This weekend, I traveled to Antigua for a very much needed weekend off. I am so fortunate to have met a wonderful Guatemalan friend, Emilio, who is a physician currently trying to land a pediatrics or surgery residency training position in the States. Emilio came up to the Lak
e and then we took the scenic, if fume-filled, 3.5 hour drive down to the City. We had dinner late in an area of the City that truly could have been the US -- something like a nice strip mall with restaurants that could have passed for Macaroni Grill, California Pizza Kitchen and stores like Target and Sears. Dinner out at the Macaroni Grill might not be something to write home about back in the States but I can say that it was SUCH a treat. Three of us ate and drank for $60 and this was definitely a nicer restaurant and seemed exorbitantly expensive compared with the pueblo (I haven´t really eaten out here but I´m thinking meals run $2-3 except at the upscale Hotel Toliman). The next day, we traveled to beautiful Antigua, my first glimpse of the historic Guatemalan capital. Wow! It really was like being back in Spain and ushered in a host of great memories. Emilio invited me to join his family in a reception celebrating his nephew
´s First Communion and his niece´s upcoming move to Canada for chef school. The reception was beautiful and reminded me of a Bar Mitzvah reception in its elegance. That night we hit the town with most of Emilio´s cousins, nieces, and nephews. Just before midnight we finally found the perfect place to settle: some great live Salsa music and mojitos. Unfortunately, we just caught the end of the show. We will definitely need to go back soon so I can make a fool of myself on the dance floor and hopefully learn some steps! You can’t go from dusty pueblo to white-washed tourist-town, from poor to rich, from work to party without feeling a little jolt. In fact, I found myself looking around at these wealthy kids and their families and feeling the injustice of it all. They (we) were all fair-skinned and Spanish-looking while all those serving us drinks at the reception and wandering through the bars playing marimba for tips were dark-skinned and i
ndigenous-looking. They looked serious and sad. I felt like I took a trip back to the 1950s in the southern US where blacks were serving and entertaining whites. I even talked with a few of my new companions there about what they thought about the plights of the indigenous. They felt it was sad but that the indigenous were “hard to help” and “different”. “They don’t have the same values we have,” one young adult told me. “They just live on our taxes and try to take advantage of us.” I had to stop myself from being overly judgmental, 
though, as I realized we are all living that life of the weathly laughing and relaxing as the vast majority of the world struggles and works to maintain us. We might not make the above comments outright but we are living like we believe them We just don’t see the terrible injustice when those with no resources, no education, no supports are in the poor areas of Africa, Asia, and the Americas and we are tucked away in places like beautiful Palo Alto getting expensive haircuts and buying, buying, buying. What would we do if the reality of this inequity were directly in our face on a daily basis?
e and then we took the scenic, if fume-filled, 3.5 hour drive down to the City. We had dinner late in an area of the City that truly could have been the US -- something like a nice strip mall with restaurants that could have passed for Macaroni Grill, California Pizza Kitchen and stores like Target and Sears. Dinner out at the Macaroni Grill might not be something to write home about back in the States but I can say that it was SUCH a treat. Three of us ate and drank for $60 and this was definitely a nicer restaurant and seemed exorbitantly expensive compared with the pueblo (I haven´t really eaten out here but I´m thinking meals run $2-3 except at the upscale Hotel Toliman). The next day, we traveled to beautiful Antigua, my first glimpse of the historic Guatemalan capital. Wow! It really was like being back in Spain and ushered in a host of great memories. Emilio invited me to join his family in a reception celebrating his nephew
´s First Communion and his niece´s upcoming move to Canada for chef school. The reception was beautiful and reminded me of a Bar Mitzvah reception in its elegance. That night we hit the town with most of Emilio´s cousins, nieces, and nephews. Just before midnight we finally found the perfect place to settle: some great live Salsa music and mojitos. Unfortunately, we just caught the end of the show. We will definitely need to go back soon so I can make a fool of myself on the dance floor and hopefully learn some steps! You can’t go from dusty pueblo to white-washed tourist-town, from poor to rich, from work to party without feeling a little jolt. In fact, I found myself looking around at these wealthy kids and their families and feeling the injustice of it all. They (we) were all fair-skinned and Spanish-looking while all those serving us drinks at the reception and wandering through the bars playing marimba for tips were dark-skinned and i
ndigenous-looking. They looked serious and sad. I felt like I took a trip back to the 1950s in the southern US where blacks were serving and entertaining whites. I even talked with a few of my new companions there about what they thought about the plights of the indigenous. They felt it was sad but that the indigenous were “hard to help” and “different”. “They don’t have the same values we have,” one young adult told me. “They just live on our taxes and try to take advantage of us.” I had to stop myself from being overly judgmental, though, as I realized we are all living that life of the weathly laughing and relaxing as the vast majority of the world struggles and works to maintain us. We might not make the above comments outright but we are living like we believe them We just don’t see the terrible injustice when those with no resources, no education, no supports are in the poor areas of Africa, Asia, and the Americas and we are tucked away in places like beautiful Palo Alto getting expensive haircuts and buying, buying, buying. What would we do if the reality of this inequity were directly in our face on a daily basis?
No comments:
Post a Comment