By Finley Caisse

Work is one of those things I thought I understood. In the States, most of us know work as 40-hour work week mixed with a 20 minute commute, and packaged into a bi-weekly paycheck. It’s predictable, structured, and a schedule we complain about even though it pays for phones, food, rent, and the impulse buys we cling to. 

Guatemala forced me to see the cracks in my worldview. Through my incessant questions that must drive Mr Alter crazy, he was forced to explain how Covid hit here in a way that didn’t just disrupt life but hollowed it out. Farmers working full-time suddenly had to sell chunks of their land to big corporations that would exploit their land by farming and development properties just to buy phones to access government aid they so desperately needed.

My first Global-Ed trip to Senegal showed me a side of the world that was still cooking meals over wood stoves daily. This trend continued when setting up concrete stoves with a humanitarian aid group called REMMA. I tried my hardest to communicate with one of the volunteers, Astrid through broken Spanish. I asked a very simple question, “Was work hard to find for these people and if it was, what were the causes?” She responded with some very simple Spanish words. Work, government, opportunity, construction. Up until then, Mr Alter had given us a brief rundown on the corrupt legacy of the Guatemalan Civil War. Mr. Alter had talked about the long term affects on people but this was the first time I had seen it unfold in person. Astrid had now told me flat out – there’s hardly any work, and most of it is in construction. And no, the government wasn’t helping. REMMA wasn’t just some charity project, it was the thing stepping in where the government had stepped out.

This truth was further cemented when Rodolfo, our tour guide up the volcano Pacaya explained that when his community of twelve thousand lost their houses, farms and cattle, the government support programs were not in place to help. Private money and fundraising had been what saved them. He had worked his whole life climbing the mountain and sharing his passion for the tourists, only for the thing he loved so dearly to take it all away. He is an amazing guy with an incredible sense of humor. With an even more incredible youtube channel that Lillian finds hilarious. 

Cerro De Oro, a small town and a place with maybe twenty shops all selling the same handful of goods ranging from ice cream, snacks, and small necessities. I’d gone the whole trip without needing or even carrying money. When I finally told Mr. Alter I needed to exchange some to buy some snacks, he handed me 200 quetzals or about twenty five dollars. For me in the States, that’s two hours of work. Here, that could buy fifty ice creams, ten haircuts, or food for a family for an entire week. Some of these shopkeepers could only manage to run the shops to support their family while I was able to work a dozen part time jobs. If I alone had that kind of buying power, imagine the thirty-plus people traveling with me, some carrying double or triple what I had. This was when I saw how absurdly strong the U.S. dollar was against the quetzal, we were walking GDP spikes. Hours, minutes, and second were valued the same but the economy was different. 

A final moment on the trip was the most eye opening. On day five, we ended up in San Pedro, where the group was lead into a shop selling traditionally made Mayan clothing. My first instinct was classic tourist paranoia. Fake items, inflated prices, scams. One of the women working brought us to a room off to the side and showed how everything was actually made from how the dyes were created, how the thread was spun, how the loom worked. Hours of labor woven into pattern. Months pressed into fabric. Suddenly the items weren’t just souvenirs but stories. Each piece of clothing was a slice of tradition they were keeping alive. One blue overcoat caught my eye: 1,500 quetzales. To a tourist, that’s “too expensive.” To the woman who made it, Seven hours a day, thirty days a month for eight months straight. When she offered a discount down to 1,000 quetzales, I realized my $125 was nearly a year of her work. In my head it made the transaction more appealing, to her it was the passion and lively hood she wanted to share. 

These three moments didn’t just make me rethink “work.” They rewired how I look at money entirely. I’ve never been someone who impulse buys or spends just because I can. If anything, I’m the opposite. I am probably the cheapest person on this planet. But seeing the economy here through the eyes of the people living inside it made my usual habits of going to 711 to buy an energy drink or bag of chips as the most I would ever splurge feel small compared to the bigger picture.

Back home, saving money feels responsible. Here, that same amount of money I choose to keep feels powerful, almost too powerful. But not powerful in a toubab kind of way, but in a way that forces you to confront how crazy the relationship between countries can be. Even in the same time zone. A couple hours of my life could easily mean weeks of stability for someone else. A few dollars could mean the difference between choice and necessity.

Mr Alter puts it best. None of us have truly worked for the opportunity to be where we are. A-lot of us drive nice cars that our parents bought for us on our 16th birthday and Christmas trees with every gift we asked for. Im one of these people. When we realize that there are people who work twice the hours for half the wage, only then can we truly appreciate what we have and how we choose to live our lives.