Monday October 16th, 2017
Election Day back home!!!!! Yikes! I can’t say we will be glued to our screens waiting to see, but it will be exciting to hear the outcome 🙂
Speaking of politics….we ran into an interesting event Saturday. We were on our way to explore some more of the city on foot, as we do, and at the park very close to our place there was an obvious pep rally of sorts. There was a stage and some gentle, live music and speeches, food, signs, people wearing white t-shirts with undetermined messages on them…and families abound. It all felt very lovely and was making me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Then, we started to look more closely at the signs on the shirts and Myles investigated some of the translations. We slowly put together the pieces that in all likelihood, it was a very conservative, religious gathering intended to protect and preserve the Catholic definition of marriage, gender and birth, and included some form of a message to the educational system to step back and “Don’t teach our kids about the definition of gender,”. Now, in fairness, we cannot be exactly sure of the subtleties and subtexts, nor of the mission statements of the possible organizations there; but we are no dummies. The purpose of this gathering was largely solidified upon exiting the celebration when we passed a very small, peripheral protest group on the fringes. They were loud, cheering, and quite obviously defending LGBTQ rights.
The thing I appreciated about this whole experience, was the complete lack of any form of aggression I observed or felt. Sure, I may have been missing some things, but not at any point in time did my spidey- senses flare up. At the same time, I also must acknowledge that I don’t get it. I just don’t. I felt especially confounded when walking past the younger generation of supporters, wearing the t-shirts and waving the small flags…it just does not compute in my head. I simply cannot imagine the painful and laborious uphill battle for anyone that does not fit into the predominating mold of the country.
I think you can tell which picture is which below.
Myles and I did our best to explain things to the kids, and to some degree I think they got a sense of what was happening. It didn’t take long, however, for the proverbial, “Can we go now?” I don’t think the experience made it into their journals.
Chau.
xo
Our Big Adventure 