Goofing off with the kids

Many of the children in Santa Maria Poniente seem to be afraid of me. They run away from me on the street, or stare at me through windows only to hide when I look over at them. I asked around about this, and it turns out that parents often warn their children that "the gringos will kidnap you if you don't behave." There have been news stories and rumors from Cancun of children being kidnapped and sold to the US as sex slaves.

So basically, I'm the boogie man. Way to go America.*

Some of the youngins did eventually realize that I probably wasn't going to kidnap them, and after that they were a lot of fun. One little girl at Mr. Canul's corner store wasn't sure what to make of me, so she would alternately stare while laughing hysterically at me and then run away. I turned the camera on after she did this like 5 times.

Since I couldn't really get her laugh on film, I tried again, but soon found it was more fun to film the other children around me. Listen closely and you can hear one of the Canul boys correcting my Mayan:

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*Note: Using the word "America" to describe the United States is innapropriate when you're outside the US but inside either of the two continents that have that name. I use it here only for sarcasm's sake.