Hello from the lovely state of Ohio! I just got back to the USA yesterday afternoon and will be enjoying a few days at home (unpacking and repacking) before heading back to school. Culture shock hasn’t been too rough this time around, though I did have many embarrassing moments at the airports yesterday. I spoke Spanish to everyone (which worked just fine in Houston but in Detroit not so much… I got some very confused looks…) and also had an interesting experience trying to get a shuttle to pick up my car at the airport. I stood there outside the airport for about 15 minutes trying to flag down every passing shuttle and got really pissed when nobody stopped. However, finally a nice bus driver stopped and said I have to go behind the yellow line, that this area was a no pick up zone. Well, clearly no pick-up zones do not exist in Guatemala– If you want a ride, stand anywhere along the highway and someone will pick you up. Oh rules and regulations. Also, I was shocked at the level of laziness of the airport workers and how unhelpful they were. When I asked where to get the shuttle to find the car, one worker said “you should know where you parked” and another said “It’s downstairs somewhere”. Thanks. If I asked a Guatemalan, they would stop whatever they were doing and physically walk me there, or at least force one of their 12301923 children to take me. Oh well.
Anyways, as promised, I have been reflecting on my experience this summer and the “things I learned”. I haven’t been keeping a journal so this will serve as my own personal memory as well.
I feel like throughout the years, through all my travels, I’ve “seen” poverty. Starving babies in Ethiopia, orphans in Honduras, beggars in the cities, etc. However, this summer, I feel as though I “experienced” poverty. True, I did go back to a hotel at night (which certainly was not luxury) and usually got a hot meal in me at least once a day. However, all day everyday I dealt with the frustrations and discomfort of public transport, talked to people about their lives and struggles, was welcomed into dirt floor, tin-roofed, and metal-walled homes and offered a coke (when they clearly did not have much to offer), suffered from a lack of access to clean water and sanitation, experienced the long daily travels people must make just to get to the store, etc. etc.
Most of all, however, I got to see different ideas on how poverty is perceived throughout a developing country. In my first assignment, while working purely with indigenous Maya in the highland regions, I experienced what one would call true poverty. Lots of subsistence farming, lack of access to sanitation and water, 10 children per family, malnutrition, pure isolation, the effects of racist policies, hardly any assets, etc. However, these women would always preface a response to my question with “Thank God I’m alive, but ….”.
In my second assignment, I worked on the southern coast and eastern border regions with only Ladina women (native Spanish speakers). These women were still poor (as our thorough data analysis shows) however this poverty was not as obvious as the poverty of the indigenous women. They were living in more urban or peri-urban areas with more access to transport, markets, communications, etc. They had more assets, spoke the dominant language, were generally slightly obese, had less children, and generally seemed wealthier. However, because they had more access to transport, communications, etc. they had more of a sense of being in poverty. In contrast to the indigenous women, they prefaced their responses with “We’re poor, we have nothing, but…”
I would always get frustrated with the women in the second assignment when they said “we’re poor, we have nothing” or “there are days when we don’t have enough food for the family” but then would go on to say they have 2 color televisions and are paying 100 quetzales a month (about $12.50) for cable. But, as my teammates and I discussed, we realized that poverty is a relative term. Perceptions of poverty vary based on your level of connection with the outside world– if you have a TV and watch American television shows, you are painfully aware of how people in the west live and perceive this to be the reality. If you are living in a very poor isolated mountain community without electricity, you are not aware of how others live. The indigenous fit the definition of poverty we all use, however the ladina women had a different perception of their own poverty and had different situations to deal with. Sure, they might have cable because everyone else does and it’s relatively cheap, but they are food insecure because they don’t have land. They suffer from gang violence and constantly live in fear of being robbed or attacked. They don’t receive as much attention from NGOs and aid organizations as they are perceived as not being as disadvantaged as the indigenous. There are many different factors that determine one’s well-being and poverty, and the contrast between my first and second assignments this summer in Guatemala made me aware of that.
