For someone who has never traveled abroad, for someone who has heretofore never immersed themself in the distinct geographies and cultures and customs and cuisines of Latin America, planting feet on foreign soil is an eye-opening experience -- a rapidfire foreign language disorienting the senses, horn-honking drivers clogging the roads, street food vendors materializing on every intersection come sundown. Traveling abroad is not all smiling selfies at world famous monuments,

See the kids in the image above? Those are kids I used to encounter on a particular callejón during my daily on-foot expeditions through San Pedro La Laguna, Guatemala, one of a handful of enchanting Mayan villages spotting the shores of the incomparable Lake Atitlán. These kids resided but a few hilly blocks from the humble home where I was living while studying Spanish in the village and, like almost everyone I encountered, they were beautiful and generous and, above all, i