Stamps

Something that I noticed while my parents were here is that there seems to be a fascination with stamps here in Guatemala. I am not talking about the kind that you stick on envelopes and send letters places I am talking about the rubber kind that you have to have a stamp pad for. When I was with my parents in Antigua we went to get some ice cream. The process at this place was that you tell the cashier what you want they ring you up and print out a receipt and hand it to another worker who than stamps the receipt and gives it to you and than gets your ice cream. Now why they need to stamp the receipt I have no idea. Then I was reading a book that I got from the library here at PLQ and noticed that there was a stamp on one of the middle pages that said PLQ. I decided to count how many PLQ stamps there were in the book and in a two hundred page book there were more than 30 stamps. I mean I can understand one or two so that the book can not be stolen but 35 seems to me to be a little excessive. Who knows maybe there is some cultural reason that Guatemalans use so many stamps. If anyone has any insight on this please feel free to let me know.