enchanting carribean

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I am not the most traveled guy out there. But due to my location I do spend a good deal of my off time in the Caribbean...and I realize that I am the "white guy" when I travel...you know the guy with enough money to stay where he should.... and would only occasionally really meet the people, who lived and worked there
...well that was the case until I started traveling with the beautiful girl...she shuns the safe little enclaves of white tourists and tends to place us smack dab in the middle of the people that live in the country we are visiting...more than a little disconcerting to this middle aged fat man...at her provocation Mexico has taken on a whole new meaning to me...I was very happy sitting in my all inclusive resort in cancun...or taking a cruise and stopping by an island for a couple of hours....but thats not enough for her...she wants to eat the food and talk to people...she wants to walk down their streets ...not the clean manicured streets meant for tourist eyes..
.well let me tell you...you haven't lived till you have ridden a bus with with all the construction workers and maids as they head to the real Cancun...the one thats ten miles north of the strip...where no one speaks English...or cares to...it was scary...but to my delight the people weren't awful...they were interested in why you would come away from the strip... they have to be gainfully employed to walk the streets of the hotel strip in cancun...in their own country.. wow.. so my spanish got better...not good mind you but ...solo una pequena imperceptablly mejor...
...i guess what made me post this was the earthquake in Haiti...i haven't ever been to Haiti...or the Dominican for that matter...we almost ended up in Punta Cana...until the "no more all inclusive resort vacations rule" came into play......we have friends that say it is like costa rica before the gringos ruined it...there is a mountain range between the the two sides of Hispaniola...keeping the unbelievable poor Haitians from the normally poor Dominicans...and this is all just two hours from Miami...a world where people eat mud mixed with corn meal as sustenance...i find it unsettling...cause I am the white guy stopping in for a week to spread my measly pittance around...
It struck me how close we all are...the fat white guys and the skinny Haitians, or Mexicans or Bahamians...how I am so fortunate and they are so needy...it somehow doesn't seem right does it...I mean there is no perceivable difference between the French and the Belgians or the Italians...all neighbors...and I know there are poor here and in france...but still...it ain't right

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