My thoughts on how the world works

For them, corruption is the soul of community life. One develops contacts, and these networks of contacts decide who gets what. How successful you are depends on which networks you are in, and how well-placed you are in them. Politics is largely a matter of dividing up the spoils.

When I was in Sri Lanka, I used to read the English Indian newspapers. In these, families would advertise themselves, hoping to marry their children advantageously.  They would often say they were “well-connected”, and everyone knew what that meant.

In Latin America, government organizations are only interested in maintaining and expanding their power – and are not concerned with what they are supposed to be doing. Recently a bridge collapsed, and the bus on it plunged into the river below it, killing everyone. Immediately, everyone started pointing their fingers at every one else, placing the blame elsewhere. As it turned out, the agency responsible for bridge safety had done nothing – and didn’t even know how many bridges the country had, or what state they were in. The head of the agency resigned – causing the president of the country to worry. If heads of departments started resigning because of incompetence, he wouldn’t have any government left.

The arrogance of powerful officials is amazing. Recently, I went to the local bank to get a cash advance on my debit card, as I do every month. I stood in line, with everyone else, waiting for the only teller. When I got the head of the line, the bank guard motioned that I should go to a bank official instead, who was available in an adjacent area, helping to make the line move faster.

When I saw the guy, I knew I was in trouble. I had worked with him before, and he has always cheated me. I carefully figure out how much of my Social Security money I want to leave in my bank in the States, and how much I want in Colones, to spend during the month down here. He always gives me more Colones that I ask for, knowing my Spanish is so poor I cannot complain.  And then he sits back with a big smile on his face, knowing that his position makes him secure.

This is typical behavior in any governmental agency. Serving the public never enters their minds. The idea is to get a good government position and hold it the rest of your life – perhaps managing to make yourself even more important in the process. Arrogance in the powerful is common and expected. The role of women is to act as blatant sex-objects and become powerful by association.

Their basic culture is derived from 16th Century Spain and Portugal, which were totally corrupt. There is a thin layer of modernity over this, and they will sometimes get indignant about corrupt officials – but underneath they expect this to continue – and to benefit them.

This has been the story of my life, I have never owned a house of my own, and had never felt this most basic of American urges – something that horrified my mother, who closely linked the worth of a family with the worth of their house.

This was a big part of the upward mobility that happened after WWII to my family and many others like it, who were caught up in the rising prosperity after the war – much to their intense delight. Surely they were God’s chosen people!

If Beth and I have been normal people, and bought a house in California, we too would have benefited from the Great California Real Estate Boom that was the wonder of the world. But we were not normal, and didn’t want to be.

So here I am, to make a long story short, in a strange apartment in a coffee town in rural Costa Rica, wearing hearing protectors to protect myself from my neighbor’s radio.

This is an improvement, in the perfect little house I had in the coffee fields, the noise from the bar was so intense I had to wear ear plugs inside my hearing protectors. Still, I do feel the loss of having my own house, even if it was rented.

I have lived in perfect places before, for example, Hikkaduwa in Sri Lanka – but they all have been discovered and developed – as was my home town of Nauvoo, Illinois, which has been turned into a Mormon tourist-trap. The development in Orosi, so far, has been restrained because of the global recession – but everyone expects this to change, and charges accordingly.

The house I am living in was owned by an American family who set up a vegetarian restaurant. But it never prospered, and the husband, the cook, died. The rest of the family went back to the States – and another family close by who had built a beautiful house, has gone back too – to be where the action is.

To be honest, that is where I would be too – if I had the money. Costa Rica, frankly, is nowhere. Almost everything I enjoy I get from the States – including the Internet.

This is something no Latino organization would think of doing – except the successful ones, who have learned this from working with Gringos. The reason is simple: Latin America culture is derived from 16th Century Spanish and Portuguese cultures which were authoritarian.

In authoritarian cultures, the common people are not important, only important, powerful people were important. Customers are just common people that need things. An organization, for example, a government bureaucracy, is not interested in serving the public in the least. They have to grovel to get whatever they want.

In the North, things developed differently: it was more egalitarian and democratic. Here the common person was important, and he expected his organizations to work for him. As he evolved into being a consumer, this trend continued, and he expected the companies he bought from to provide quality shopping experiences.

This is especially true in American supermarkets. On my last visit, I was amazed by the quantity, variety, and value in the dominant supermarket chains in the DC area, where my cousin lived. I now do much of my important shopping in a Wal-Mart subsidiary in the nearest big town.

Being there is like being back in America, and I stock up on the good stuff. The staff there have got the message: please the customer before anything else. I can ask anyone, even people who are obviously managers, for something – and they immediately take me to right where it is. This is a pleasant surprise.