That’s right. Being a tourist is not a good thing. Seriously. They bring with them so many bad habits, bad activities and bad attitudes that they make the place they’re at very unpleasant for so many people around them, especially the ones that have to keep living in that now-touristy spot that once was a nice place to live. It’s because most tourists arrive in town as if they own the place. They talk loudly — really they’re shouting, especially the ones from the U.S. (why is that?) — even when they are talking at what is supposedly normal volume. Yeah, normal for those who can’t hear. For the rest of us, they are yelling. For no apparent reason.

Except for when they don’t get their own way. Then they start yelling louder than they were talking, which is quite the feat given the volume with which they were talking. I mean, earplugs can’t even tone down that noise.

Then there’s the ever famous arrogance as they talk (loudly) down to everyone they meet, even though they are the ones that decided to visit another country or even live there for five or ten years without ever really trying to communicate with the people from that country.

But then, why would they need to communicate with the people around them when they can just splash their money around as it were water and then pat themselves on the back while making a bad situation in a poor country worse?

Throwing money at the people in developing countries isn’t solving the biggest problems facing those countries today, problems such as:

• Child sex abuse and sexual tourism
• Lack of basics, such as potable water, running water or electricity
• Illiteracy and lack of formal education in their native language
• Public health issues due to lack of adequate health services
• Health issues related to worker exploitation by foreign companies
• Lack of basic nutrients in daily diets due to lack of supplies
• And more

The list is long and heartbreaking. But for the usually old, usually rich foreign dudes and chics who are used to getting everything they want and being in the center of attention wherever they go, none of this matters. It also doesn’t matter to them that they just paid triple the normal going price for their houses, cars, clothes, food, fill in the blank, and have therefore contributed to an out-of-control inflation that makes it impossible for the local residents to even think about living in what used to be nicest and most peaceful spots in the mountains and near the beaches.

Sure, the people who are from these now-too-touristy countries can work there for pittance wages and hope that they can one day afford to go out to dinner where they work, but they surely won’t be able to live anywhere near where they work.

Honestly, I’m not sure which is worse. The stereotypical old rich white dudes coming over from wherever to “help” and to seek out girls about 30 years younger than them to have “serious relationships,” the very competitive, loud and disrespectful tourists, the very self-centered volunteers, or the people who very self-righteously work for NGOs. They come to Latin America for a month or six or a year to have an intercultural exchange experience and to “help,” but instead spend most of their time drinking, taking drugs, chasing the young local girls and guys that flock around them, and whooping it up with their new, friends-forever group of foreign pals, after which they tell everyone back home how great they are for being in a developing country and helping to make it a better place. Only they aren’t making it better. They’re making it worse.

Call me jaded. But there are very few tourists, expats, NGO workers or volunteers that are actually doing much to make the situation in Latin America better. But they sure do like to talk about how great they are and everything that they are doing down here. In general,

• the tourists like to compete about how many countries they’ve visited and how many adventure sports they’ve participated in,
• the volunteers like to compete about who’s doing a more interesting project or who has helped more people,
• the expats like to put down the local residents, complain about how bad of a job the workers did on their new million dollar home, and gossip about other expats in their intimately close circle of expats who only hang out with other expats, and
• the ones who work for foreign NGOs like to compete about whose project is more worthy or try to guilt you into working on their projects for free, even though they never ask you what it is that you are doing in the country. They just assume you’re available to do what they want you to do.

However, what you seldom hear from any of them is information about the actual problems facing these countries or what the people in these countries really need. And it’s even less seldom to hear them actually talking *to* the people who most need the help. Never mind doing any sort of in-depth demographic, ethnographic or other research on the problem or spending enough time talking to enough people from that country who have actually worked in the area that the volunteer or NGO wants to work in and building a project from there.

And even if they did do any of these things, they probably wouldn’t be able to hear a word that anyone was saying over their very loud, very arrogant, very self-centered, ego-boosting chatter.

And so they blather on, the local residents continue to suffer the consequences of the presence of these bad examples of foreigners, and the never-ending push to expand tourism keeps bringing more of these beauties over to Central and South America.

If you’re going to come visit and check out the scene down here, be a traveler, not a tourist:

• Make an effort to get to know the people who are from the country you’re visiting,
• Take the volume down a few notches — most people can hear you just fine,
• Get away from the expat/foreigners-only scene, and
• Have some respect for the people whose country you’re visiting.

A country in Latin America isn’t a playground. This is someone’s home. People live in these places and they work hard. They have their homes there and they struggle every day to make ends meet. Their every day is not a vacation.

Plus, these are their countries, not ours. It pays to remember that.

© 2012 Sasha A. Rae. All Rights Reserved.