Last Meeting with Thania

            Thania and I switched it up for our last meeting and met at Barnes and Noble for our last meeting. We had a great conversation over coffee for the last time. For this conversation, we talked about a wide range of topics. Because Thania was working on her final essay for her writing clatss, we discussed that. Her essay was about a paragraph long, and I was thoroughly impressed with her writing. The topic of the essay was "who is the most important political figure in your country?" Thania was torn at first about what to write about. She has been living in the United States for over 15 years, and is a full US citizen and consider the United States her home. But she figured that the teacher wanted her to write about where she is originally from, Guatemala. So for the essay, she wrote about Rigoberta Menchu Tum, a Guatemalan famous for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Rigoberta is famous for her equal rights with the indigenous people.
           Despite Thania writing about Rigoberta, she actually isn't a huge fan of her. She loves what she does regarding equal rights with the Mayan people, but Thania claims that Rigoberta is sort of a communist politically. This kind of brought the conversation to a discussion on the state of Guatemala and its future. Thania says right now that Guatemala is very dangerous because of being so close to Colombia and Mexico. The people in charge of the drug rings in Guatemala used to be kind and gracious to the community. But then the Mexican cartels came in and massacred all the existing drug leaders, and replaced them with their own men. Now she says Guatemala is dangerous, and people are nervous that they might not be able to go to the grocery store and back and surviving. This is especially tough for Thania because the majority of her family is living there still.
         We eventually came to the topic of politics in the United States. Thania is fairly conservative when it comes to politics, however she doesn't like how the parties are so against each other. In the past election, she voted for Obama. She actually thought I was from Ohio and became a little angry when I told her I didn't get my absentee vote in time. She was relieved when I let her know I was from Nebraska.
          At this point, we had been talking for over an hour and it was time to go. I really enjoyed this conversation because I learned a lot about Thania's culture and her views. Our meetings were always entertaining, and I am thankful I had such a enthusiastic partner.