children are people too

around lake atitlan are several mayan villages. each has a different name and a different significance to the natives peoples. they all have different catholic churches and traditional festivals. they all have a different patron saint with names including many letter like x. the one thing they do have in common is the fact that tourists come through to puruse the merchandise, and pay the local people the equivalent of 13 cents to have their picture photographed (in these mayan villages, their dress is traditional). with tourists comes essential revenue, sure. but also, it brings out the most brutal desperation of an otherwise proud and vibrant culture i have ever layed witness to. we stepped off the boat at every stop (save the 2nd stop, which was a part of the lake that was naturally heated by lava flowing underneath, creating hotsprings within the cold body of water) to the barrage of children, i mean, CHILDREN, assualting our guilty sides with handmade gifts. trinkets, really. in our group of 15 there was the entire spectrum, those who simply ignored them, those who said no, no gracias, no los quiero, or those who just handed over 1 quetzal, otra vez y otra vez, until they couldnt rummage for any more change. this was all fine, i was somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. i just kept pointing at other groups and saying, maybe you could ask them.
until dinner, i didnt really think of these little humans as children. our group of friends tossed around ideas of whether their parents taught them things to say (eg - please buy this so i can buy pencils for school) or if any of it was true. i sort of put them and their souls on the backburner and thought, well, theyre just trying to make a living. just while discussing this over sugarcane cocacola and the first pizza of the trip, a little boy approached our table holding a plastic bucket with homemade keychains. they were cute, but our whole table had already bought some from another little boy who sat in the rain and stared at us while we waited for the rest of our group on the boat earlier that day. at this particular dinner table, all of us said the same thing to him, no, no gracias, no los quiero. and then something happened that changed my life. he put his small black haired head on the table and started to weep. the weeping didnt sound like it was coming from a 6 year old, but from someone who had seen too much. took on too much. one of our group, the fluent spanish speaker, was able to understand what he was saying through heaves of his small chest. he just wanted a slice of pizza, he said. he didnt want anyone to buy his things. he just wanted pizza. after a few minutes of all of us, eyes filled with tears, looking at eachother in astonishment and confusion and horror and guilt, a little girl, perhaps 1 or 2 years the boys senior, approached the table and put her chin on his shoulder. she whispered something. his eyes were red but he stopped crying. they turned and walked away.