Eagan resident Maureen White Eagle watched a conversation without words dissolve all language barriers during a trip last year to Mexico.

“Neither woman spoke the other’s language but they were communicating and laughing,” White Eagle said. “They managed to make a connection through gestures and it was just amazing to see that.”

When White Eagle made her trip in October 2004, she didn’t visit the usual tourist destinations such as Cancun or Mazatlan, but instead took an opportunity to get a taste of the lifestyle of one native Mexican community.

White Eagle made the trip with Global Citizens Network, a St. Paul-based nonprofit organization. She spent more than a week working with the Totonac people of the east-central Mexico state of Puebla.

It’s those types of cross-cultural experiences like White Eagle described that GCN wants to foster through its one-to-three-week trips to 10 indigenous communities across the world.

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