Take time to stop and smell ... the newborn baby cow.

When you are a traveler, it is best not to be in the mindset that you must go, go, go and see as many of the things the tour book tells you to see like you're checking them off a list. Sure, you will see many places and things ...even the touristy spots, because they are touristy for a reason, and they are very often extremely interesting. But when you are a traveler, and not just a tourist, you need to look around you and take in what is going on in your midst. What is going on is life, people living their lives in this place that is foreign to you, strange to you, exotic and intriguing. And their lives are often very different than yours. Very, very different.

Take, for instance, the day I was walking back to work in Xela, Guatemala after my lunch break. I was a little early and went up on the roof terrace of the school. Behind the school, in an open area, was a cow, with a couple baby cows (yes, they would be called calves). Overload on cuteness! So I ran downstairs, grabbed my camera and ran around the building to go see them. By the time I got there, one of the calves had fallen and couldn’t get up. A local woman was helping him. And it just made my day. I asked her if they were her cows, and she said they were her brother’s. She had a baby strapped to her back, a toddler to watch, and she was helping a calf get into the upright position. And I had had barely enough focus (or strength) to remember my fleece jacket and daypack when I left the house.

The neighborhood where I worked was a little outside the center of town, up on a hill. There were homes, dirt streets, and quite a few open, grassy lots. People who had livestock let them graze wherever there was grass. I don’t think there was any “get that animal off my property” mentality. So I often passed cows, horses, chickens, whatever, just hanging out and eating grass. But this day was special ... not just because babies of any species are amazingly cute, but because I stopped and saw life going on.

Yes, it is true that cows have babies in the U.S. I saw some last month in New Hampshire. Baby goats too. Triplets even, and they were only an hour old. And yes, I enjoy seeing them and their cute factor is just as high. But sometimes when you see things in another country – even things that you see in your own country – it is just different. Nothing is the same. Sure I might see a baby cow that has fallen down on a grassy hill in New Hampshire. But I would not likely see it from the roof of a school. Nor would I see a young Mayan woman in brightly colored clothes, with a baby on her back and a small child at her side, nonchalantly helping a calf to his feet. It’s just different ... and that’s why it is so wonderful.