Pretty little Mayan girl, selling her jocotes for a penny
“Hunger, hard labor, and pain will be her constant companions”
As history repeats itself, this pretty little girl, selling her jocotes for a penny, like many other little girls, is destined for a life of poverty, ignorance, suffering, and drudgery. She is a Mayan Indian living in the mountains of Guatemala. She already has cavities, which will never be filled. Her entire diet consists of black beans and tortillas. She lives in a one-room house made of rough boards, with a dirt floor, and without water or electricity. The kitchen is a lean-to with a wood fire; the bathroom, in the woods. Throughout her life she will never see a doctor or a dentist. If she sells enough jocotes she will have a year or two of schooling but she will never read a newspaper or a book. She will marry a boy from her village in her early teens and bear many children, some of whom will die of treatable diseases. She will seldom leave her house, devoting her life entirely to washing, cooking, and cleaning. Hunger, hard labor, and pain will be her constant companions.
