The US consulate warns you that robbery and rape are endemic. The unemployment rate is several times higher than the highest number that the governing officials are willing to report to the outside world. You will come closer to freshly murdered corpses than you've ever come before. Trash litters the roads and streams. Some first world nation will come in and try to strip mine the fuck out of some impoverished backwater province, while old men chain themselves across the road and stare at the oncoming trucks. Graffiti depicts Uncle Sam as the grim reaper; he has a scythe and a star-spangled hat.
Jobless city men strut and swagger and hit. Sometimes with fists, sometimes with bullets. Young country women tie their babies to the kitchen table and leave them there while they go out and work the fields. People sing and dance and drink as if their lives depended on it. The citizens are absurdly patriotic. And they believe in God--often the God of Abraham and Isaac--but God's clearly not powerful enough to fix anything of consequence, so--for good measure--they send up their prayers on superstitious wings of fairydust, colored smoke, and voodoo magic.
And you know what else?
Fuck you.
Fuck you for needing me to come back and tell you that all I saw were hard-working farmers with fat, rosy-cheeked, adorable black-eyed babies.
Fuck you and your gaily painted houses and your quaint, cobblestoned remnants of colonialism.
Fuck your edgy, uber-privileged hipster spring break, combing through the markets for funny t-shirts exported from America, keepin' it real, eating a fresh mango on a pier, banging the sons and daughters of local lawyers who troll the posh bars you think are very fucking rustic.
I saw your long-suffering-but-cheerful farmers. I went to the folk dances and the ancient rituals and the fundamentalist revivals. I dipped traditional flatbread in traditional sauces cooked in traditional stoneware over traditional fire pits. I saw those people you call "inspiring"--you know, the ones who pick up the shambles of their fucked up lives and try to make the best of things, just like everybody else who ever lived.
And I saw dead babies. Abandoned babies. Drug babies. Mutilated babies. Babies with AIDS. Babies shot in the back. Sex slaves with missing teeth. Seamstresses afraid to go back to the clothing factories because their coworkers keep ending up raped and headless in the ditches out back. A gang shooting. An eight year old trying to sweet-talk an old woman out of her wallet and then kicking her in the shin when it didn't go over well. Another eight year old mugged for his mother's grocery money. I saw drug lords rolling by in their dark cars with dark windows, and I saw young men hide and cry in despair at being unable to deliver whatever it was those drug lords wanted. I saw faithful people throw their last coins in the collection bag at church. I saw a bus driver say "fuck this shit" and overturn a load of innocent passengers down a mountainside. I saw people running orphanages for the sole purpose of siphoning off donations to use on hookers and cars, handing off the kids to child molesters and not giving a rip. I saw swindling and beatings and flat, dead apathy. I had the shit beaten out of me by a man who had ghosts in his eyes.
And I saw people fighting back, spinning tales of hope and growth and revelation. Good on them, I guess. I can't spin very well. Not for very long. They keep trying to teach me and it never sticks.
But you don't really want to know about any of that, do you?
You want to know if the pork buns were good.
Best fucking pork buns I ever had.
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