“Here you see the Frangipane, that is a mango tree next door, and this tree… is the cashew nut tree.” I look at her in surprise. “Do cashews grow in a tree?” My sister-in-law laughs. “Yes,” she says, “and even with just one nut per fruit.” She searches the ground for a moment and then picks up a freshly fallen fruit that looks a bit like a small green and yellow pepper, but sure enough… on top of the fruit there is a crescent-shaped nutshell through which I can recognize the cashew nut. Unbelievable… now I understand why those nuts are always so expensive. How many fruits would they need to fill one bag?
My sister and I[1] flew across the world the previous day and are now guests of my brother, sister-in-law and cousin in Aruba. It is over 86 degrees Fahrenheit outside and we are shown around the garden where all kinds of things grow and for which there are all kinds of plans. We see all kinds of things that we are not familiar with at home. We often know something about it, but I, for example, had never even seen those large cacti that grow everywhere here. It seems like a different world.
That Aruba is a different world also becomes more apparent later in the week. We get a tour of the island and see the big difference between the wealth of the small strip of tourism area and the poverty of many other neighborhoods. It makes me feel torn. As a rich Western woman, I am used to luxury. Although not the luxury of the cruise ships, but it is the luxury of walking into a supermarket without any worries to do some shopping or eat out. And then I meet people who have lived on the island for generations, in poverty, and who depend on others for their meals. Who work multiple jobs to care for loved ones, who have few choices and are certainly not carefree.
It feels crooked… that Aruban people benefit little from tourism while the island would probably be even poorer without tourism. However, tourism is mainly profitable for the rich, and only the nice pictures are distributed.
In the Netherlands we complain easily about how expensive a bag of cashew nuts is, but in reality we do not realize that so much fruit is needed for one bag of cashew nuts and how much work it is to fill that bag. Wouldn’t that be the same with tourism? Do we actually realize what our luxurious life really costs?
[1] Guest blog by Christine Bondt – Thank you Christine!