunity for friendship and learning in the face of greed.<\/p>\n
– Katie Eckman<\/p>\n
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February 6, 2013 What words can describe the loss of thousands of human lives?\u00a0 It is a good thing that the FAFG, Forensic Anthropology Organization, are doing in giving identities to those lost to the terrible tragedies that occurred here in Guatemala just a short couple of decades ago.\u00a0 The emptiness left in each family … Continue reading Valuing life and hospitality<\/span>