Posted by: Chris
While in Antigua, we´ve noticed a lot of Western women with Central American babies. A lot. We also read a post on a travel forum from someone who was joking about the same thing (yes we read other peoples blogs too). On top of this, there is very real paranoia about Westerners stealing Guatemalan children for all sorts of crazy reasons: abuse, to harvest their organs, and just to kidnap. In 2000, a Japanese tourist tried to help a crying child by picking it up and comforting it. There have been several accounts on what exactly happened, and this is considered the most accurate we´ve found. A mob became enraged and murdered the tourist and the taxi driver–stories range from beating with sticks and rocks to lynching. There are other similar accounts, and virtually every guide warns not to even take pictures of local children.
So, there´s a genuine fear of foreigners stealing children and inordinate amount of Blonde haired women carrying dark haired local kids. I´m no genious, but something seemed wrong. We were riding in a shuttle with a German family; 3 kids, only one was white. Didn´t have any real reason to feel strange but I did. Something wasn´t adding up. So, we came to the internet place and I searched about Guatemalan adoption, and what do you know–there´s a Dateline special tomorrow night, Sunday Jan 20th at 6pm Central, about Guatemalan adoption. It seems the demand for children has grown with wealthy families waiting only months or weeks instead of years. The result is kidnapping and dirty business to meet the demand. Now this post isn´t condeming Guatemala or adoption here. Antigua is one of the coolest places I´ve been to and the people have been extremely kind. Many abused or abandoned children go to caring families and everyone lives happily ever after. But not always. Business, it seems, is going well. A little too well.
The point of this post? I want to know what is going on. Except I don´t have a tv. So I need someone in the US to watch the show and please report back to me. One of the benefits of travelling is you start learning what really goes on in the world with your own eyes and ears, not just what you´re told on the news. Most of the time you learn how little truth actually gets to us, or else how the viewpoint has been bent. And this is where my spiel ends: I´m not gonna rant on US politics or media bias or all the other things young people like to ramble on about, so certain that everyone in the Country is a moron except themself. I can´t stand those travellers. Look for a rant about them in the future(along with other fun stereotypes we´ve met).
I have no idea what´s really going on, but if our news is showing something that we are 1st hand noticing, then kudos to Dateline. Now someone please fill me in.
Sunday Jan 20th at 6pm Central
p.s. — happy/funny post coming very soon about Antigua, just needed to get this out before tomorrow
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