ARE YOU A TRAVELER OR A
TOURIST?
Cathedral School for Boys has provided me with many professional and personal opportunities over the ten years that I have worked here. Perhaps the most unique has been the opportunity to travel during Intersession. In a decade, I have visited five countries on seven different trips with 171 students. And each time, my aim has been to be that of a traveler. Students who have participated on Intersession trips with me know that we spend a lot of time talking about the difference between being a traveler and being a tourist— the idea being that a traveler more actively engages in the experience, whereas a tourist watches passively without attempting to connect. Despite my emphasis on this in class, I’ve found time and time again that it is really quite hard not to be tourists on Intersession trips. After all, when you’re traveling with a group of 29 middle school boys, you stand out. It’s inevitable that we will be perceived as tourists—or a soccer team—and in that perception, it becomes harder to engage and connect with others. But this year I was wrong. This year we went to a uniquely magical place—San Juan de la Laguna. There are two reasons San Juan is uniquely magical, and the first one is the community. Most people in Guatemala are indig- enous, or Native Americans (remember, Guatemala is in Central America). There are 24 indigenous ethnic groups in Guatemala; most people in San Juan are Tzútujil. The people in San Juan are possibly the most welcoming people I have encountered in my travels. They go out of their way to say “hola” (English: hello) in the morning when you pass in the street and “buen provecho” (English: enjoy your meal) to neighboring tables in restaurants. I have observed bits of
this in other places where I have traveled, especially in small towns where neighbors constantly run into each other and thus, have to have a polite greeting ready, but never have I been regularly included in it. Despite my ability to recip- rocate in Spanish, my difference was obvious. Even when I was walking around without students, I stood out for wearing different clothes, being taller than locals, and, most obviously, being white. And yet that same neighborliness I observed among residents was extended to me. No one ignored me, even when it would have been easy to avert their eyes on the street. In fact, one morning I counted 11 people who said “buenos días” to me while I walked the three blocks from my house to the language school. In San Juan, 3,620 miles from Cathedral School for Boys, I truly felt that I was a part of a
CHAPEL TALK MARCH 13, 2019 BY SARAH ROGGERO, Upper School Spanish Teacher
28 CATHEDRAL SCHOOL FOR BOYS
FALL 2019 • RED & GOLD 29
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