ere are lazy. From the perspective of an “advanced” economy, the sight of people wandering around searching for money is easy to dismiss as panhandling. However, one needs to put the actions of other people in their proper context. Puerto Rico is a beautiful island with a small wealthy class, a slowly growing middle income group, and a very large proportion of others who lack the ability to support themselves by similar means that many of us have at our disposal. As a consequence, these people use what is available to them; i.e., they live off of the fruits of the land and sea. These mislabeled street people awake each day, and obtain something–bananas, coconuts, bottled water, etc–that can be sold for a dollar. They stake out a spot and walk out into traffic, spending many hours in the bright sunshine, attempting to earn a living for their families. It appears that ignorance, even in paradise, is not bliss.
Misinterpreting cultural clues
Many of us suffer from a tendency to prejudge other peoples’ behavior, using our own cultural lens to deduce their meaning. This past term, one of my Intro to Travel and Tourism students reported on Puerto Rico’s potential as a tourism destination. After viewing a scene similar to the one appearing to the right, she determined that Puerto Rico is filled with “street people.” The inference was that locals h
ere are lazy. From the perspective of an “advanced” economy, the sight of people wandering around searching for money is easy to dismiss as panhandling. However, one needs to put the actions of other people in their proper context. Puerto Rico is a beautiful island with a small wealthy class, a slowly growing middle income group, and a very large proportion of others who lack the ability to support themselves by similar means that many of us have at our disposal. As a consequence, these people use what is available to them; i.e., they live off of the fruits of the land and sea. These mislabeled street people awake each day, and obtain something–bananas, coconuts, bottled water, etc–that can be sold for a dollar. They stake out a spot and walk out into traffic, spending many hours in the bright sunshine, attempting to earn a living for their families. It appears that ignorance, even in paradise, is not bliss.
ere are lazy. From the perspective of an “advanced” economy, the sight of people wandering around searching for money is easy to dismiss as panhandling. However, one needs to put the actions of other people in their proper context. Puerto Rico is a beautiful island with a small wealthy class, a slowly growing middle income group, and a very large proportion of others who lack the ability to support themselves by similar means that many of us have at our disposal. As a consequence, these people use what is available to them; i.e., they live off of the fruits of the land and sea. These mislabeled street people awake each day, and obtain something–bananas, coconuts, bottled water, etc–that can be sold for a dollar. They stake out a spot and walk out into traffic, spending many hours in the bright sunshine, attempting to earn a living for their families. It appears that ignorance, even in paradise, is not bliss.
I admire these street vendors enormously. I’ve seen them soaked in sweat in the hot midday sun selling their products on street corners, at traffic lights, or in parking lots in malls. They are enterprising and hardworking and doing what they have to do to provide for themselves and/or their families. It’s an honest day’s work and I tip my hat to them!
So true. A friend of ours went up into the mountains and watched in amazement as a short, thin, older man loaded a huge stalk of bananas onto his one-speed bicycle, and made his way down slope to Route 2 in west Puerto Rico. The ride probably took an hour. Once he arrived at his intersection, he had to separate the stalk into series of smaller bunches, using a machete. Then it was out into traffic, timing the traffic lights so he could offer his wares to stopped cars. Of course, at the end of the day, he had to peddle that one-speed back uphill to his home. Whenever I consider whining about a tough deadline, I picture this fellow’s daily endeavors.