Personal Narrative Essay: My Trip To Guatemala

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“ We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.” I live in a bubble: wealth, comfort, education, and love. Not everyone in our world lives like this, not even everyone in our country lives like this. I knew there were people that were starving, homeless, abused, or ignored; what I didn’t know was how many. I had never been out of the country until last December, when my family decided to take a trip to Guatemala. It was going to be a humanitarian trip before our guide bailed on us, so we ended up going to tour the major sites and see some of the villages. Our flight landed early in the morning and we quickly went through security, immigration, …show more content…

It was market day. Stepping out of the car the first thing I noticed was how short everyone was. The street was full of booths, people, food, and non-stop noise. It was packed you couldn’t take a step without hitting into someone else. One of the advantages I had is my height. I could look over everyone. As my family was browsing and bargaining with different people something hit me and I realized that this was how many of the families earned enough money to put food on the table, payed bills, and attended school. After that rush of realization I started noticing things: the little kids running around without parents, how dirty and worn out the clothing and shoes people wore were, and how skinny and malnourished they looked. It astonished me how poorly people were living. Later that week my tour group was walking through another village and there were so many people on the street begging. One lady I saw was not even four feet tall; she looked so hungry and lonely that I nearly cried! There were so many stray kids that were begging for food or money. My heart broke for all of them. A great deal of the people there were homeless. Although even if you weren’t homeless you weren’t much better off. The homes were cement or tin walls with a tin roof. I made me so sad how bad off people are down

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