a few days ago i received an interesting email called questions from my fifth grade students
uh this is from molly and molly wrote hello dan i'm a fifth grade teacher in wisconsin
my class is conducting research on a topic of their choice my student isaac chose guatemala
he wanted to collect some facts about guatemala by interviewing someone who had traveled there
and he came across your vlog watched it and came up with some questions
here are his questions below we appreciate your time smiley face some of the questions you have
isaac are i would say very advanced for your age i hope you don't mind me making a video response
question number one do you find a lot of nice people there yes i do isaac yes i do pretty
much every guatemalan i've met has made it so apparent that they want me to enjoy my time here
i can speak english if you feel more comfortable oh yeah that's cool yeah they ask me what cities
i've been to and then they always have at least one or two recommendations of places i need to go
like what makes someone nice well what makes them a nice to me is when they welcome you into their
home you know which is kind of like what a country is it's someone's home the guatemalans i've met
have definitely welcomed me into their home you see people in guatemala city como le pare
question number two is it beautiful there in some ways guatemala is a it almost
feels like an impossible country like it's it sometimes feels impossibly green you can grow
almost anything in guatemala you have these rolling green hills all through the country
you have bananas growing here avocados growing here i mean i don't know a lot of fruits and
vegetables but like if you name something it can probably grow here in guatemala i mean how could
anyone see these scenes and not think guatemala is beautiful yeah yes it is beautiful here
question number three did you notice any drug trafficking when you were there
or is there more than just that okay um did i notice any drug trafficking
i'm not sure i should be saying this to a fifth grader but it's an unfortunate fact of life
that a lot of the illegal drugs that end up in places like wisconsin or canada come through
countries in central america but more to the point of your question which says is there more than
just that there's certainly more than just that let's take wisconsin for example i i've never
been to wisconsin but when i think of wisconsin the first thing i think of is cheese the green
bay packers don't isn't that your football team and they have the cheese heads right so i i think
about cheese when i think about wisconsin but if you're watching this with your classroom or anyone
who's watching this like people are probably laughing because you know there's more than just
cheese to wisconsin and people in guatemala it's like that if you say oh is there drug trafficking
there like they might laugh or roll their eyes or yeah they probably wouldn't laugh but they'll just
be thinking like yes but there's so much more there's so much beyond that and so sometimes
the stereotype or the cliche is the first thing we think about and for me the job of a traveler
is really to to see past that and to see the world as a fully complex place that it really
is now i don't want to exaggerate and say that there's no crime in the city or anything like
look behind me this place that i'm staying it's kind of hard to see but that is barbed wire fence
see that that's for security that's like there they have higher security here than
i might have at my home in canada but look below we have this beautiful garden
and it's up to you what you want to focus on do you see the beautiful plants
or do you see the barbed wire fence because they both exist and they're both real but it's up to us
what we want to focus on it's up to us what story we want to tell and for me on my youtube channel
the new travel it's all about reinventing the stories we have about different places
because there is beauty out there in every country on earth you just gotta find it
question number four what was the best place you went to in guatemala what's the best place i went
to probably lake atillan probably lake atlanta and there's many different communities around the lake
like this place i went san marcos it's just so so beautiful san juan is beautiful there's all
these different communities but somehow the lake itself like just the experience of riding a boat
across the lake and when you ride a boat some like you're sitting beside other tourists and stuff
but you're also sitting beside some you know uh indigenous guatemalan grandmother who's just like
carrying a sack of apples to her town or whatever so it's an interesting mix of
like foreigners and locals as well and so you have this real travel moment where it's just
like you're all in this boat together on this beautiful lake and just experiencing the waves
so that's probably my favorite spot i've been so far question five what was the best food you tried
i've had a lot of good food down here one that i had recently was called rey anitos
can you see that reenitos de plantano renitos are made from plantains or like those sweet
small bananas and they have chocolate they have cinnamon they have sugar they even have beans
it's almost like a sweet banana and chocolate donut and it was really good
so that's one uh favorite food i've had recently that'll be in an upcoming video smash that
subscribe button and uh yeah just kidding i feel weird at telling fifth graders they
should subscribe to youtube it's like you should actually probably just like read a book but if you
got time you know check out my videos question six why is it not safe in guatemala in the dark
and then they say you said this in your video well isaac it's not safe in guatemala in the dark
because now we're talking about guatemala city specifically where i said that uh guatemala city
is a place where you know going back to what i was saying about the barbed wire there is a security
risk to the city and once it's after dark there's significantly less people on the street
so if you're a foreigner and you're walking on your own you'll just stand out more and you could
become a target for someone out there who wants to pickpocket you or take your phone or something
like that you know i wish i could shield you from that reality and say that it's not true
but it is true and i've had locals tell me not to walk around guatemala city after dark saying that
they never do that just take an uber take a taxi you know stay home um and so i respect that advice
as much as i try to see the world as a great place and i i focus on that aspect in my videos i can't
mislead people i can't have people putting themselves in a situation where something bad
might happen it's kind of like teaching someone to swim you don't want them to be scared of the water
but you can't just throw them in and be like all right have fun
you got to teach them how to swim and swimming in guatemala means something like
like not walking alone after dark if you you know really really really don't know where you're going
not walking or i mean you know i walk around with an expensive camera and honestly even that i don't
recommend people to do that this is my job i've been over 40 countries i've developed an instinct
for what is a safe situation what's not it only takes one moment for something like that to really
put a negative perspective on a on a trip so there's always safe ways to travel but you want
to avoid these situations where you're taking an unnecessary risk and that's why i don't walk
alone after dark in guatemala city i don't want to risk something like that happening and spoiling
the great experience i've been having in guatemala and if you're a guatemalan who's watching you
might know even better than me so leave in the comments any thoughts you have any perspective
that uh you know if you think i'm wrong about something let me know it wouldn't be the first
time i've been wrong about something in a video but as best as i can those are my answers to your
questions i hope you and any other young person watching this embarks on a life of travel because
with all respect to your teacher molly i think the classroom can teach you a lot
but traveling can teach you a lot as well and in some sense you need you need you need the wisdom
of teachers and books and homework and all that stuff but there's a whole nother side of life
that comes when you start embracing new places and new experiences and learning from other cultures
and so uh yeah highly recommend anyone out there to travel when they get the chance and not to
be afraid of beautiful countries like guatemala because they're out there waiting for you as well
okay that's all i got today as always i'm dan from the new travel i'll see you next time