Exercise in trust

Last year, upon leaving, we donated all the toys we bought for Carolina here in Merida to local kids. Our donation ended up being a bit like the Island of Misfit toys: English and Spanish books; crayons, colored pencils and hardly used coloring books; a grocery cart filled with plastic food; and a horse-on-a-stick that “neighed” when you squeezed its nose.

The one thing Carolina was hesitant to give up was her horsey (Like most little girls, Carolina loves horses. We haven't been asked for the real thing yet, but we know its imminent.)

Since leaving her horse here last year, she has regularly inquired about its whereabouts. Especially since our return to Merida. Because they sell for 120-150 pesos (about $10-12), we decided to buy her another one as part of her Christmas loot. (And I do not use the word "loot" lightly ... she has a LOT of gifts under our tree!)

So we went looking for a new horse at the same place that we bought ours last year: at a stoplight. Stoplight shopping in Mexico truly brings the idea of "convenience shopping" to the next level—way beyond mail-order catalogs, QVC, or even the internet. And, in fact, many items are sold at stoplights in Merida, including phone cards (all cell phones are pre-paid here in Merida), juices, bouquets of flowers, peeled or cut fruit, pork rinds, nuts, and all kinds of toys ... especially around this time of year. We've seen it all: puppets, work bench/tool sets, kids' clothes hampers, and dolls, but we also randomly managed to track down a horse-on-a-stick. (And luckily, when CeCe wasn't in the car!)

Our problem? We only had 100 pesos, and the horse cost 150 pesos. (Which we surely could have gotten down to 120, if we only had the extra 20 pesos!) We did not, though, and 100 wasn't going to cut it. But our wandering salesman wasn't going to take "no" for an answer. He told us to take the horse for 100 pesos, and we could give him the additional 50 pesos the next time we saw him. (We were so impressed in his level of trust in us that we didn't even try to negotiate further...)

That was a week ago yesterday, and so far we haven't seen him. But we have a feeling he isn't worried. We told him we'd be here till May, and we must have honest faces, because he really didn't seem worried about getting paid. Plus, our car is pretty easy to spot on the streets -- it's the one with the Minnesota plates.