How Gringos Screwed Up Ecuador (opinion written by an Ecuadorian)

Gringos! Retire In Ecuador & Fuck it all up too!

Published by Jonathan activated 12 September 2013, 21:28pm / unavoz.overblog.com

Ill write this in english, due to who this goes to, and it will be in my english, broken and mistaken.

Two types of gringos

Just as there is latinos that dont represent me, there is gringos that dont represent them all, for which we should pass the narrow generalist vision and start changing the ways we define a group.

First of all I have to clarify something, here in Ecuador the word “gringo” is not offensive, just as any other name that we call our friends (negro(black), gordo(fat), flaco(skinny), colorado(white)) not only is not offensive, but is actually affectionate. I call one of my best friends “Gordo”, and I wouldnt, if I disliked him. Also (and very important) unlike most countries, “gringo” is not only for people from USA, is for everybody that is not from here, could be canadian, australian, norwegian, etc. This being said I proceed.

There is the type of gringo that travels out of their country cuz they want to learn, meet, evolve. Driven by an inner sensation of feeling not in their element they go to a country and are changed by it, by the place and the people, they become so close to this new life, they even start defining themselves more by their new adopted nationality than by the one they were given birth to. Some of them fall in love so much of this side of the world, they rather have a life here with a small income than being in their country making ten times more. Their presence is a blessing, they feed a diversity of cultures with their own gift, ecuadorians like me have had the fortune to become close friends to some of them and I am sure both of our lives has changed in a positive way. They help the economy if they invest, and some of them end up making beautiful babies with people from here.

I have shared some of my most precious moments with this type of people, but fortunately, there is freedom, there is diversity, not everybody is like we think they should be.

Therefor we have the other type of gringo, one that off course I dont like much. I have to make this clear, I dont posses truth, this is my perception.

The other type of gringo doesnt give a fuck about his surroundings, he never did, not even in his country, he is one of this mass-people that hasnt questioned the way of life, he just goes with it, he submerges himself in the flow of this big twisted rat race in which all of us are in, trying to make money.

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So when he comes to a country like mine, he doesnt think “ah, how beautiful! Im in love of this place, I will stay here, make a business so I can live here and adopt this lifestyle”, no… what he thinks goes more in the line of “huh… what an interesting place, a lot of people coming and going… good place to make money… hmm… I see there is no air condition hotel, and no elevators, no fancy jacuzzi, no tall building, no luxury!” Oh my God!… he feels like he is a visionary, that somehow he will be the first to bring this new wave of income in this land, businesses, jobs!… and destruction. He forgets his country was once like this one, but got covered by cement, which is the main reason why he is here now, not realizing that what he is doing is part of a unconscious self-adopted pattern that makes citizens of the world to work for the expansion of an empire (the city). Read Full Article