Not Your Normal-Sized People

Being stared at because I'm tall is not a new experience for me. Even in the States, if I had to go to Wal-Mart, I could expect a little kid or two to look at me for a second, say, "Whoa," then turn around and keep going. (Or if it happened to be at the Wal-Mart in Kentucky or Georgia, it was probably more like, "Daaanng! How tall are ya?"- even from adults!)

The situation is certainly magnified here in Guatemala since the average height is significantly shorter than in the States. For some reason it was worse than ever before when I went to our Wal-Mart type store on Wednesday. First I was pushing around my cart and there were two middle-school age girls in front of me. The first one turned around and saw me and her eyes got big. Then she turned around again, I guess to make sure she saw me right. Then she commented to her sister, and they both turned around to look. This continued for nearly a full minute- the more times they looked, the more they began to laugh, and the more anxious I was to find an aisle to turn into.

The best was when I got to the check-out line. There was a family in front of me- a boy (about 5) riding in the shopping cart with his mother and grandmother. The grandmother was the first to spot me. She, like everyone here who comments rather than just stares, said, "muy alto" (very tall). She then called the attention of the boy's mother, who looked at me and said, "muy alto." Then they had the boy get out of the cart and come stand next to me for height comparison.

I thought that it was over, but then the boy's aunt returned from the restroom with her daughter. The aunt looked at me and said, "muy alto." Then the whole process started over again with the aunt's daughter coming to stand next to me. After all of this, the grandmother starts imploring me to talk to the kids about how they need to eat more. "They don't eat anything. You can get them to eat more."

As in all situations like this, I used my privilege of looking like a gringo: just smiled acted like I really didn't understand much of what they were saying, and then their checkout was done.

I think the oddity of my size in the country is one of the reasons I like Michelle so much. She gets it. We could win an award for biggest and smallest buddies in the country.