Ciao 79

In some ways we have fallen into a comfortable routine here in Puyo. We have our Friday night happy hour bar…our Sunday morning market excursion…our weekday two hour lunch routine, etc. Most Mondays we are rewarded with a very special package postmarked from G-ville. Sometimes it is a Wednesday. Sometimes a Thursday… but whatever day the Ecuadorian postal service arbitrarily decides to deliver our package, it is always a good day.

Once a week, Jer’s mom patiently gathers all her Columbus Dispatch newspapers from the week and meticulously cuts out the Letters to the Editor, Editorial and Opinion Editorial section and sends them to us. It is awesome, because she even trims around the edges of the paper to reduce that silly whitespace…(actually, I imagine to reduce the weight of the package, and thus the postage costs.). So, each days opinion section comes neatly folded into its own rectangle. Jer and I even have a routine of how we read the articles. He reads his selectively…and speedily, and then hands them to me to read, which I do slowly and deliberately and completely…even the cranky conservative columns.

So, this little carepack is my window to the wacked world that we live in…and to the politics of the town that I called home for almost 10 years.

It is interesting to read about what types of pressing issues propel people to write a letter to the editor. I decided to take a look at some of the recent topics covered in the Dispatch…and how they relate (or not) to similar topics here in Puyo…along with my own 2 cents.


Dogs on leashes
Columbus: People are divided on whether Columbus should enact a law requiring dogs to be on a leash in public spaces or be “under control” by the owner, as the law currently is interpreted.

Ecuador: Dog leash? What’s that? Dogs are lucky to have an owner, much less a leash. In my 6+ months in Ecuador, I have seen a grand total of maybe 3 dogs on leashes. And it is not for lack of seeing dogs. I pass dozens of dogs on my daily walk into town; half of them limp or have a disease or deformity. I just saw one dining on dirty diapers it dragged out of the trash. A few weeks ago I saw three dead dogs laid out by the curb beside the trash bags waiting to be picked up by the garbage collectors. In last Sunday’s paper there was an article in the local paper about a dog eradication effort by the health department. They warned to watch your pets, lest they get swept up in the doggie depopulation sting effort. It makes Cruella DeVille look almost nice.

English and Spanish
Columbus: The immigration debate in Congress invited heated responses from Central Ohioans. One angry letter writer, ranted: “People who choose to live in this country, where English is the standard language should be speaking, reading and writing English.”

Ecuador: I choose to live in this country and God help me if this same angry letter writer judged my ability to communicate in Spanish. Despite 4 years of high school Spanish, 3 years of Spanish in college, plus living in a Spanish speaking country for a year (6 months in Costa Rica and 6 months in Ecuador) I can say that my ability to speak, read and write Spanish is...well, not that great. I am sure the opinion by the angry letter writer from suburban Columbus is shared by many in the U.S. But I guess my experiences here in Ecuador make me appreciate the difficulty immigrants face in learning English (which is not an easy language to learn…just ask Mr. Studer).
But what really irks me most about the whole immigration debate is no one seems to be talking about the root issues that drive people to leave their homes, family, and everything they know in order to risk their life to enter the U.S. Wwhere is the outrage for the abject poverty, lack of economic opportunity, hunger, disease, war, etc. that drive people to emigrate?... not to mention the problems created within the families and communities (like many here in Ecuador) left behind. Haven’t read a letter to the editor like that…

Price of gas
Columbus: People in Columbus (and to be fair, all over the U.S., too) write lots of letters to the editor to bitch about high gas prices.
Ecuador: Most people in Ecuador do not have cars…so we don’t hear them bitching about gas prices. They occasionally complain about oil companies that pollute the Ecuadorian rainforest in order to export oil… but they are way more likely to complain about basic food prices, which constitute a large percentage of a family’s budget. Think of it this way, a liter of milk costs around $1 here (there are 3.785 liters in a gallon). Most people make about $1 an hour. I want to say to all the gas price complainers: think about how much you make per hour…then ask yourself if you would be willing to pay that much for a LITER of milk. Then think about that next time you are putting gas in your gasguzzler on your way to Walmart…

I don’t exactly know where I am going with all of this. I guess after reading all the whiney letters to the editor I felt compelled to react. I don’t know if my own rant made me feel better…or made me angrier. A little of both I guess. But it did reiterate to me how fortunate we are to be from a country that has so many opportunities, freedoms, luxuries and conveniences …and that people can expend energy writing letters to the editor (or, in my case, blog entries) to complain about them.