Curiosity

Almost every day in Capellani I get asked more questions than I actually get to ask to the people I am trying to do research on myself. I am the first person from the United States that has ever been to this place and many people are interested to know what my life is like there and what my country is like. I often get silly questions like, "Are there mountains (cows, rocks, grass, chickens, rain, potatoes-- you fill in the blank) in your country?" I explain that our countries, at least on these terms, have a lot of similarities. But really these people have no concept of life outside their own experience. Of course, that will probably change quickly now that electricity arrived 6 months ago and already a few houses have TVs. We talk about what materials we make houses out of, if we still use a team of oxen to plow, what kind of food we eat, how long the bus ride to my country is from Bolivia and where is that in relation to Spain.

But then some of the questions get a little harder. They often say, "I suppose there are no poor people in your country since it is the richest in the world." No, I have to explain, poor people do exist in my country, millions in fact. But ow can that be, with so much wealth? Well, that is an excellent question, I reply.

Or often someone will ask me, What ever happened to that war in Afghanistan (or Iraq)?

It's still going on.

Still?

Yes.

So, why did you go to war with that country? What did they do to you?

That is also a good question.

I try to explain it a little simplistically, that we were attacked and so we attacked back (at least in the case of Afghanistan, kind of). But then they want to know why we were attacked. Why would somebody attack the United States of America? Now there's another good question-- one American politicians and news media tie themselves up into moral knots over trying to avoid admitting that US foreign policy is the real motivation.

The real wrestling with the answers to these questions about the poverty in our own country and the wars we are in is not something I can really do with people who want to know if I have grass in my country, but their questions, simply and innocently asked, force me to really look at those issues and at their real root. The questions they ask about the wars make you wonder, "yeah, what the heck are we doing?" and their simple assumption that no poor should exist in a country as rich as ours really makes sense when you think about it. It makes you really look deep into the way our country and economy really work. Do they work to benefit everyone? Whether you think so or not, the evidence is clear. And thinking about the two questions of war and poverty I began to realize that maybe these two themes are more connected than we think, that both are effects of one root cause.

All these questions from my friends in Capellani have reminded me to never stop asking questions, and to ask the right ones too, not trying to avoid the real answers.