When I first found out that I was going to Mexico with my mom, grandparents, and cousins I couldn’t control my excitement! My grandparents and cousins had been going there for years and finally it was my turn to go with them! I was going to miss a week of school for pools, shopping, and swimming with dolphins! I would soon find out that going to Mexico was more than just a fun vacation; it was also a really cultural experience.

One thing that I was not expecting to see was children, as young as six years old, selling souvenirs on the streets. Almost every day we would see a couple of little girls together on a street trying to get people’s attention. They wanted tourists to notice the handmade whistles, bobble heads, or maracas that they were selling. I’d never seen children trying to make a living for their family. We all felt uncomfortable seeing young children almost begging for our money. My cousins ended up buying some bobble heads, and my mom and I bought some whistles for my brother.

Kids weren’t the only ones trying to get tourist’s attention, so were many adults. Every day when we were at the beach Mexican peddlers would literally swarm us, trying to sell jewelry, woven bags and hats, t-shirts, pottery, and cold fruits and drinks. If one peddler started to make a big sale you would notice many other peddlers crowd around. The women that would sell jewelry would walk around for hours with necklaces from their hands all the way to their shoulders. It looked so tiring! There would also be men with mini tables on top of their heads with cold fruits. It looked like it hurt! There were many Mexican peddlers at the beach.

Another thing that surprised me was young kids sitting in the front seats with no seat belts and in the back of pickup trucks. One day we drove by this truck with six boys in the back. Some of them weren’t even sitting down; they were getting up and moving around. It was completely different from Vermont. That same day we also saw a little boy sitting in the front seat with no seat belt! In Vermont it’s a law that children have to sit in a car seat until they are at least eight. I went from a place where if you don’t have your seatbelt on you can get a ticket, to a place where children are freely playing in the back of trucks while someone else is driving. It was completely different!

Going to Mexico was a really cultural experience. Before going there I would never have even imagined that children would be selling souvenirs, and sitting freely in the back of pickup trucks, and that adults would be making a living by selling souvenirs. I learned that Mexico’s culture is much different from Vermont’s.