Take a local bus through the back country of an undeveloped country. I will never forget a trip I did like this in the hill country of Guatemala. I got on the bus by mistake, thinking it was an express bus to the capital of the state. Instead, it went straight into the jungle, picking up all kinds of things: people (of course), but also the goods they were taking to the market, their pigs and their chickens, and other assorted small fry.
The smells were pungent, since no one bothered to bathe. These were mostly the mountain Maya, a colorful people - and I don't mean that figuratively. The women wear the loudest, most contrasting colors they can find. And they take a delight in their handicrafts: mainly their weaving using back-strap looms. You will see little girls with their toy looms fastened behind their backs, banging away with their shuttles, with complete seriousness.
These people knew how to live - the same way they had for centuries. Unfortunately, their way of life would be abruptly terminated by a genocide against them by a Christian government fully supported and equipped by our government - but that is another story - and one Americans don't want to hear.
Yesterday, I went on a local bus to Cervantes, a small town not far away, just to see what it was like. Orosi is getting noisy, and I am considering other possibilities. Sitting at the bus stop in Cervantes, waiting for a bus to come back on, I realized I was in another world, with entirely different values: local values. They were unfamiliar with the values of the modern world, which has influenced their central government, producing a more-or-less welfare state. Out there, you and your family were on your own, and it was dog eat dog - a medieval world.
The same kind of world we are going back to.
No comments:
Post a Comment