For dinner, the children would grind some maize and Mom would use it to make tortillas for the family. Some of their friends were there, but several of them didnвЂ™t go to school because they needed to stay home and help their parents.Д«ecause of the drought, it was very hard to gather enough food for the day. It was hard for them because the teacher taught in Spanish which was not what they spoke at home. Maria and Diego would then go to school for the day. Then they would spend time gathering lots of firewood. They would all wake up with the Sun and tend to the fields, just in case it rained. The children enjoyed and learned much from their grandfatherвЂ™s stories. They all worked very hard and they were thankful for the colorful clothes that Flora was able to make them. Despite being very poor, the family was usually happy. Even though the ancient Mayans had developed methods of building giant underground storage tanks to hold water just in case of drought, this farm had none. This year was very bad, as a drought had prevented most of the crops from growing. Grandfather had taught them all to be excellent farmers just like their Mayan ancestors. The home was heated with a large fire in the middle of the room. They lived together in a small, one room thatched hut of mud and wood. Like most Guatemalan people they had no electricity and no running water.

In the hills outside a small city, lived an old man with his daughter, Flora, and her two children, Maria and Diego. Shamans Market offers these dolls in several variations, including, the tiny ones in a pouch or box and the larger 2вЂќ in sets of 12 alone or in a traditional Guatemalan drawstring pouch. When morning breaks, the person awakens without the worries that the dolls took away during the night.В A variation of the legend instructs a person to tell the dolls her worries then place them in their cloth pouch or wooden box before going to bed. The dolls take over the worrying for the person who then sleeps peacefully through the night. Then the worrier places the dolls under his or her pillow. According to the Mayan legend, when worrying keeps a person awake, he or she tells a worry to as many dolls as necessary. The indigenous people from the Highlands in Guatemala created Worry Dolls many generations ago as a remedy for worrying. Finally, they place a set of 6-12 dolls in tiny wooden boxes or cloth pouches for sale. Sometimes, they add a tiny woven basket or other traditional implements. They use scraps of traditional woven fabric to make the doll costumes and wind more yarn to create the head, hair, feet and hands. By winding cloth and yarn around the frame, the artisans give the doll shape. Guatemalan artisans bind pieces of wood together or twist together short lengths of wire to create a frame and fashion a torso, legs, arms, and head. The dolls are clothed in traditional Mayan costumes and standВ one-half to 2 inches tall. Worry Dolls are tiny, hand-crafted dolls from Guatemala.

Time out dolls for sale