This is exactly what bothers me. I like you, VacationForever and I like many of your posts. My problem is that everytime we discuss crime in Mexico it focuses on whether Americans are safe or not. That is missing my point. But I am tired too of this discussion.
That's a valid point - it perhaps reflects people approaching the same issue from different directions.
I'm going to respond that Mexico has an established tourism industry. It is a significant part of the economy; in locales such as Cancún, Puerto Vallarta, and Cabo tourism underpins the whole economy. IMHO - any reasonable response to the issues involving drug cartels/gangs needs to involve maintaining/enhancing/creating viable indigenous economic alternatives that present realistic opportunities for economic opportunity that do not involve becoming involving with a gang or cartel.
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We put my money where our mouths are. We routinely donate 10% to 20% of our income to organizations that we believe exist to make a change in the world. One major recipient of our donations is an organization that is involved with transferring land ownership to indigenous peoples in Central America via a microlending program (started in 1995, before microlending became a "thing"), that leads to deeded transfer of land ownership. The program includes training to facilitate transition from subsistence cropping (which is insufficient to pay off the loans) to economic cash crops. The communities we are involved with through this organization have successfully placed cash crops, such as snow peas, to vendors such as Costco and Lord and Spencer. Families involved with this program have moved from subsistence level existence to actually having disposable cash to spend for such items as improved housing, better nutrition, and more use of medical services
We also provide significant support for a program that provides indigenous students in northern Guatemala a tuition-free and free supplies education through high school and even into college. The students we support come from families where the parents are functionally illiterate. They are amazed, and totally grateful, that their children have an opportunity for an education that they never had the opportunity to receive. Because when they were at that age, their parents were simply trying to stay alive in the middle of a civil war, where they and their children were targeted for genocide. They are so supportive that they don't demand that their children help in the fields or go into the forests to collect firewood - which is the norm for subsistence families. They expect that their children go to school, and that once school is out the children study while it still light. The economic burden this places on these families is enormous; throughout the region farming by the entire is the norm for survival. The sacrifices these families make to support their children's education is simply unimaginable to most of us living our sheltered lives in North America. Free tuition and supplies is actually the lesser amount of their financial support.
In the organizations that we support, gang violence is a consistent issue and threat. In the villages we have had young boys, teenagers, assassinated because they refused to join a gang. Or because they started to join and backed out. We had another situation where a young man went to university, and was recruited into a gang. To prove his loyalty he was commanded to return to his village, and execute all of the family members of a village leader. It was a test of loyalty. Having done the deed, he would never be able to return to his family or the village, and he would be hunted by the police. So from that point his existence would depend on entirely on the gang.
He started the job, but, after significant maiming of the family members (including a near-death punctured lung), he realized he couldn't finish the job. So he went on the lam, hunted by his gang members as well as the police, with no place in h is past that he could return to. And in Guatemala, falling into the hands of the police when you are hunted isn't much different from falling into the hands of a gang. He did respond, one time, to an outreach contact from the organization, where we were able to learn what was going on. But he disappeared afterward, and our contacts have no idea what has happened to him.
But in the midst of this we see progress. We are now seeing young people, graduates of our programs, who are returning to the area to be teachers, agronomists, medical specialists, etc., giving back to the communities where they grew up instead of going to Guate City where there are better jobs, or taking off for the US. I think of one young woman, who typically would have been married by age 14 and a mother no later than age 16, going to University, returning as a community service worker after completing university, and getting married and having a child in her 20s, when she was more ready to provide care and support. She has been an inspiration to so many other young girls in the community, that there are options beyond getting married after puberty and starting a family while still a teenager. We believe that many of the young girls who have stayed with our program after 8th grade (we have over a 50% retention rate for girls at that age) is due to her example.
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In reflection, I confess that I probably did react emotionally to my perception that I was being characterized as having my head in the sand and feeling that I was being castigated for enjoying Mexico without guilt.
So I apologize for posting with that emotional edge.
