How We Are Received

Today, while traveling back to our apartment from La Antigua, I had a brief conversation on the chicken bus with a local. He asked where I was from and when I said Iowa, it was obvious that he had no clue where that was. I clarified the location by saying it was to the west of Chicago. He then could place it. Before our conversation ended with him getting off the bus, he told me that it was good for Guatemala that people from the United States were coming to visit. Tourism is a major source of revenue in Guatemala, as are remittences from Guatemalan workers in the U.S. Both are down because of the world-wide recession. I thanked him for his kind words and told him that it was good for us to visit Guatemala. After all, who wouldn't prefer living in paradise to shoveling snow? :0)