No es Claro

Typically, culture shock sets in about 2 months in.  It’s when the honeymoon is over, and the “This pineapple is glorious, I could never eat anything else” suddenly becomes, “oh more pineapple....is there anything else?”  The cute and quirky differences become annoying, but the danger is when it becomes “this is wrong”.  We are academics who knew this was coming.  We were ready.  It came and it is passing, and we are still in love with this beautiful country.  Well, all except one issue that I just can't seem to get past: the driving.  The American in me can not understand the vehicles on the roads here.  I literally saw a motorcycle last week with a WASHING MACHINE strapped to the back of it speeding down the road, I saw it because it PASSED us on the CURB.  The amount of babies riding on motorcycles simply wrapped in a blanket in their mama's arms, and the free for all at every intersection as the cars and giant trucks play chicken with each other, is like nothing I have ever seen.  And it's not just annoying, I am working in a school with kids who have lifelong disabilities because they were injured in accidents.  We have seen bodies lying in the road covered with sheets- it is dangerous.  Sure, car accidents happen in the US, but nothing like the frequency and intensity that we see here.   While in a taxi, I asked the driver about the traffic, and he said something along the lines of, “yeah, it's bad- but there is nothing to be done about it, we have to drive. Claro (right)?”   And the rumbling started in my gut,  “ No, no es claro.  Wrong. This is wrong.  You don’t have to die like this in intersections, kids don’t have to be strapped to wheelchairs for the rest of their lives.  This is wrong.  Seatbelts, one-way signs, stoplights, speed limits, a public bus system so that there aren’t 40 motorcoaches roaring down every street- there are other answers than your “no driving” idea.  But this is the culture that he knows, this is the “a fish doesn’t know he is in water” situation at its finest.  I have lived outside the water, I know there is a different answer, a different way to live WITH cars, a different normal.  Then I remembered Liam. 

While we were on the Camino in Spain, as a part of her homeschool Charlotte interviewed people from around the world.  The Camino is filled with individuals from all over the world, it was a fantastic opportunity to learn from different perspectives.  One of those interviews was with Liam, a good-looking 20-something from Sweden.   After Charlotte asked him some of her questions about food and local resources in his country.  He had a question for her.  He got kind of quiet, looked her in the eye and said, “Is it true that in America you actually practice in case a gunman comes into your school?”  Yes, she said. He went on, “Is it true, that schools have metal detectors and locks?”  Yes, she said.  “Do you ever go to school worried you are going to be shot?”  Yes, she said.  He got teary-eyed.  And then I saw it, I saw the pity.  He looked at her exactly how we Americans look at a poor third-world child whose parents have her riding on the back of a motorcycle without a helmet, instead of in a three-point harness in the back of a 2 ton SUV.  He took her hand, looked her in the eye, and said, “That is not normal. You don’t have to live like that.  No one else lives like that.”