This morning around 5:30 or 6, I woke up to Trent screaming. I was not able to wake myself to comprehend much more than him being upset and Dr. Skon saying something in agreement with whatever Trent was yelling about. I just covered myself up and returned to sleep, since things had simmered down and it did not feel like there was any immediate danger.
About an hour later, I woke up and others were waking up as well. Someone asked Trent was the screaming was about earlier, and he told us that while he was up for an early morning bathroom break, he had a visit from a taranchula. Of course, the first response was for everyone to go look at the poor trapped critter. He was not small. It was decided to let him sit there for the day. I meant to let him lose before we left, but that did not happen. Due to the rain all night, we were not able to do what Dr. Skon originally had planned for us. Instead, we decided to go to the town of San Ignacio to walk around and explore the town. It started off well, everyone was together in a group. But then a few of us got distracted and wandered into a store. We followed the guidelines and stayed in groups of 3 or more. The locals continued to be really friendly and helpful. But in reality, a good number of them probably just wanted to sell us something. There was one man outside of a shop who stopped us to talk. He was an older native man and he just seemed absolutely thrilled to see us. When he asked where in the US we were from, Ohio made him even more joyous. Again, the sheer friendliness of the locals amazes me. The only thing that I bought today was a small collectable spoon for Kristen. I thought that it might make a good addition to her collection, and for only $5 US, it was cheaper than the majority of her bowling collectable spoons. After we left the shop, we wandered down to the public library. I could not spend much time there because I knew if I did, I would find all kinds of books that I would just have to read, and frankly, I am under enough of a time crunch as is without books helping. We eventually met up with some people from the rest of the group at a small place I believe was named Flaya’s. We conversed for a while and then continued exploring the town. After getting tired, we found Dr. Skon at Flayas and asked what the plan was, we were lead to believe that we would be leaving shortly. After an hour or two, that was obviously not the case. We went looking for other people and eventually found our way back to the van. We found both of the Joshes and Trent in the van. We sat with them for a few minutes and eventually some young local boys found us. They asked us to buy barbeque chicken to ‘support them’ and when we declined, they straight up asked for cash, again to support them. They did not leave however, they kept repeating ‘I know you can support me, sir, will you please?’ This raised an interesting dilemma to me. As much as I would like to help the young boys, I was not convinced that I could. Just because I gave them money does not mean that they would benefit from it. Perhaps a parent would take it and spend it on themselves, or maybe the kids would get themselves in trouble with it. As much as I wanted to help, when they nearly started begging for money, I could not bring myself to do it. The way that I see it, giving them money after they beg for it will not only have the previous risks that I just mentioned, but it will also reinforce that begging is a viable way to get money and may in fact encourage it. It was not an easy thing to decide, or even think about, but I believe that I made the best choice that I could have.
At one point before we left, we ran into Lucy again. We found out that the previous night had been her last. We were sorry for her loss of job. She made a comment as to how the majority of her last check would go to buying shoes for her younger brother. It then struck me just how young she was. I do not think that she could be older than 16, maybe 17. But yet she feels that she needs to spend her money on her family, that really helped to show how much family means to this community.
After dinner, one of the Kenyon students gave us a presentation on the conflict between Israel and Palestine. To be honest, the history side of that was interesting to me, but he seemed to say that ‘we’ did this and that. He spoke as if sending money to Israel was our choice, as if the average American had ANY say in what the government did with our tax dollars. We do not, at least directly have such power, even if all the citizens wanted to shift how money was spent, I find it hard to believe that the government officials would not ignore that and work towards their own agenda. Ah well…. maybe I let government discussions get under my skin a little bit too much. That is why I tend to avoid such conversations. My passion is not necessarily there. Not to say that I do not care about other people’s struggles, I suppose that I feel that we need to get things a bit closer to right at home before we meddle so heavily with others’ affairs. At the very least, he gave me something to think about; I strongly suspect that was his entire reason for giving the presentation.
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