Monday, May 12, 2014

trip summary

 First off it is infanantly good to be back! All the buildings are completly painted and actually look like they have been maintained in the last three years. I feel so spoiled in the place that I get to live.

What does having been on this trip inspire me to do? 
This trip has inspired me to continue to return to Guatemala and similar places to help education, change laws, and do garbage pickup projects.
I believe that the key to digging any country out of poverty is education.
With an educated population the more people can, get better jobs, understand law and change it to help the people rather than just the government, women can obtain rights with undiscrminitory laws, animals will be treated better and there will be less litter.

What are the top three things I have learned on the trip? 
How important education is in creating a developed country.
Spanish.
Mexican and Guatemalan history.

Compare and contrast: 

On one side Latin America seemed to be more unorganized and unmaintained. Also, especially in Guatemala the cops were extremely macho and seemed unprofessional. The more north I moved, the more professional they seemed and the less macho they got.  The transportation in Mexico has much surpassed ours, as far as prices they're cheaper, as far as quality there better. In Guatemala everybody will give you directions whether they know what they are talking about or not. The farther north we got in Mexico, they actually gave us good directions, so it's much easier to know when you're going in Mexico than Guatemala.

When I got back to Washington everything seemed so clean and organized and I was awed in beauty by all the tall, green trees covering the mountains. It was so odd for me to see buildings completely painted without many large ware marks or having only the front of the building painted and the rest just grey concrete. Everything seemed generally more maintained with less garbage and better kept plants. But, I do think that the United States is at a plateau and the rest of the world is certainly catching up.

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