There are many times that we college students like to talk about how we are “poor college students,” surviving on a diet of ramen noodles and black coffee. There is no doubt that college is extremely expensive, with tuition and books and lab supplies and so much more. Many of us have to get jobs in order to counteract these costs, and many of us do, in fact, live within a very tight budget.
However, most of us are far from poor in the American sense of the word- we have dining dollars and get at least one good meal a day, we attended (mostly) free school for the majority of our lives, and we have reliable sources of water, power, and clothing.
In Guatemala, we “poor college students” would be disgustingly rich. Rather than having cinderblock homes, we have apartments furnished with photos of loved ones and thrift-store furniture. Rather than walking miles on end to get buckets of contaminated water, we turn on the tap and complain about how metallic the water in the dorms tastes. We don’t rely on people from other countries to give us food baskets, we don’t have missionaries coming to build us new homes because our apartments aren’t up to their first-world standards, we don’t have to start working in the fields as soon as we turn 12 so that our little sister has a meal on the table, and we don’t realize how lucky we are.
A visit to a third world country can change our entire lives, make us realize how privileged we actually are in America, and transform our worldview forever.
Over winter break, I had the privilege to travel to Guatemala with a mission group at my home church, through the organization Mission Firefly. We stayed in the large city of Antigua at night, and traveled to a little village named Chuluc during the day to spend time with the children of the village. I saw so many interesting things, met so many fabulous people, and my life changed in ways I had never expected.
There are volcanoes dotting the landscape, venting smoke into the clear blue sky. There are large cities completely covered by graffiti paint, and school uses painted red and green with bright shapes running down the sides. There is pineapple soda, hot dogs with guacamole and mayonnaise on them, and the best chicken soup I had ever tasted in my life.
Children, who are so tiny due to undernourishment, but would give you pieces of candy or flowers from their gardens to show how much they loved being around you, overran the village. The great wealth of bilingual people clearly shed light on my appallingly poor Spanish skills. And, most significantly, I was surrounded by poverty that I had never seen before- the poverty that comes from a corrupt government which steals from its citizens, the poverty that comes from being surrounded by farmland and not being able to enjoy the fruits of your labor, and simple third-world poverty that shocked my American sensibilities and made me focus on how privileged I actually am to live the life I lead here at Auburn.
As college students, we have very unique travel opportunities at our fingertips. We’re at a stage in our lives where we are young enough to speed walk around large city centers and climb endless stairs to get to the top of monuments, but we’re old enough to appreciate other cultures and cultivate fond memories that we will treasure for a long time. We can take a semester off school to study abroad without having to worry about children or husbands, without having to think about work deadlines or finding people to cover for us, without having many obligations here in Auburn.
If you are thinking about studying abroad or participating in a mission trip, you may never have an opportunity like this again and should take full advantage of this unique time in your life. I will never forget the smiling faces that I came in touch with in Guatemala, and if you choose to follow the study abroad program, no matter where you go on this great green earth, it will change your life forever.
If you are interested in studying abroad, take a glance at the Auburn study abroad website at http://www.auburn.edu/academic/international/students.php, or attend a study abroad session on Thursdays at 3:00 p.m. or Fridays at 11:00 a.m. in 242 Foy Hall.
If you are interested in learning more about Mission Firefly, visit their website at http://www.missionfirefly.org.
All photos courtesy of the Locust Grove Baptist Church Missions Facebook Page.