The Trip: The gringo complex

• 17 April 2010 at 03:01
• Traveling

Something that I did not mention in my stories, is the misery.

We can see people living in terrible conditions all the time: villages without access to water, families vulnerable to malaria, victims of natural disasters, children shining shoes or selling small things. The worst is that you get used to it. You end up not seeing it anymore. I saw a photo exhibition in San Luis, Argentina, showing children doing hard jobs, and I remembered I had seen these kids, I had seen these hard jobs, but I just had stopped realising.

A minute ago, I was eating a pizza when a 6-year-old kid came to me, bare feet and without a shirt, and asked me for "a little coin". Automatically, I said no. Then he asked me for a piece of pizza. I thought that was cunning, I smiled and I said no again. This is pretty much when I realised how cynical I had become: a kid was asking me for food and I managed to say no with a smile.

Since I arrived in Latin America, I have been asked money an impossible number of times. Being a gringo, a foreigner, someone considered as richer, cause me to be asked more than others. If I gave at the beginning, I quickly stopped because I thought I wouldn't be able to fund my trip anymore. And it's true, I've just reached my budget limit.

Being a gringo gives a feeling of guilt and unfairness. I was lucky to be born in the right place, where I could receive a good education and find a job that would enable me to do this trip. Likewise I couldn't come here if it wasn't for the (generally) Latin American countries' less strong economy than the one of Europe: so it's like I took advantage of their misery in the end. And if I go even further, I have to say this: I can take advantage of their misery, which has been caused by my ancestors. I'm reading The Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galleano, which explains, among other things, how the Europeans enslaved the indigenous people.

Yes, I have only been lucky that I was born in the right place.

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