Unsolicited Gifts

I am seated on a tiled building fachada on the dusty main street of San Juan la Laguna, Lake Atitlan, Solola, Guatemala. Isn’t that a mouthful? The early afternoon sun behind the building where I am seated causes half this lazy cobbled street to be cast in shadow. The calm is only occasionally disturbed by a bicyclist, a pickup truck, a horse.
The plain concrete buildings that stretch along the narrow corridor vary in shade from cream to sky blue and mint green. Their corroded, corrugated tin roofs give a rusty overtone. It is the hora de almuerzo and from inside these homes, their wooden windows open, comes the clattering of pans, occasional drumming of hammers and woodwork, laughter, and conversation interspersed with both Tzutijul (one of Guatemala’s two dozen odd indigenous languages) and Spanish.
I sit in front of the cooperative office of La Voz que Clama en el Desierto (The Voice the Cries in the Desert). Every once in a while people amble past; an indigenous girl in traditional dress, a couple carrying a bookshelf between them, an old drunk man.
As I sit here and write, I am approached by Leslie, She is eight years old, wearing no shoes and a breathtaking woven skirt, her bright brown eyes shining in her round face. Unabashed, she begins conversations about anything and everything that comes to mind. Where I live, wearing pants, being scared of snakes and scorpions, the woman that sponsors her school supplies, now many stuffed animals we each have, her grandmother. I give her some stationary and an envelope to write someone a letter as we go through my backpack together, carefully removing and examining each part of its contents. We use it to compare our signatures. After a few minutes, she runs inside to grab her two rag dolls, explaining to me that one needs to be washed. After carefully examining them and sharing them with me, she informs me that she wants to give me one. I am shocked at this genuineness, this unsolicited gift. I am touched by her willingness to send with me one of her two stuffed animals, but don’t want to take the doll from her. I am saved from taking away one of her dear toys by the arrival of the man I am waiting for. Leslie and I say good bye, and I promise to find her when I come out of my meeting. I do, we hug and chat a little more. I am moved by the few minutes that we have spent together, and am sure that I will remember siempre just where her home is.
These moments, gestures and connections tend to sneak up on one while traveling, and in life in general. They are the instances that shock me into remembering and recognizing the wonder that is bumping into my own and other’s humanity by sharing smiles, giggles, the twinkling of an eye.
In the end I didn’t take the doll. But the more that I think about, it seems the wrong decision. Somehow it isn’t right to refuse a genuine, unsolicited gift, as it is offered as a means of cementing a connection. Though I will not forget Leslie, or the brief time we spent enjoying each other’s company, if I had taken the doll, each time I looked at mine, or she at hers, we would have remembered each other. I suppose that is why we often try to bolster our memories through souvenirs, through physical reminders. If any of this trip I am going to remember through things, I want them to be of that type. Next time, I will hope to have the wisdom to accept a gift that someone offers me out of their genuineness. I will plan to and hope to exchange something of mine as well, giving us both a lasting token of a moment…