I have a bit of a rant brewing this morning. Someone wrote a comment on my post yesterday implying that the big bad white man moves to foreign countries to take advantage of people. Lets put things straight, RIGHT NOW! 1. Dont believe what you hear in the media for starters. 2. People throw around the words ethical wages as if they know what they are talking about: for example dont judge what I do, when in your country your min. wage is far less liveable than here. 3. When a foreigner opens a company in a distant land there are far more rules and regulations than locals that we MUST abide by or guess what we get deported, sued or jailed. If anyone is exploiting people I would assume its the locals cause they cant get in trouble 4. To live here you must improve the economy therefore most gringos own businesses and most expats also have domestic help (so we all have staff, in some form or another), well just to make this clear - my domestic helper has a domestic helper too. But for all of the expats I know of we bring heightened employer standards from up north and we pay very very well, and treat people even better. 5. You need to be educated in a certain culture before you can really understand or comment on it. Here they have a very clear class system and when I moved here I assumed everyone wanted to class jump just like the American Dream I was brought up with. Well they dont and I would leave if things were different here. I will explain what I have seen. In the lower classes someone bought a house probably 3 generations ago and the whole family lives there, not cause they have to, its cause they value family, the house is usually paid for so no one has mortgages or big expenses, they dont use AC (there is a fancy invention called a window, they open), There are usually 4 working age people in the house to pay for food, clothes etc.. and there is always a relative to babysit for free. If they have a car which is rare they all share it. They sleep in hammocks and have a kitchen table and lots of lawn chairs (simple needs). Every night they put the lawn chairs in the road and visit with each other or they all watch soccer together on a 14 TV. This is happiness to them. They only care about health, family, food , school and shelter once their needs are met they are grateful, happy and complete. Commercialism (the word more) or class jumping doesnt exist in this class- they couldnt care less. Its only in the upper classes. I know its hard for the north to understand but money doesnt have value, happiness has value. I learned very quick when you over pay (and their needs are met, they will not return to work until they have new basic needs). That is why so many people are entrepreneurs- They only work a few days and when they need money they go back to work but in the middle its family time. I follow their lifestyle not the other way around. And to be perfectly clear I AM TOTALLY JEALOUS OF THEM. We (up north) have it all backwards. The same person who commented yesterday also added why dont I move back to Canada and have my factory there, well my answer would have been different 2 years ago but my answer now is this is my home, I am happy here and I dont have to live in Canada to justify your ignorance. Its a simple life and their values are very similar to mine and I am proud that this culture is rubbing off on me and some of my preconceived notions on what life is suppose to be are fading away! So to this person before you judge someone make sure you know what you are talking about! or better yet #shutthehellup GRRRR Rant Complete !!
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 12:49:03 +0000