There is definitely more than one way to do things, and it doesn’t always have to be the stressed-out way. Travel confirms this.
An image that looms large from my family’s recent trip to Guatemala is the truck that carried people to work in the morning.
It was a pick-up truck outfitted with a steel structure that those left to stand hung on to (or off of) as it made its way down the steep mountain road where we stayed near Lake Atitlan.
“Well,” I said, the first time we saw the crowded commuter truck, “that sure is a far cry from our country’s strict seatbelt laws.”
Maybe it is the dogs that wander around off leash, or the speed bumps that are spaced strategically along the curvy thoroughfares of the country or the traffic that clogs up in populated areas that slow things down and prevent such a seemingly dangerous mode of travel from causing deaths. Guatemala ranks far lower than the U.S. in car-crash deaths, with only five per 100,000 people a year versus 14 per 100,000 here.
I love being in another country that does things more loosely, and I love pointing out these discrepancies to my kids, mainly because it seems we can get caught up in the “have-tos” and the “shoulds” that sprout up in our lives, and we stop even questioning them.
It is hard to imagine a United States where people are allowed to hang off pick-up trucks, or let their dogs roam free, but seeing those things work well in another place greatly eases the panic that can rise in association with the growing set of stringent rules that govern American society.
“They can’t walk in the rain?!” a mother said to me one day, years ago, when I lamented that the kids took the school bus the few blocks to second-grade swim at the Y.
Had they walked, they would have gotten wet — but so what?
I didn’t get mad. I didn’t stand on my soapbox and opine on the need to loosen the reigns and stop scaring parents and children alike about basic unscary things like rain. But I did have my say.
“They can walk in the rain,” I pointed out.
She looked at me blankly and I wondered: was she a different species? Maybe she melted in the rain, and so did her daughter? Maybe she knew something I didn’t, and this was a particularly strong acid rain that was going to kill us all if we let a drop touch us.
But, no. I don’t think any of that was true. I think her comment was borne of a common fear that has been perpetuated to sell us things we don’t need. Because if, god forbid, the children had been forced to walk in the rain, they would have needed umbrellas and jackets and galoshes and all kinds of fancy accouterments to keep them safe.
Such is the state of things here and, as a parent, I protest. We don’t have to be afraid of the rain. We don’t have to freak out if the children take off their seat belts for a second to grab something from the back of the car. We don’t have to panic if a dog goes off leash for a bit.
I loved being in Guatemala. I loved the slower pace. I loved seeing the ladies wash their bright clothes in communal areas where they scrubbed them by hand and then packed them up in fabric bundles to hang out to dry, no machine necessary. I loved seeing the Mayan fisherman in their carved wooden canoes catch fish with just a string and a fly on a hook. I loved seeing dogs, mostly groomed and friendly, meander slowly through the streets in between the little fearless speeding taxis they call tuk-tuks. I loved showing my kids that we don’t have to be so nervous and afraid, that things don’t have to be handled just the way our society says they do.
