Kelly and Quang's Global Roam

I have a strange obsession. I collect banana stickers. This has been going on for years.

It started after I spent 6 summer weeks in Guatemala. While there, I ate a banana a day. They were cheap, filling, healthy and plentiful. As a budget backpacker, what wasn't to love?

When I came home, I continued the trend and took particular pleasure in my banana purchases when the sticker on the bunch read Guatemala. In a way, those Guatemalan bananas kept my Guatemalan travels fresh and alive. They still do. When I'm standing in the produce aisle, if I have a choice between Guatemalan bananas and Costa Rican bananas, I always pick the Guatemalan.

I started collecting the stickers when I was teaching 8th grade world geography. I envisioned an entire geography lesson involving banana stickers, maps of Latin America and a work sheet titled, "The Banana Republic: So Much More Than a Store."

I saved banana stickers for a year and diligently worked to amass an impressive collection. I shopped for bananas in California, New York and Arizona. I found banana stickers in those states that I never found in Minnesota. For example, I remember a Jamaican banana sticker I picked up in Orange County. To this day, I've never seen a Jamaican banana here at home.

I did teach my banana sticker lesson. My students were convinced I was rather mad when I unveiled page after page of banana stickers. They were never as excited about them as I was, but I do think they learned a thing or two.

Even though I'm no longer teaching 8th grade world geography, I can't quite shake my banana sticker habit. I peel them off bananas and stick them on the side of the refrigerator. It drives Quang batty. They're ugly, he complains. I eventually throw them out, but not until I have a diverse little collection. These stickers pictured here are on their way out...but sooner or later I'll have to go back to the grocery store.