If you’ve ever visited Panajachel, or any other village around Lago de Atitlan (or any town in Guatemala, or any third world country, for that matter!), you know how persuasive the local salespeople can be — whether they be street vendors, or working in the established town market, or even in some tiendas/shops.

We’ve included a few of the pictures of those salespeople below, and we’ll refer you to a nicely written article at the following link from the Escape from America publication, that does a better job describing a specific sales experience than we could do on our own!

One excerpt is below:

“Children in these 3rd World Countries all learn to bargain and sell. It’s a survival tool that they take with them into adulthood, and once learned, it can never be taken away. Their sense of self-sufficiency and self-reliance is mixed with communication skills and parents can proudly send them out into the world knowing they can fend for themselves.”

If you haven’t already, we hope you’ll one day be able to experience this process for yourself, whether that be in the vicinity of Lake Atitlan, elsewhere in Guatemala, or anywhere you can find it in the world!