Road Hogs

Ok, I wanted to post this one for many reasons. The pigs in the road are very typical for Mexican towns and I LOVE them. I also want to pontificate on the garbage factor. I know that I risk invoking awful stereotypes of Mexico as a "dirty" country by posting this, but I don't think of Mexico as any dirtier than anywhere else. Come on, people, we've all seen New Orleans and downtown Parrish. I want to comment on the reasons for the trash and I will begin with the, maybe, not -so-obvious. The people that live here are Mayan. They have lived in communities and towns for hundreds, probably even thousands of years. Over that kind of time-frame, people get used to their material culture and understand waste disposal. Until the introduction of plastic, the Maya used natural fiber products for eating, drinking, and carrying things. These articles were disposable and would biodegrade quickly, without causing any kind of health hazard. When you broke your pottery plate, you threw it out in the jungle. When your coconut shell cup developed a leak, you tossed it. No big deal. We do the same thing. We call it "composting."
Now, the contemporary Maya are having a hard enough time trying to survive in a global economy without losing their identity, their language, and, thanks to the godbag missionaries, their religious heritage. When highway trash became a problem here in the US, the government made commercials with American Indians crying (c' mon, you remember the ones I'm talking about) and lots of states sponsored "keep America beautiful" slogans. We still have highway trash. But, thanks to the workings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and NAFTA, and other multi-national (read: US controlled) economic pressures, Mexico has even less money to spend on these kinds of projects than ever before. Thus, you get plastic trash in the streets. There are other factors we could talk about, but I've covered my main points for now. Love the pigs, hate the plastic trash, LOVE MEXICO!