When we happily climbed back into the truck, waved to women and kids along the way, (the men were in the fields planting), turned the curve out of the village, there was the back hoe parked next to a large drainage hole across the entire road, the workers cleaning up to go home. As the six of us groaned at the prospects of spending the night in the truck, Rob hopped out of the truck with his sack of avocados.

He proceeded to chat up the guys in Q'eqchi, flattering them with how much they had already helped the village that day by letting us in to buy so much weaving, and then he shared avocados with all, and in a few minutes we were on our way over the filled in culvert. We affectionately called Rob's negotiations "Avocado Diplomacy".