Back in 2005, I went to Guatemala with my mom and a group of college students from Loyola Marymount University. In our two weeks, we worked with a local church that was giving aid to community members. We served the community members daily meals and we did some house visits.
We were also in Guatemala during holy week, “la semana santa” which was a huge celebration that we had the chance to participate in. We dyed sand different colors and then laid out a mural/pattern of sand in the streets. There was a procession of the Jesus Crucifix, in which the car/vehicle carrying it would drive through the beautiful murals. As the car passed children would gather as much sand into the bags they brought to save for later.
It all was chaos as a young 5 year old, but I do distinctly remember one friend I met at the church who’s name is Lesbia. She has two siblings, David and Karin, who were younger and older than me at the time. Lesbia and I would run around the town playing together all the time and eventually I got to meet some of her other friends. Again, my Spanish skills were lacking, so I just used my love of playing to bond with the children I met.