Thoughts on here...

As I'm starting to have a very small amount of confidence in my spanish, i've been getting to know more of the locals, who all have their own ideas of what is the route of the problems in Guatemala. It's interesting to hear things from their point of view. Many people say is the machismo culture, (I've even had some of the more educated men tell me this). For example, my spanish teacher wanted to get her tubes tied so she wouldn't have any more kids (because her husband refused to use condoms). So she saved up money to go to the hospital, but once she got there they told her she needed her husbands permission to get the operation (which, of course, he would not give). She tells me this isn't the policy anymore -woman can get operations without their husbands concent now, but that attitude is still prevelant in many rural areas. However, there was recently a study about societal views on woman by one of the Guatemalan Universities, and reading it was like going back in time 30-50 years (I would assume, as I don't remember much from my pre-nascent years).

I've been told that policies are modernizing and education is increasing regarding birthcontrol and the economic benefits of smaller families. However, it seems that the price of everything is increasing so fast that any improvements in the economies of the smaller families are completely negated by the upward pressure on prices that the tourist industry brings in. (here I'm talking purly Antigua, not Guatemala as a whole - although the same very well may be tru) Now, I'm no economist and I dont' know if the benefits of tourism are outweighing the drawbacks in aggregate...but I can see that with such poor education here, many locals dont' have the knowledge to take advantage of the money that's being brought in by tourists so it's mostly gringos with the successful restaurants, hotels, etc.

The terrible quality of education in public schools really smacks me in the face. I've heard it's not uncommon for someone to graduate and still be illiterate. i think they're more like a place for parents to drop off the kids for the day than a place to get educated. i can see very clearly that there is no middle class. so far, the people i've met who are my age, dressed in nice clothes and can speak english, have also been quite well educated. As soon as the conversations turn to family life, i've found that their parents work for a large corporation and are often only half guatemalan.

On the other hand, in the families that have both parents working in a local business as well as any adult children working, still live in a cement block with a tin roof that makes up a house here. In the US a family like this would be fairly middle class - but it's easy to see that the possibility of upward economic mobility doesn't exist in real tangible terms.

This is in no way an official study on the Guatemalan micro-economic situation...purely how the situation seems on the surface.