Comments on: Help me by a Christmas present for my host family in Guatemala.

Question: Help me by a Christmas present for my host family in Guatemala.

empath — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 08:01:17 -0800

Help me buy a Christmas present for my host family in Guatemala.

Back in the summer, I stayed with a Mayan family on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala for a few weeks while I was taking Spanish lessons. I'd like to buy them a Christmas present. Let's say my budget is around $100, though I can go somewhat higher for a really good gift idea. They'd be considered fairly poor by US standards, but by local standards, they're middle class, so this isn't really charity as much as it is a thank you gift.

Some relevant facts:

They own a small, rustic restaurant jin the tourist part of town on the lake shore.
They have 5 kids from the age of 4 to 20.
They own an older model windows pc and they have internet.
Lake Atitlan is really hard/expensive to deliver to, so I think probably ordering something local to them would be better, but maybe I should send them something from my home town in America?

Any suggestions?

By: zug

zug — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 08:36:23 -0800

Randomly enough, I'm going to visit my Paraguayan host family over Christmas and asked just yesterday what sort of presents they'd like. The boys' universal answer was "a decent soccer ball, e.g. puma or nike brand".

I don't know what the situation in Guatamala is, but in Paraguay high quality soccer balls are hard to come by (and very expensive). I was able to get a couple on clearance in the U.S., and they're easy/cheap to ship (deflate them and include a cheapo pump if needed so they can reinflate them on the other end).

By: Ruthless Bunny

Ruthless Bunny — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 11:19:31 -0800

I love the soccer ball idea.

In addition to that, some quinissential American Christmas stuff.

Candy canes, seasonal oreos, crackers (saltines in the metal tin-or is that a Miami thing?) Prehaps stockings with the names of each of the kids and some little tchotchkies in them?

Ho! Ho! Ho!