You say you buy from me!

In the fourth grade, my parents decided it would be a good idea to take my sister and I out of school for two weeks and go to Guatemala on a mission trip with our church. The associate priest at the time had an uncle who headed up a mission in San Lucas Toliman, so a group of people went down to help out the local parish as well as help build a clinic. Somehow my friend C and her family ended up coming as well, which surprises me to this day - we were a Catholic church and they were Jewish. I suppose charity is a universal theme, though.

I remember getting all sorts of homework to work on while I was away, and thinking it so dreadful that I would miss two whole weeks of Star Trek:Voyager. No big deal though, it was still my first real trip to a foreign country (weekends in Canada so don't count) and definitely my first somewhere where I didn't speak the language. When we weren't helping out at the church or the clinic, we took a few excursions to neighbouring towns.

Every time we would get off the boat, or car, or however we got there, a huge rush of girls with baskets would rush towards us, trying to sell their handmade bracelets and other goods. It seemed that they would follow us throughout the town, finally letting us be when we told them "maybe later." I guess that sounded like a promise to them.

At the end of the excursions when we were again leaving the town, these same girls would come up to us, screaming in broken English: "my name is Maria, you say you buy from me!" and shoving these baskets in our faces until finally a few people got out their wallets and made these girls' weeks.

But seriously, is everyone in Guatemala named Maria?