Back home, for now
Trip Start
Mar 22, 2005
1
25
26
Trip End
Sep 09, 2005
Denver,
Colorado,
United States
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
After spending six months in Central America and Mexico, being back in the US is at the same time kind of weird and also nice. My last 5 weeks in Mexico were without running water or consistent electricity in a rural beach-side base camp surrounded by nature reserve and ocean. I hardly wore shoes the whole time we were there and the daily beauty routine was sunscreen and bug repellent. Going from that to getting ready for a wedding (buying high heels and strapless bras, attending bridal showers, picking out materials to make seating charts, etc) was quite a contrast, but the wedding "stuff" and spending time with my family has been really fun. And, I am enjoying the comforts of home: nice pillows, not having to have a bottle of water on hand to brush my teeth, finding tasty tofu in almost any store.
People keep asking me what I think after spending this time outside the US and in developing countries. Certainly, any time spent away from the usual routine is eye-opening, but I don't think there's one solid answer to that question. But, there are some consistent themes to my experiences and what has been occupying (and continues to occupy) my thoughts. In no particular order:
-- America and Latin America aren't so far apart. It seems at times that I'm so far away from the countries and cultures I've been surrounded with. But, Denver has a California-like latino/hispanic population, and that presence is so noticeable that at time I feel like I may as well still be in Mexico. Yesterday, I was driving back from the airport, listening to my new favorite radio station, Mega 95.7 which claims to be "Latino and proud," plays reggatone and Latin dance and hip-hop and has djs who intermingle Spanish and English in the same sentences, and saw an ice cream cart with the name "Zacapas" hand-lettered on the side, just like those pushed all around Latin America, stuffed into the back of a Honda, going about 75 mph down the highway. At the same time, a huge celebration was going on downtown for Mexico's Independence day (September 16). More on that radio station in a second....
-- I truly believe travelling is the experiential equivalent of an Ivy League education and I am so so lucky to have the opportunity to do it for an extended period of time. I have met great people along the way and have amazing friends and family to come home to. No complaints. I would love to figure out a way to work travelling into the usual routine. It is such a good experience to get out of our comfort zone and away from the familiar. Time moves more slowly, you can enjoy the moment that you're in....and, there are about half a dozen amazing countries just outside our doorstep in Central America. I would happily go back to any of the countries I've visited and would consider living in most of them.
-- The amount our lifestyle -- and the lifestyle in all of the developed world -- relies on and exploits people in developing countries should be a crime. Our supplies of gourmet coffee, cheap clothing, food, electronics, almost everything we buy, relies on the often underpaid and over-exploited workforce of these countries, countries that don't have worker's compensation, or protection for hazardous work environments or the infrastructure to educate or, sometimes, even to provide clean water for their people. And, when we're not relying on the industry and resources of developing countries, we're pulling the citizens of those countries away from their families and their cultures so they can be exploited in the US and the developed world as illegal immigrants, whose labor our countries rely so heavily on but we don't want to acknowledge or grant the same protections to. Sometimes I wonder how we can sleep at night. Most of the time, I simply resign myself to the fact that this probably will never change. But, I've got to think there are ways this can be corrected and little things we can all do to make things change, even if just the smallest amount.
-- Somehow, someway, it doesn't seem that people hate Americans as much as they would be justified in doing. I expected more anti-Americanism given our country's zeal for manipulating other governments and especially since the CIA and the US government can be blamed for pretty much every civil war or conflict in Central America in the last 50 years (including a 30+ year civil war in Guatemala that we for some reason don't learn much about in history classes). But, the people in Central America and Mexico were warm, welcoming and well-educated about their countries and world events. Honestly, I wish Americans in general were half as educated about what's going on outside our own country.
-- It is absurd to the point of being almost comical to think how much time and money the developed world spends on the most ridiculous advances in convenience and technology while most of the world has so little. I've been caught up with this idea the last few days: what if all of the developed world decided, hey, for the next 6 months, we don't need a new dvd player, the 20 gigs of memory on my mp3 player will do for now, my 3 mega pixel digital camera will still work just fine, we'll still live if our cellphones can't blue tooth our laptops, I guess everyone will still know I'm filthy rich if I don't have a 2005 car, yeah, I guess my Internet access is fast enough for now and I really don't need that new plasma TV. And, what if we took all that unnecessary R&D money, all the money wasted on replacing electronics and products that still work just fine, all the money spent on packaging and marketing and distribution, etc etc, and spent those millions and millions of dollars on something that mattered. What could that money do?
-- Do I really like reggatone music or have I just been over-exposed to it? If you haven't heard this genre of music, I think you will soon -- I'm convinced it will be mainstream very soon, especially with the quickly-changing demographics of the US. Reggatone is "a musical genre born in the early 90's in Puerto Rico from the fusion between classic Salsa, traditional Puerto Rican Bomba and the urban rhythm of hip-hop" (That's from the Daddy Yankee web site-- http://www.daddyyankee.com/) and it is what I heard everywhere, in every country, in every bar, blasting from every car, for the last six months. Two songs in particular seemed to be the hits, Lo que paso paso and Gasolina, and they are being played on the latin dance station in Denver too.
For a sample: http://www.ourmedia.org/node/39789 -- Lo que paso paso
or http://www.ourmedia.org/node/47878 Ven Bailalo
So, again, I'm not sure if its actually "good" or if I've just gotten used to it, but I've been listening to the mp3s I bought from some random teenager on the street in Guatemala and I can't keep the radio in the car off of Mega 95.7, as I mentioned before. Actually, I'm totally fascinated by this radio station -- the callers and the djs speak Spanish and English and switch between the two seamlessly, as do the advertisements and the music. If someone calls in speaking Spanish, the dj will start out responding in Spanish, then, like a light that says "don't exclude your English-speaking audience" goes off, the dj will switch to English. Ads say things like "Five dollar cover a la puerta" or "La mejor nightclub in Denver" and the djs say things like "She was rockin' it ayer" (yesterday) or "Hope to see you all there sabado" (saturday). Then, on top of that, the music and the tone of the radio station is a combination of very latin and very hip-hop, so it has tremendous influence from black/hip-hop culture. This could be the future of American pop culture and I can't stop listening, even when they are playing some awful Gwen Stefani remix with some random Spanish lyrics thrown on top.
-- It seems the Americans, Germans, Italians, British, etc etc have built up all the possible cheesy resorts and hiked up real-estate prices and over-developed all of our own countries and are now doing that all over the rest of the world and along the way, we (along with rich locals) are destroying mangroves, coral reefs, rain forests, and any remaining local culture. Given enough time, the whole world could be one all-inclusive resort surrounded by strip malls and Super Wal-Marts. God, I hope not. But, if the rapid pace and everybody-get-a-piece-while-you-can mentality that seems to be fueling the "development" in Central America doesn't get a conscience and/or some serious environmental restrictions, that could be what we're left with. Sure, sure, there are plenty of good ways that tourism injects money into local economies and raises the standard of living, and you can certainly see that in the Yucatan peninsula, but there does not seem to be enough of a long-term outlook on development and not enough muscle behind the environmental (and cultural) protections, when/if they even exist at all.
-- Learning just for the sake of learning is great. In our usual routine, its so hard to devote the time to learning something new if there's not an immediate and relevant pay-off. But, it has been so much fun to have the time to learn all kinds of random things that probably won't help me at all later in life but sure do make for good story-telling. :)
-- I either have to become incredibly conscientious about the types of fish I eat or just give up eating fish all together after reading "The End of the Line -- How overfishing is changing the world and what we eat" by Charles Clover. I'm going to try for the ridiculously conscientious route and if that isn't successful just go all-out-veg. I've known for a while that my eating fish is hypocritical, especially given how much I like scuba diving (and all those cute fish under the water), but I've been ignoring that since sushi is one of my favorite foods (the only type of food I even slightly missed the whole time I was travelling!) and I don't eat any other meat. Oh well, life will still be pretty good without ahi tuna.
-- Being away from the US media is SO nice. Our media constantly bombards us with all these ridiculous (not to mention untrue) messages which I think boil down to: fear, consumerism, and bullshit. Fear goes something this: like people all over the world hate the US and want to hurt us, you could be a victim of identity theft/assault/robbery/accidents/fraud/etc/etc at any time, everything is going to kill you.... and so on. Consumerism: you have to have a new [fill in blank] to seem cool/rich/smart/attractive/whatever, it's good for America when you shop, etc. And, bullshit is just about everywhere -- full magazines devoted exclusively to the lives of celebrities, news programs that cover meaningless topics because its easier than explaining an issue that actually matters. Sure, the entertainment value is fine, but our media lacks substance too much to make up for all the fluff. I haven't even been watching the news consistently since I got back, but I feel hyper-aware of all of this and how contrived and controlled our "free press" is.
-- We all need to be better equipped to take care of ourselves. As part of the Mexico project, we all took an Emergency First Responder class that included CPR and I thought during that class just how important knowing that information is, especially when travelling in countries without emergency medical response systems. I think the hurricane in New Orleans reinforced that we can't rely on those services even in our own country. So, I'm definitely going to take that course frequently to keep my certification up to date, and look into what other types of emergency-response training would be relevant. Also, taking a Rescue Diver course is a top priority before I do any more diving.
-- And, finally, I really don't spend enough time looking at the stars or the moon or sunrises and sunsets, or talking to strangers, or wandering down a street just for the sake of seeing what might be at the end... I will have to get back to a "normal" routine eventually and when I do, I hope I can keep up some of those habits I have while travelling.
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