My mother’s family, I realized today, hasn’t gotten enough credit. I went and saw them—I shamefully admit—for the first time since I’ve arrived today. As I told Sarah, I feel like the meanest person when I’m around them because they are so incredibly nice, selfless and gracious! They immediately offered us fresh, cool lemonade and prepared a fantastic grilled chicken and salad lunch. It was then followed, as is only right, by a stroll through the neighborhood for ice cream ($7.50 for six waffle cones and two cups!). We then took our first ride on the camionetas, or, the notoriously dangerous public bus system. I used to take them all the time, but they’ve become increasingly risky over the years. Hijacks and assaults on these buses are daily occurrences city-wide.
I returned to my family’s house bizarrely tired, so I took a nap and woke up in the early evening to a wonderful rain, the kind of rain that washes away all humidity and heat—leaving a cool, fresh air in its place. My aunt then taught my cousin Cindy and I how to make torrejas, one of the best desserts in the Guatemalan cuisine spread. I’m so excited I know how to make them now!!!!!!!!!! Dinner and dessert were followed by a long game of ojitos, and a scattergories-like game called basta with my cousins. I love sitting around laughing at the ridiculous things that come out of games like that.
But really, what makes this day memorable to me is the conversation I had with my cousin Cindy, who recently moved here after having grown in up the United States her whole life.
The topic I’ve become concerned with is Apathy. It’s really a scary thing—and also frustrating. If there’s any one pronounced trait that I could attribute to my family, it would be passion. Everything affects us. We are all lively, vivacious people. In my family, it’s impossible almost to grow up without a sense of the need to help others, realizing the value of truly important things and our duty to our fellow human beings.
It’s sad to realize something about Guatemalan people: Because circumstances and the quality of life and opportunities are so low, it’s like people have given up. The rich stay in their own isolated bubble of comfort, feeling no obligation to help those in need of help. In the meantime, the majority lower-class people occupy themselves only with getting by—they see no point in getting ahead because they see it as futile. It’s a horrible cycle.
My cousins were telling me that the majority of their classmates don’t care to do volunteer work, and are entirely indifferent to the sufferings of those less fortunate than them. For example, a woman came to speak to their school about the city’s basurero, or, dump. Basically, the public waste system is so inefficient here that they throw everything into an enormous ditch in the center of the city.
The truly sad thing is not seeing the awful mess, but seeing people living here. Living. In a dump.
I can’t imagine waking up each day and having nothing to look forward to than finding at least one semi-good meal in the trash.
My cousins told me that the speaker came to make them aware of the situation and ask, simply, that they separate food they throw away in plastic bags when they threw out their trash, because these people rummage through the trash and eat leftovers—regardless of what they’re lying in. One of my girl cousins told me she started crying just thinking of the awfulness of the situation—only to realize she was the only one in the audience who even looked flustered by the situation.
No one here feels like anything can improve conditions. As long as they get by and can stay out of trouble, they’re good.
I realized that in that aspect, I am extremely thankful to live in a country where people want to better our nation. We care about others—volunteer work and community service are, for many, a great part of our upbringing.
However, when I said apathy was my topic, it was because I also realized that while we as Americans do take more of an interest in continual improvement, a great majority of our population is also afflicted with apathy, just in our own way.
We don’t take concern for the rest of the world. The way I see it, we’re not that different from the higher-class Guatemalans. Because they’re comfortable with their living, they don’t concern themselves with helping those in less fortunate circumstances; we as Americans live in a world that is, in comparison to the rest of the world, so good, that we don’t feel the need to help.
But why shouldn’t we?
I just can’t imagine myself ever living the kind of life in which I pave my own path to prosperity for myself and my family, and numb myself to everything else out there.
I think what creates this extreme apathy oftentimes is fear. Or maybe guilt? When you start thinking of all the problems that others and other countries have, yeah, it’s overwhelming. When you really think about it, you start (or maybe it’s just me?) feeling guilty. Guilty that you have so much opportunity and can live every day free of fear of oppression, poverty, violence.
So isn’t it easier to just closer yourself off to all that? If you can learn how to disregard that, you can continue living your happy suburban life—the American dream. You make your comfortable living, have a prosperous family and set. That is the ideal life, isn’t it? What more could there be?
I don’t argue that people shouldn’t want this—only that they should strive to also do something, anything, to improve something in this world. Even if it’s something as small as sponsoring a child in a poor country or donating money to an organization that seems to have concrete results.
I just think it’s awful to give in to apathy. How can we ever hope to improve anything if we don’t care?
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2 comments:
Enjoyed reading your post. I first came to Guatemala about 15 years ago and was likewise struck by the class division that exists. Now 15 years later I've moved back down here again with my 4 children and am watching them learn the lessons I learned 15 years ago. My 9 year old told me he feels rich down here even though we left most our possessions at home, it's interesting to see him noticing the differences at a young age.
I'm not so sure I'd agree with your assessment that the U.S. doesn't care about or are concerned with people that live in impoverished conditions. Relatively speaking, we're obviously better off than them, and from that standpoint I can see where you are coming from, but no amount of foreign aid or humanitarian aid is going to equalize the conditions. The U.S. can throw money at third world countries and feed the poor in those countries, but that isn't the path to prosperity.
In order for a country like Guatemala to truly and sustainability improve the living conditions of the country, it has to do it from the ground up, through a strong economy. And I can assure you that the U.S. is absolutely concerned about that. The United States is BY FAR the largest donor to the organization for economic co-operation and development which pumps money into building the infrastructure and economies of the third world. In fact, they were the largest donor to that organization by over 200%. And from a humanitarian perspective, the U.S. has founded all sorts of organizations from Doctors without Borders, the Peace Corps, the American Red Cross (which has a budget of over 9 billion), CARE, and not to mention the hundreds, if not thousands of other private charities, institutions, and NGO's; i.e. Bill Gates' foundation which Warren Buffett donated about 35 of his 40 billion dollar networth to.
From the perspective of a third world nation, the U.S. could always do more, always. But just cause a country can always do more, doesn't mean its not doing anything. There has to be a strong balance of a country between looking after its own constituents and still being a responsible institution of the world as a whole, and I think thats a line that sometimes the U.S. walks perfectly. If anything, our budget deficits and national debt, shows that the U.S. has been a little bit too charitable. Although, it is not really a point I'd make strongly.
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