It’s muggy and hot, and I am sweaty and tired. Jenn is in front of me, and we are climbing the hills of La Colonia. This shouldn’t be this hard; I consider myself in shape. It’s gotta be the heat, I tell myself; I haven’t been drinking enough water. We stop for a moment to catch our breath, although my pride hopes that it looks like we are just taking in the view. It is a beautiful view from up here. Ironically, it is possibly one of the only places in the world where the quality of your view is inversely related to how much money you have.
There is poverty in La Colonia. And, although there are exceptions, it seems to deepen the higher up the mountain we travel. At the tops of the hills, we find small houses made of mud and sticks and tarps. The women we interview tell us that they and/or their husbands have very little consistent work. They are worried about having enough money to purchase food and they often feel like they are not able to feed their children enough. Some of them tell us that they have whole days when they do not eat. Their water situation is not good: There are exposed PVC pipes that should, theoretically, deliver water to their houses. Unfortunately, the pump from the well is not great, so they only get water once every eight days. Those people that work must rely on neighbors to gather water and, once gathered, the water is stored in open containers, which is a mosquito’s paradise and, thus, malaria’s breeding ground. And several of the very high houses don’t have water pipes, so those families must carry the water up to their houses.
Sometimes I compare the poverty I witness here to the poverty I saw in Tanzania. This is sort of a strange thought process. Usually I think, well, in Tanzania most poor villages don’t even have water pipes, so La Colonia must be better off. But then I remember that many of those villages are close to natural sources of water. In addition, many rural Tanzanians grow, raise, and hunt the majority of their food. For reasons unclear to me, very few people grow vegetables in La Colonia. Chickens abound, banana trees grow, I’m sure some people hunt and fish, but overall, it seems like many people rely on the market for their food. Thus, I think, perhaps those that still have access to the means of production of food are better off. This thought process degrades into a simplistic “my country is poorer than your country” debate. The reality is that there are people in Tanzania who are impoverished and there are people in La Colonia who are impoverished. The reasons and the resources may be different, but the results are similar: malnutrition and disease.
I think I am becoming calloused, which is something I was hoping to avoid. I notice it the most when I see the reactions of tourists who are witnessing extreme poverty for the first time. Sometimes, I am not shocked by dirty wounds or lack of water. And sometimes I am not horrified by bellies swollen with malnutrition and people dying from treatable diseases. Occasionally I try and use cultural relativism to rationalize poverty: it’s a different way of life than mine, seeing bad in this way of life is assuming my way of life is better. But, no one in the world thinks that parasites and stunted growth are ways of life. There is a middle ground between complete cultural suppression and dire poverty: clean water, enough food, basic health care, and respect are probably a good start. On a side note, it seems that these positive changes are much slower to develop than the negative changes– soda and chips are incorporated into almost every La Colonia family diet, even the poorest families own a television (although some would argue with me about the evilness of t.v.), and trash is a huge problem in the village.
In the end, I hope that my calloused thoughts come and go. I think that it is important to be occasionally overwhelmed by the effects of poverty. And, similarly, I think that feeling guilty can be useful. I also think that being productive is dependent on being able to detach oneself from such thoughts.
Such heavy thoughts. I’d like to end this journal on a more positive note, but it seems that I am stuck. Let’s try this: I have loved this experience. I have met amazing people, from the island, the mainland, and the rest of the world, who are really set on improving the world around them. They have been working at it for years and they aren’t discouraged – well, sometimes they are, but they keep going. They are practical, realistic, hard-working, fun-loving, multi-dimensional people. They have innovative ideas and are willing to peck away at problems over and over again. They aren’t saints and they aren’t failures – they are just trying to do something, anything that is pushing the world in what seems to be a better direction.
And those are my thoughts for the week. Thanks for listening folks. . . it’s been a great time here.
