The High Price of Chiclets

Kimberly bought some Chiclets chewing gum from a young boy on the street yesterday. We paid 20 quetzels (almost $3) for a few pieces of gum ... but it was worth every penny to us to see the smiles on his and his mother's faces.

Every time we travel here, we see the faces of our own children in those of Guatemalans who are less fortunate. We see them at the airport, on the streets of Guatemala City and in the town square of Antigua, and we desperately want to help all of them. Many of them look as if there growth has been stunted by malnutrition, and I suspect most of them are truly needy. While we are relucant to just hand them money, we will buy goods from them. And while I'll usually try to negotiate with an adult Guatemalan if I think the price for a particular item is too high, I tend to pay whatever price a Guatemalan child quotes to me -- and sometimes more.

I can remember buying necklaces from two girls in Antigua on our trip to adopt Anthony. The girls were sitting on a stoop together, and Kimberly says they were probably sisters. They probably thought I was crazy for insisting on buying necklaces from both of them when the money was going to the same family. But I couldn't help it. I wanted something from each of them.

Three years ago, Kimberly did something a little different. She bought ice cream for the children who were eating lunch in Antigua's town square next to the bench where we sat. And this year, Kimberly brought a bag of bite-size candy bars to hand out in the town square. I'm sure that will be just as big of a hit here as it was in Russia, when I gave a bag of chocolates to the eight-year-old son of two of the Christians there.

I overpaid for the Chiclets yesterday only because I didn't have any smaller bills. But now that I've done it once, I might just do it again and again. It makes me happy, and it makes the children happy, if only for a brief time.