El lamo Gringo

Hola Gringo's

I made a mistake today.
A fumbling, socio-politico-parentelio-F#!K-UP.
What? What ? What? You want to know.
Fine. Just read the whole blog, first, okay? Before you judge.
Then judge all you like. Judge harshly- I deserve it.
The point is, I'm confessing and hopefully exercising some of my  guilt, so I can move on and not be such a lame-gringo in the future.
Here's what happened:
Today, we went with our lovely new boat-neighbor, Gene and his adorable, blind dog, Ace, to see a blow-hole about forty minutes away from here. It's a famous "grotto" where waves come in and crash around against the rocks and spout seventy feet in the air. Gene is a very cool, retired fellow from So-Cal who's been living in Ensenada for the past few years, while making his way South-like us, just slower. Anyway, Gene kindly offered to drive us, in his truck, to see some sights and we said we'd take him for lunch at his favorite spot on the way back. Meeting new people is all part of the adventure we're on and Gene is as nice a guy as you could ever meet; the kids and Jon and myself all liked him instantly. He even offered to take us to Costco and help us refill our propane tanks on the way back.
So, we made a plan to go mid-norning, after Jon finished meeting a Guy who might help us do some work on our gel-coat-
Let me digress, so you get the WHOLE picture....
We have some big cracks in our gel-coat and no tool to properly wax with and seeing as we are heading South to blistering sun, we have decided to shell out some pesos to get a good wax before we go. So, Jon meets a Guy ( recommended by a guy, who knew a guy and so on...) and in broken Spanglish, they negotiate a wax job to happen on Sunday but first there was a 100.00 CASH ADVANCE for materials...
Are you the smelling the Gringo here?
We have been in Mexico for FIVE days and are still so pale, we make Belalugosi look Mexican.
Anyway, Jon hands the Guy his cash and off he goes in his truck and we all climb into Gene's truck.  On the way out to La Bufadora (the blow-hole) we ask Gene if he knows this Guy who will be doing our gelcoat work, who just took off with our cash and Gene say's "yeah" and then proceeds to tell us in the nicest possible way, that Guy did some work for him a few months ago and Guy tried to rip him off.
"Oh" We say.
"Don't worry," laughs Gene. "He seemed pretty shocked when he saw your boat was right next to mine, so  he'll probably be cool".
Okay.
So we drive past beautiful scenery and abject poverty for forty-five minutes to get to the site with the blow-hole. Gene tells us how great it is living here and we agree, we love everyone we've met so far.
We get to La Bufadora and park the truck and get out and it's like every attraction, anywhere you go, where vendors gather in stalls to hawk tourist garb and drinks and snacks and mimi-sombreos and Gene is friendly with everyone and he leads us through the maze of pina-colada salesmen and we walk up a cliff to the blow-hole and there's a closed-up stand at the top and Gene say's "See that? Usually when the place is busy..." Gene shakes his head, "there's dudes in there that have a baby tiger you can pet".
We grimace in disgust.
"People will do anything for money," says Gene, sadly. "People have NO work here."
It's true.  We saw it on the drive out. We talk about going broke and stuff back at home but that's not something we will say anymore. The kids saw a whole other side of Mexico today. Not the marina. Not a hotel, not a nice restraunt but a place with bad roads and poor villages and a lot of hungry-looking people standing around outside closed-up shops.
So we walk up to the blow-hole and we look and we talk and we take pictures. La Bufadora was cool. It was nifty.
The blow-hole was not the mistake.
Here is what I did that was so absurd.
On the way back to the car, I got my picture taken with my daughter and a one month old TIGER.
Gasp!
I know.  I mean, WTF is a baby tiger doing here, in Mexico, if not being exploited for money, right?
You're surprised. Shocked. Confused. I get it.
How could I do such a thing?
I mean, I've seen Animal Planet ( I'm Kai's mother, after all) and Animal Cops and Animal-every-other-show-made-in-the-last-ten-years... and of all people, I know...NEVER take your picture with endangered animals kept in cages...RIGHT? It promotes the continued practice of capturing and keeping wild animals.
Everyone knows that.
So, let me explain, because if it was just plain ignorance, or like, an overwhelming urge ( I guess people must have them) to pet something cute and endangered, that would be one thing but it wasn't. It was something worse...It was like, I don't know, serial consumerism, magnified by white guilt and maybe even low-blood sugar, I will never be entirely sure, I guess.
But on the way back to the car, the Dudes with the Tiger were there and Hunter saw the poor little thing and like ANY kid she said, "Oh, Daddy..." and we said, "No way" and kept walking.
Then the Dude started talking and saying "this is for the "WILDLIFE PRESERVATION and CONSERVATION DONATION."
The Dude was handsome and spoke perfect English and was very intelligent and we saw that all the Dudes with him had on shirts that said the name of the conservation society and they talked about  the Society they work for that's here in Ensenada and how they bring out the cubs to make people aware and raise money and at first I wasn't buying it because the cub looked so little and what the hell was it doing up here on a cliff on a rainy Tuesday and Kai in his innate instinct backed away and said "No thank you"...
But the Dude kept talking and they had on shirts with logos and my WHITE GUILT made me feel like, what if this is a real Dude working for a preservation place and I am being like a JERK thinking they are running a SCAM?  And the Dude keeps telling us all about Tigers and the rescue work they do and about their website and before you know it we are out 30.00 and Hunter and I have a poor, little, wet, baby TIGER in our hands and I still feel WRONG but I was confused enough that I let it happen. Even sweet old Gene who's been living here gets sucked in. He gets a picture with the Tiger and poor little blind Ace.
Kai never buys into it.
He reluctantly hangs outside the tent, until finally, since his idiotic parents seem to be thinking that it's cool, comes inside and pets the baby tiger for a minute. The whole thing takes about five minutes and we're out a collective fifty bucks and the second I walk out of the tent I know I've just done something terribly wrong.
Shit.
That's what's scary about going somewhere people are poorer than you can even imagine.
You feel like such a privileged suck, that you end up acting like one.
Yes. We have signs on our heads. We don't speak the language. We have more money than most of them can fathom. We are fools. But we want to be better, cooler, have an understanding of things. We want to give our children and ourselves an experience of what the world is. There are people everywhere to trust and there are people everywhere to be wary of.
And sometimes, in life, you just get suckered. Even when you know better.

I got home and looked on the internet. There is no Big Cat Rescue Society here, in Ensenada. The baby Tiger was probably drugged. It will probably be killed once it gets too big for people to handle. I gave thirty dollars to it's captors- because they had on shirts with logos.

We are in Mexico. It is okay to have your game-face on. It is okay to be wary. It doesn't make you a jerk.

I'm still holding out faith that the Guy at the dock is going to be cool...Gene and Ace sure were.

First attempt with GoPro

Hunter and Ace