Give me 8

I heard a story about a newly arrived Peace Corps Volunteer who instead of cooking one evening decided to have Guatemalan fast food—tortillas. He went to a tortilla vendor in the park and said, “Me gustaría ocho, porfa.”

The vendor was a little surprised and asked, “¿Solamente para usted?”

“Sí. Tengo hambre.”

At that reply the woman and her companions burst into laughter. The volunteer, on the other hand, was offended assuming that the women believed because he was a gringo that he couldn’t handle eating eight tortillas.

But the PCV was unaware of the Guatemalan tortilla buying custom: Tortillas are ordered based on their monetary value and not the quantity. Therefore if you approached a vendor and said, “I would like one please,” she would give you 1 Quetzal worth of tortillas, which depending on the size of the tortillas and the going price in a given town would probably be 4-6.

So the indigenous vendors found the thought of the skinny white guy eating some 40 tortillas on his own quite hilarious. As would I.