I am so done with the hippie /backpacker thing.

God, how I used to love it. I loved making something from nothing, foraging for food, beating "the man", living on the edge. It was a fun game. And it was a game for I had home to return to. No matter how hungry or dirty or dispirited I was, there were my nice middle class parents with their nice home and Mummy's predictable lousy cooking, waiting for me. I didn't have to avail myself very often of their hospitality. But, there it was. A safety net.

At La Gloria Guatemalan refugee camp in Chiapas and in San Carlos Lempe in El Salvador and in Cheputul Dos in Nebaj, Guatemala, I met the real thing. I saw a baby starve to death. I ate some terrible bitter root that somehow filled my stomach when there were no tortillas, I drank water that could kill you as easily as quench your thirst. I prayed to any and every god. It was not a game.

Yesterday I walked to a beach in another cove. The little rental shacks were not that bad, but I couldn't get away fast enough. It smelled a bit like desperation. A German mother was yelling at her kid. A old hippie was too stoned to lift his eyes. Everyone was kind of down. The beach even felt dark. The funny thing is that in places I have been where there was dire poverty, the mood wasn't down. There was strength. People were fighting for survival and they were winning, mostly. The fight was heroic, glorious, spirited. The poor were more dignified than anyone else.

So, now I glorify the poor and condemn the sad hippies. I guess so. In the USA we are not supposed to be a class based society. Noting could be further from the truth. In England at least it is up front and clear. In the USA we lie to ourselves about how strict and static our class lines are. Old money scorns new money. Certain accents finish off the upward mobility of some poor souls. We rejoice in a rags to riches story, yet structurally stack the odds so heavily that it is almost impossible to achieve.

I started out middle class. I enjoyed poverty, I knew astonishingly wealthy friends and I end up middle class. The resort where I find myself comfortable is just that. The hippie place doesn't suit me and the really posh place in the other direction doesn't either. (Although I did suss out their dessert menu and plan on a visit later today.) I am glad that Rhys recommended Tumtim Resort. I am also glad that I can fit in many worlds. Survival skills are nothing to be scorned. Who knows when they will be all we have. (Please note that I do not mean "survivalist skills". They are totally fear based as far as I can see.)

So, the middle way. Buddhism 101.