Never Seen This Before - Guatemala Style

For 20 years plus my parents have called Guatemala home. A beautiful country of contrasts offers, among many assets, temperatures in the 70s year-round, blue skies and low humidity. For this reason alone, I love to visit during the dreary days of black snow in the Midwest.

But I also love being here for the sites and sounds, which include crazy traffic and crazier motorcyclists. Coming in from the airport yesterday was this first: a dog on the back of a motorcycle and the dog is wearing a helmet. At least his owner cares for the dog...

Black Snow

There is only one word to describe black snow -- ugly. Black snow reveals the pollution that fills our atmosphere, but rarely gets our attention. We cannot ignore black snow. It appears a few days after the snow stops falling. Pollution from our factories, busses and cars settles on the white snow, turning it gray and then black. If there are few things as pure as the driven snow, there is nothing as unpure as black snow.

Black snow reminds us that Leopold was right, we will never achieve harmony with land, but we must strive to achieve it. Black snow reminds us how much more we need to strive.

I am grateful to be headed to the land of eternal spring. No black snow there, but Guatemala also is struggling to achieve harmony with land. More on that soon.