Martin Prechtel

Martin Prechtel believes that passing on knowledge is very important. The interview talks about how there is a lot of violence in Guatemala. Prechtel says how he would stay “but before my teacher died, he asked me to leave so that I wouldn’t get killed. He wanted me to carry on the knowledge that he had passed to me.” Later in the interview, Prechtel says how he learned that some children did not know "their own people's stories" because they were either Christian or their parents died during the 1980s. Prechtel thinks that it's very important that knowledge is passed down. Also, he thinks knowledge should be passed down within the family. In his book, he leaves out some details because it is sacred knowledge. In order for this knowledge to continue, it must be passed within the family and community.

From the interview, we can tell that Prechtel is a very spiritual person. Jensen quotes Prechtel:

“Spirituality is an extremely practical thing,” he says. “It’s not just something you choose to do on the weekends. . . . It’s an everyday thing, as essential as eating or holding hands or keeping warm in the winter.”

Spirituality is very important to Prechtel. He thinks that we should constantly be aware of the debts we owe to the other world. Prechtel mentions how we see Anorexia because the other world is starving and becoming bony. This made me think about how our technological advancements, such as cars, has a bad effect on the environment. As an effect, we have global warming. The way Prechtel describes worlds make me picture Earth and the environment as a separate world from humans. This world allows us to live as we do, but in exchange, we should give back to the planet and the environment so that we don't see global warming and other effects.

I thought it was interesting that the language Prechtel learned when he was younger does not have the verb to be. This verb is essential within the English language as well as other languages. Instead of using to be, they say that someone belongs to something else. I thought this was interesting because it's a more emotional way of looking at relationships. If we say that person A is the mother of person B, we're merely stating a fact. But if we say that person A belongs to person B, we have the impression that they have a relationship. Prechtel probably thinks that instead of being humans on Earth, we are humans that belong to the Earth and must give back.