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The Official Blog for the University of Arkansas at Little Rock's Spanish 4362/Language 7313.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
how much have we really changed?
I learned my Spanish while serving a mission in Costa Rica. Many of the people we would interact with lived in the banana fields or the coffee plantations. It has been very interesting reading Bananos y Hombres and comparing it to what I saw. Not much has changed. Obviously things are a little more stable as a country, but the poverty and working conditions are similar to what they were during the early 20th century. Children still work in the fields, these lowest class workers live in one-room shacks, and disease is still rampant. In a somewhat modern society it is easy to see and feel progress but stepping into the banana fields fells like taking a step back into a different world.
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3 comments:
Thanks for sharing your observations in Costa Rica. I share similar experiences when I lived in Guatemala, very little has changed for most people. The rich continue to be rich and the poor keep fighting for survival each day. The people I met in the villages had minimal education, they worked very hard, they were loving people, and not how they were painted by their oppressors.
Like Miguel, I also saw a lot of the same things in Guatemala. Children are often forced to work in order to help their families. Even those in more urbanized leave school in order shine shoes in the street or sew clothes in shops.
McLean, you reminded me of those shoe shiners (children) and their blackened hands because of all the shoe polish.
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