Over the holidays, my family and I traveled to Mexico. While this is typically a great vacation spot for sun-starved, winter-weary Northerners, we decided we wanted to really see and experience the culture and life. This meant staying in out of the way places, eating in little restaurantes frequented by locals, and hanging out where we could watch and observe. It doesn’t take long before you begin to see life as it really is…the continual effort to carve out an existence. This was never more clearly illustrated than when we found ourselves looking into the pleading eyes of very young children sent out to sell small trinkets, gum, and souvenirs they carried on trays. They went from person to person, their faces falling when a sale was not made. I thought of most children their age in the US who go to school, run, play and live lives free of the cares these little ones carried like the small items on their trays. Our family’s hearts were moved and our eyes further opened in those days.
