More about tourists

A friend of ours wrote a comment on Facebook that stirred up some feelings. I read it and agree with everything she says. Following is her comment copied with her permission.

Down here in Mexico, we are doing great.

We’ve been walking with a bunch of friends up to the lookout over the ocean at 7 am to see the sunrise. A good uphill workout gets us warm on these chilly mornings and out into town (Melaque).

We apartment-sat for a friend who went out of town for a week, because I decided to check out what I was missing by living rurally and found, to both my delight and Dan’s relief, that I don’t like being in town.

That is mainly due to too many white folks, a lot of whom don’t seem to be at all polite to either our  Mexican hosts or each other,  seldom making eye contact or greeting people as they pass, which is the norm in this country.

I find I am lumped in with this rudeness and feel very sad at receiving dark looks from local Mexicans simply because of the colour of my skin and what I’m perceived to be; stingy with both money and friendliness. On the positive (?) side, I get to experience being prejudiced against due to my colour.

And I have to say it has changed dramatically here in the past 5-7 years with the huge influx of Canadian-American tourists. And no, there is little difference between the behaviours of the two nationalities.

So this is yet another example of the detrimental effects on local places that are attractive to tourists. All of the local resources are being taxed by entitled white folks who seem to think locals should know how to speak English or are here to take time out of their already overstretched work days to teach them how to speak Spanish, and who leisurely walk down the middle of busy streets, as if everyone is on holiday, making traffic slow or halt. Locals have a much longer wait to buy their daily groceries, hardware materials,  get $ from banks, etc., in long line-ups that didn’t exist before.

It is a truly shameful way for tourists to behave and this is on top of not bothering to inform themselves about local customs or to respect that we are guests in a completely different country.

And no, money cannot, does not, and never will make up for a lack of ethics, especially in this culture that values family and respect and surrounds that with a wonderful sense of perspective and above all, humour.

So I am glad we live in a small Mexican village apart from the brouhaha of the tourist crowds.  

I value highly my Mexican friendships, for their attendant generosity and humility which seem to be much more rare commodities in the northern latitudes. They make me want to be a better human, to attain the level they seem to intrinsically inhabit. And although our experiences here are somewhat different from casual tourists, I acknowledge that as a visiting Canadian who comes from a country with a hugely different economy and customs, I too am a part of the problem.

We see this every day and one thing Linda forgot is that the locals are now expected to learn French even though the French speakers also speak English.

Another example of tourist disregard for the locals is that on Valentine’s day and other holidays, restaurants were turning people away because tables had already been reserved only to have the people who reserved them, not show up. There are so many instances like this it’s disgusting.

More on this later when I cool off.