On Friday, January 12, in front of the University Commons, a crowd of friends and family said goodbye to this semester’s Intercultural trip to Guatemala and Cuba. This destination is one of the most popular Intercultural destinations with a well established program. EMU has led almost annual trips of varying lengths to Guatemala since 2002 and has led approximately five trips to Cuba in recent years as well. Seventeen students will be traveling under the guidance of Nathan Zook and Elaine Zook Barge, who have lived and spent significant time in Guatemala City, where the students will be based for eight to nine weeks. It is their third time leading a student group to the country.
Aside from Guatemala City, the group will spend the rest of the semester in other places across the country, including spending time in a primarily indigenous community in the highlands and splitting up into smaller groups and going to more rural parts of the country “where they’ll be doing volunteer projects and having a community immersion experience through local organizations.” The final two weeks are spent in Cuba, where the group will explore Havana and other parts of the island.
Intercultural Programs Coordinator Linda Martin Burkholder sees this trip, like all EMU Interculturals, as “a great opportunity to explode a person’s known worldview based on all that’s been familiar in the first 18, 20 years of their life.”
“59% of the people [in Guatemala] live at or below the poverty line. You learn what the realities are and then contrast that with Cuba at the end of the semester. If there’s a throughline to the semester, it’s focused on learning to see those realities.”
Almost immediately upon arriving in Guatemala, students were thrust into an unexpected reality. After winning landmark elections in August by a significant margin, incumbent president Bernardo Arévalo was stymied by congressional opponents who sought to delay his inauguration. This corruption threatened to delay and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and potentially cause instability throughout Guatemala. The students were following it closely and were thankful for the Barges who could explain the nuances.
“The drama was all afternoon from noon to midnight,” said Nathan Zook. Soon after , he was successfully inaugurated and “we were very excited.” “Arévalo ran on an anti-corruption platform, and corruption is endemic in Guatemala, so if he could come to power and slow down corruption, there would be more money for improving Guatemalan society. It’s a big deal. […] But the conflict is not over. It’s going to be a constant battle for Arévalo to maintain the ability to negotiate modest improvements over his term.
Despite the initial political tumultuousness, the group has been having a great time. Sophomore Leah Beachy described Guatemala as “really rad,” and sophomore Naomi Kratzer said she’s “really tan.”
Sophomore Miranda Beidler elaborated further, saying “This trip so far has been unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I’ve seen so many new things and learned so much in the short week we’ve been here. My favorite thing so far has been trying all the new food and learning so much Spanish. The weather is so nice everyday. The only downside is that it takes us two hours to get to school from our host families on the bus. The buses here are very full and very chaotic. We had to literally shove our way onto the Transmetro.”
The Guatemala/Cuba trip definitely has some very full and chaotic days ahead of them, but all the students are looking forward to what’s to come.
