My head wouldn’t stop rotating, looking here and looking there as I walked through the airport in Guatemala City. Everything seemed so strange, so different and . . . loud. As myself and the others I was with passed through customs with our luggage, people behind rails were yelling to us in what was suppose to be Spanish. Despite two months of intense learning I couldn’t understand anything in the massive onslaught of foreign words flying though the air.

Finally we spotted the man who would, in our site, protect us from the masses of unintelligible Guatemalans; Hugo Martinez, the president of the mission that we were assigned to. He his wife and his assistants helped us get our things outside. We stood on the sidewalk, amiss the chaos that was Guatemala and waited for the vehicles that would be transporting us to pull up. I had never been so paranoid in my life. I’d read and researched a lot about the country, but all I could seem to recall was that it was the third most dangerous country in Central America.

As I stood waiting, small grubby children with black all over their hands and faces would walk up, holding a wooden box, and point at me and or my shoes and say something I assumed was a question. I just stared dumbly at them until one of the assistants would say something to them and they would leave. That night my senses, my wit and calm were utterly overwhelmed by that new and completely different place called Guatemala.

I lived there for the next two years. I came to appreciate what I say and how I lived. I spent time is different areas and parts of Guatemala, but I spent the most time on the Pacific coast. I first went to Puerto San Jose. I traveled there the day after I arrived in the country. I had thought it was humid in the capital, but I was wrong. When I first opened the door of the SUV in front of the apartment the thick air hit me full force. It felt as if though I was drinking water. My shirt and tie that I was wearing were immediately sticky with sweat. I came to know that only banks, cars, and select restaurants (mostly in the capital) believed in air conditions. The rest believed in fans.

I lived as the people did; I lived among them, and worked with them. Most of them had nothing in the way of material possessions, yet everyday they smiled. There were some of the happiest people I had ever met. They were happy to just be alive. No matter where I traveled or lived, hospitality was the first concern of the Guatemalans. During my first three months in Guatemala, I discovered what true humility and joy were.

I remember twelve year old boy named Boris. I met him in Puerto San Jose, where he lived with his family. My companion and I were trying to help them out. His father was an alcoholic, and his mother was threatening to leave. His father was a fisherman. The family lived in a small dwelling consisting of five pieced of lamina (sheet metal) for the walls and roof. They had no refrigerator, only one bed, some broken chairs and a few other things. Only Boris and his father could read, but there ability was limited.

One day we had been sitting with them visiting, and were getting ready to leave. Boris who was sitting on the dirt floor in front of us reached his hand out and ran his forefinger across the top of my shoe, removing a layer of dirt and dust. I smiled at him and we started to get up when suddenly he jumped up and told us to wait. We looked at each other and back at him. He insisted that we sit down and wait, so we did. He smiled and ran inside his home and came back out with some paper towels, some water and a broken waste basket which he set in front of me upside down. He told me to put my shoe on it and I complied. He then sat down, and proceeded to clean the dust off my shoe. He finished with the one, and started on the other.

I sat there, feeling his small hands work around my shoes, in stunned silence. I had no words to say to him. Boris didn’t have shoes, or even sandals, yet he was worried that mine were dirty. His life was falling apart. He lived in a small shack with absolutely nothing but a drunken father and cheating mother, and yet he took time to worry about and care that my shoes were dirty. He took time and effort to clean them. I could only say thank you, words did not seem to be enough. When he finished, his smile beamed up at me, and I will never be able to forget the profound love, and sense of honor, humility, and joy that existed between us in those few moments. I walked away in silence, watching every step I took, taking care not to stir even the smallest grain of dust or scuff the tiniest rock with my recently cleaned shoes. I realized that the appreciation of the simplest experiences of life is what makes life worth living.