Other Cultures

I've often wondered about others. In your town, from another town, or simply a face in the news. While I was in the Peace Corps some 30 years ago I took this photograph of one of our crew as we sweated on a mountainside planting seedlings near Salama, Guatemala. He has a proud face with a gentle smile. I've lost his name to time, but I remember the essence of him, his home and his family. I'm sure that he did not have the easiest of lives, but you would have never have known it. He, along with his co-workers, worked over the Gringo, Don Samuel, real well. We had a great time. I was part of a Peace Corps-Smithsonian-CARE conservation program which supported Peace Corps Volunteers across the country as they set up small tree nurseries with their Guatemalan counterparts over a diverse set of landscapes - from tropical to desert. I will never forget the times that I had there. And his was a face that I will not forget either, and therein prompts my message. Our lives are too short to let opportunities slip by at home or abroad to learn that those from over there - in other towns, other places and other cultures - often times are not unlike ourselves with many of the same worries, same joys, and same prayers.