This little girl came in to the café where we were catching up on our email. Keep in mind, the Zapatista movement here is a serious moneymaker. Our café was called Revolución. If you could see the smirk on my face you would understand that this has come to be something that really bugs me. We are inundated daily by women and children selling junk; all of it related in one way or another with the movement or with the indigenous. But it feels like getting the toys from a Happymeal box. They mean nothing and the contact with these people means nothing. We are consumers for them. Thus, when Virginia came in we were taken by surprise. She was pure energy as you can see. Don´t get me wrong, we were targets of the usual sales pitch, but she was still herself. And she meant business. Caro negotiated a deal with her… 3 key chains with little Zapatista figurines and 1 photo with Virginia. DONE! She liked the idea and posed for us. But then she reviewed the photo and saw that her little key chains were not figuring as prominently as they should…this is the result of her insisting that we retake the photo. How could we say no?
PS - we bought the basket you see in the photo too! Virginia insisted and we were incapable of telling her no. She installed the key chain dolls in basket, slapped the top on, gave us a huge smile and ran out of the cafe leaving me feeling as if my heart had just been stolen for good.
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