Globalization

In my travels, I have seen many provocative examples of globalization. In Barbados, I ate fried chicken with my feet in white sand under a red canvas umbrella emblazoned with Coronel Sanders face. In Valle de Bravos, Mexico, I was astonished to learn Doritos manufactured their familiar tortilla chips in bold mexican flavors. In the small town of Tujankir Uno, Costa Rica, I participated in meetings under a Coca-Cola tent. While all of these experiences have led me to reflect on the interactions between the developed and developing world, none of my previous contacts with globalization have done so as deeply as living in Ecuador, integrated into a place that balances precariously between authentic and manufactured.

Colimbuela consists of approximately 500 people in 75 families. They are all indigenous Ecuadorians whose families have lived there for many generations. Every family produces their livelihood, to some extent, through integrated farming. The women still wear their traditional hand-sown blouses and the kids speak in Kichwa. As ideally untouched by globalization this village may sound, its not all roasted guinea pigs and purple corn kernels.

The men do not wear their traditional outfits, but American-style clothing with pirated NY Yankees emblems and Armani labels. While many people eat what they grow or raise, many others sell the products of their land to be shipped away. Others yet work construction or in the dreadful flower plantations, producing their living in the western fashion.

The town center consists of a dirt road flanked on one side by an elementary school and on the other by a line of three houses that double as tiny general stores. One of these three stores recently installed a satellite dish and two computers that connect to the internet. Living in such a simple place, I may have lost perspective on how obsolete human innovation has made fixed distance, but I was shocked by this new urban development.

Mid-afternoon a few days after the system was installed, the father of this family visited my house to ask for help on a problem with the printer. The problem was out of my technical expertise (especially in Windows Espanol), but they asked me if I could instant message with Shelley, the volunteer here before me. This demonstration would really shrink the distance between Colimbuela and the rest of the world. So, I signed into Facebook to check if she was online.

No dice.

However, when I showed them some profile pictures and asked if they had heard of Facebook, they said no. Libro de caras? No?

That one really got me. With such a juxtaposition of cultures old and new, I still find exceptions to the globalization trend. Here we have a young couple: they run a store with internet and work construction in the city, they own no farmland. That is about of as western as they come here these days, yet these two have no concept of the most ubiquitous and permeating symbol of globalization of our generation.

This town is in a critical phase of development. One generation ago, no one had a TV. Two generations ago, kids (now grandparents) were brought up with no exposure to the Spanish language and still don't speak it. Now we see families staring at TV over dinner and kids playing GTA San Diego on the internet.

To leave you with a question to ponder, I will present the lives of two young women.

Maria and Sayra grew up in Colimbuela and are in the same class at the elementary school. After 7th grade, Maria, who has good grades and gets a scholarship for high school, leaves town for the city. She begins wearing western clothing and makeup. She marries a boy from Quito, moves away and forgets how to speak Kichwa. She and her family occasionally take trips to the beach and back to Colimbuela.

Sayra does fine in school, but finishes 7th grade and stays at home. She works in the fields, helps raise her younger siblings, and plays in the open country. She marries a man from the same town and never travels farther than one hour from home. She never forgets Kichwa or her culture, but can hardly write a sentence in any language and lacks an understanding of her own country in the world. She eventually receives a portion of her parents land.

Whose better off?