The Gringo Touch

 

This is not Iraq.   This is not Afghanistan.  Hell, this isn't even Los Angeles, but still one finds on every street corner among the silent faces, a sensible, straight thinking person who hates Gringos.  I got my first taste of Anti-Gringo vitriol from a drunk guy who sneered at me as I passed on a San Jose street “take your pasty, sun burned ass back north, donkey” (my translation).  I thought it hilarious at the time, but then learned more about where the ire finds roots in reality.  

            The scenario often goes something like this: (1) An area of natural beauty (remote beaches, cloud forest, etc) is populated  by a Tico dominated Latino mix, and part of the land is converted into farms and basic infrastructure.  (2) The area gets written up as a pristine refuge for nature and adventure lovers by a guide book geared towards North Americans, Europeans and other first world travelers.  (3) A few savvy entrepreneurs exit the rat race and flock to said paradise, where they open hotels, restaurants, grocers, and attractions, employing local Latino population and paying close to minimum wage.  (4) For a few years a peaceful balance exists and tourism raises the standard of living and allows infrastructure to expand to include schools, medical facilities, entertainment and the like. (5) More wealthy folks from around the first world escape from their jobs and cities and buy up land and homes, driving prices through the roof, from food items to property.  (6) Resentment replaces what was once an amicable relationship. 

            This is obviously an over simplification of a very complicated set of social stories, but that’s the cracked and leaking nutshell.  Enter a 6.2 magnitude earthquake, and the picture gets even muddier.  At 1:05PM on January 8^th, I was teaching about the ever changing nature of energy in the universe, when I got the word that the quake had struck outside of San Jose, near Escazu.  My first thought was of two friends of mine that were staying right near the epicenter.  They were both fine (though shaken around quite a bit), and while the death toll was relatively low compared to what it could have been, given the high magnitude of the quake, the stories that have trickled out of the cracked Poas park landscape in recent weeks have provided a series of aftershocks that to me are far more damaging than mudslides and torn asphalt. 

            There’s the luxury hotel filled with Western tourists that was minorly damaged and reported no injuries or fatalities that was evacuated a full day before the local diner filled with locals that slid off a cliff just up the road.  None of the injured (some critically) were evacuated until at least 24 hours after the quake. 

    One Red cross worker, who broke from his orders to ferry a group of tourists away from an undamaged hotel to aid in the search and rescue effort for two girls trapped under a mud slide (they didn't survive) was quoted as saying that the government "ordered us to evacuate the gringos first, because they didn't want to have to explain any casualties to our closest political and economic allies".   I guess the government feels that dead ticos require less explanation. 

            Several local hospitals were quick to  offer up their ambulances to the rescue effort and their helicopters to access the areas cut off by road damage.  Their swift action was hailed by both local and international media, until the accounts began to surface of how many pilot and drivers accepted large sums of cash for preferential treatment.  One story tells of a group of about 50 trapped on a cliff, including 6 children and three injured adults.  Two of the group were North American tourists (uninjured).  They borrowed a cell phone and called their tour coordinator, who in turn called a friend who was a pilot for Cima hospital.  The pilot, upon being offered $400 cash by the tourists for diverting away from his mandated route to come pick them up, accepted and landed within minutes amongst the desperate, rapidly dehydrating crowd.  The tourists offered one more seat to the crowd, but when no one accepted, they climbed aboard and flew off to the airport to book a flight home.  No helicopter returned to the Cliffside and the remaining people were evacuated a full 30 hours later by ground crews.  One man among the group lost his leg, and three children had to be treated for dehydration. 

            So, when you hear someone shout at you about being an “ihway puta gringo” you can point to those that came before you and perhaps see where the ire comes from.  Good luck to any of us if we ever try to travel outside the resort circuit in any of the corners of the world where we’ve replaced governments and killed citizens with bombs and policy.  This was just a few tourists who flashed their green to get a green light while others just saw red, and it may take years before we can be trusted again... 

Comments

[Aaron]

boo-f*cking-hoo. That would never happen in a developed nation. Oh wait, it did, August 2005. Money talks, bullsh*t waits on a cliff (or rooftop). Unless there is no graft or corruption in Costa Rica they're hypocrites and racists. If they want to be Marxists that cool, but don't pretend the evil influences of the bourgeoisie are somehow limited by the color of a person's skin or the language they speak.