First your told to embrace the global community. Everyone’s coming together. Cultures are closer and discovering is easier. Go learn a language even, you never know where you’ll end up. We’re all one. It’s progressive. We call it globalization. 

It was just like the magazines promised. 

Big names take the land from the rural farmers so they can use the cheap, unregulated expansive plots. And so families who’ve only known that place there move to the cities in hope for better, but find shacks in the outskirts where neither water nor police nor opportunity come in. And maybe the factory down the way will hire for half a living wage if you’re lucky enough to be an undocumented immigrant. Maybe you can get a job in construction, constructing resorts and conference centers for those same people that put you here to come pass the time. It’s not easy honey but find your niche in the system. And don’t hope for the government to change anything with all their friends high up who need their resources sound and plentiful. Your country’s developing but at least you can walk down the way to the McDonald’s every now and then and feel a part of the social class. Find some way of service here cause the only thing hard to export to the lands of hopes and dreams is yourself. 

And what’s the need for indigenous languages and tribal rituals when we could all speak English. This land here is devoted to the dam so the city people can quench their thirst and the factories can move toys, so I’m glad your ancestors didn’t plan on too long. Get out before the water moves in and hope that one day your country isn’t just a producer for those in the Central cause right now you and it both are having trouble staying afloat. 

They need their food cheap and it’s fun to play with recipes at dinner parties and say this spice is exclusive to this rugged area ‘here.’ And this wine comes from the sweeping mountains of this far off ‘there.’ How cultured they seem.

And their clothes aren’t going to make themselves. Jenny needs a new dress for sadie-hawkins and Jake needs nikes because tryouts are coming soon and their mom is worried about the church’s tithe so she’s stress shopping. Because they need big stores and enough options to waste time on that triviality can be buried. 

Don’t forget how rich your land is. To you it means fall harvests which bring dances and festivals in the village center. It means a cool breeze on a summer afternoon and the nightly insects telling all to lie down now. To us it means oil. Cause how is dad going to drive the four-runner first to the private schools for the kids and then to his banking job in the city? How embarrassing it’d be to not be the ones scoffing at those using public transportation. 

Hope you have quick hands cause Jake’s iPhone just broke and Jenny’s heading to college and without a Mac she wouldn’t be trendy and grandma should get an iPad to play solitaire and hearts. There’s no app for that. So take a break and eat your apple but get back to the assembly line soon. 

And dad does feel bad that his bank financed the same dictator that brought the dark decade to your country. The one you don’t even want to speak of. Sometimes between the finance reports, crunching numbers, he thinks of the 30,000 disappeared. He thinks about how people like your mom were hero’s who really fought for something. How the story’s the same for your neighbors and many others — do the stripes on the flag just show the blood on our hands? But then Tim calls him for lunch break. There’s a great sushi restaurant in town ran by fresh off the boat Japanese. 

And at lunch when the normal folk are hidden away the chiefs take their bonuses and place them in the pockets of their next puppet running for office. Cause’ don’t you know a ‘Republic’ is just a system for the normal class to ‘elect’ which elite they want to govern their lives most. It is disguised well, though, encouraging things like civil involvement and through highlighting democracy in the history textbooks. 

But don’t you worry that puppet is mainly interested in protecting his own stake in businesses. And fortunately for you he’s mostly involved in Mid East energy and weapon trade so your land is spared for once, while he puts votes to sell more arms to blow off their arms and deny the begging hands to put wealth in his hands. 

The people who do care give up sometimes. Resolving themselves to the same story and a side involvement in some non-profit which looks good mostly just on paper and in donor recruitment pamphlets. Cause’ I don’t know if you’ve heard but taxes are high and the kid’s college is expensive and the government takes away more of our liberties everyday so we must protect ourselves. 

Sure the government could do more. But spending more over there would mean a smaller military here and the thought of threat to any of these luxuries is just too much to bear. What an infringement on our security and stability. It’s hard when things aren’t easy. 

I hope you find water tomorrow.

That the truck doesn’t run out too early. 

I’ll send ten dollars this month in hopes that it doesn’t. 

We’re all one. It’s progressive. And we call it globalization.