The Eyesore

Toward the end of last year, there was a young man living under the freeway bridge on Winter Park Street for several weeks. I’d see him when I rode my bicycle on weekend mornings. He slept in a sleeping bag only feet from new luxury apartments that the AdventHealth hospital built. Just beyond the bridge, where the road was closed, another new apartment block was going up on the corner and a skyscraper for an orthopedic center was under construction within view of my house.

One day between Christmas and New Year’s, he was gone. I don’t know if it was because he couldn’t bear the construction noise, the police rousted him, or he found a better location. In any case, he’s not living there anymore.

The Ethics

Full moon beach parties along Thailand’s Andaman Coast turn once-pristine, picture-postcard beaches into garbage dumps of drug-addled youth. In neighboring Cambodia, Serendipity Beach in Sihanoukville is awash in sewage. Nudists have invaded Machu Picchu. Plastic bottles litter mountainsides; human waste pollutes rivers and lakes. Walls crumble at Pompeii, while frescos fade beneath the Giza Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings.

What was once lost or secret becomes overrun by developers and tourists. Locals rarely see any of the money. Children go hungry and uneducated while a select few profit princely.

Don’t Look Away

Siem Reap, Cambodia
October 2010

“The thing is to avoid eye contact,” an Australian woman tells her friend as they pass the children selling books on the footpath to Preah Neak Poan. “They’re trained to make you take pity on them.”

Make eye contact. You owe people that much. You tour group sheep don’t know these children. You’ve been shielded from them by your tour guides, air-conditioned coaches, and luxury hotel.

Makkan Explains It All

Siem Reap, Cambodia
October 2010

“I don’t own my tuk-tuk. This is my job,” Makkan says. We are out front of My Best Friend’s Guesthouse, making plans for tomorrow’s final day after the long, hot moto ride from Beng Mealea.

“I work on a salary,” he explains. “Fourteen dollars a week. So when you give me money at the end of the day, it goes to my boss, and for the gas, and for my bike. And if you decide you want to give me a little more, as you did last night, then I thank you.”

Street Kids

Phnom Penh, Cambodia
October 2010

Children don’t play fair. I know it’s a poor country, but I wasn’t prepared for the begging. Along the riverfront, small kids ply the bars and cafes, selling flowers, bottles of water, bootleg Lonely Planets — photocopied, stitched together, and wrapped in plastic. Most just ask for money, hold their hands out, make a sad face.

Down the street there’s an adult, a parent possibly, running the crew. The adults are the ones who take all the money. The bar owners and restaurant waiters dutifully shoo the children away. They are bad for business, but the kids quickly return.

Open Letter to Dr. Zahi Hawass

Note: Dr. Zahi Hawass was Secretary General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and later Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs until July 2011, following the uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.

Cairo, Egypt
December 2008

Dear Dr. Zahi Hawass:

Thank you for preserving Egypt’s antiquities. Your tireless efforts to repatriate artifacts plundered over the centuries by Europe and America, and to recover and preserve the tombs and temples of the Pharaonic era have done a great service to both Egypt and the world.

Shoeshines

This is how it works: The boy, or young man, comes up to you and points at your boots. “Shine your shoes?” he asks. Or, “Clean your boots?” When you decline, he points down and replies, “But they’re dirty.” And when you still decline, he persists, “Why? Why no?”, and looks at you heartbroken as if you are depriving him of bread. His father will beat him, his poor grandmother and baby brother will starve. “Why no?”

It is the same in Luxor, Mexico City, or any city or village in Peru.

Here is why not.

Hassles

Luxor, Egypt
November 2008

They call Luxor the hassle capital of Egypt, but the correct word is “hustle.” It’s all a hustle from the moment you arrive. The taxi driver in the street this morning offers to drive me around the West Bank for the day for 100 LE, then 80 LE. “No, I won’t cheat you,” he insists. “I won’t change the price. They will cheat you over there.”

I press on, and he follows. “I take you and I’ll wait,” he says. “It is fair price. Listen to me! If you go, pay at the end, or don’t pay.” I say no emphatically. I keep walking, and he punches his dashboard.

Papyrus Shop

Cairo
November 2008

The staff of the National Papyrus Institute in Giza serve us tea in small glasses. The manager demonstrates how the ancient Egyptians made paintings on papyrus paper, soaks the stalks until they bind together, until the resulting surface is soft but strong.

The four-person staff follows us around the shop as we look at the paintings. Pretty girls in headscarves follow the Canadian men Jay and Emma; a well-dressed young man shadows me.

Commerce

There is always a commercial angle. Shoeshine boys in Luxor, Mexico City, and Puno. Peruvian or German shopkeepers. Mozart impersonators in Prague and Vienna. Those surreal statue buskers on La Rambla in Barcelona.

Every organized tour has a shop stay. Try as you might, the one-day boat excursion to Tangier becomes a forced bus tour of camel rides and surly carpet merchants.

Papyrus and roadside sculptures in Egypt. Felucca captains along the Nile. Kids selling guidebooks in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. Merchants of all ages on any public bus in Latin America. Anytime you get on a tour bus in any part of the world.