When I was Elena / Ellen Urbani Hiltebrand

In 1991, Hiltebrand, then 22, jettisoned her Southern belle sorority life for two years in rural Guatemala, armed with her dog, fluency in Spanish and a well-grounded blend of will and pluck ("National Geographic lied," she declares upon arrival). In the country's crushing poverty and rampant hazards, along with the worshipful envy Hiltebrand elicits as a "gringa," the author finds an unexpected lode of humor that she mines to impressive effect, gently but not jeeringly. She records events with unflinching precision, leavened with an amiable sense of the absurd-as when a crone blithely steals Hiltebrand's mattress, which is imbued with new value by a white woman's touch. Even the kindness extended to her is riddled with poignant irony, as a neighbor slaughters her chickens to feed the author's ailing dog. The country's more menacing figures-lewd men, including a would-be rapist-are introduced without histrionics, as products of a culture viewed with clear-eyed, anthropological interest. Hiltebrand's travelogue is intercut with the quietly powerful life stories of the native women she befriends, and the tectonic shifts in perspective create a rich mosaic of culture and character.