By: Giovanni Tavares
Although the HDI shows that the quality of life in Baja California Sur is one of the highest in any state in Mexico, there are still many issues that plague our community and, in consequence, our lives. However, before getting to these issues, I will enlist the many positive aspects of our Quality Of Life.
Los Cabos has many positive aspects to its Quality Of Life. One of the first is the weather that (apart from a few noticeable aspects, which will be discussed later) is decent and not unhealthily cold (Some might say it is a little too warm during the summer seasons). The weather is one of the main reasons that our community thrives, because as a beach town, it attracts tourism and allows our economy to flourish. There is also a low crime rate, with it being a (mostly) safe place to live, and I have never come across any problems in this area, unlike other places which I have visited.
However, apart from these few positive aspects there is a lot of negative drawbacks that lead me to believe that this is not a community with a great quality of life. As we have learned previously in this class, institutions are an important aspect for every area and, unfortunately, the ones in Cabo San Lucas are mostly corrupt. To begin, the low crime rate is more than made up for by the corrupt police officers. They are well known for taking bribes from inept drivers on the road and shedding their usual duties to stop unsuspecting people who have really done nothing wrong to get an extra payoff. Also, I can tell you from experience that, unless persuaded with extra cash, if investigating a robbery they will not put in a lot of effort and be generally uncaring to your situation.
The blame cannot be put entirely on their shoulders though, as all of these problems emanate from the state government that give them an extremely low salary, preferring instead to put the money in their pockets, driving them to corruption (This however, is not an excuse). The government offices seem disorganized. I once visited the legal offices, and they were dirty, with soda bottles being strung all over the place, people coming in to work late, and visitors being forced to wait a long time after their appointments, or sometimes being told to come back another day. Once you do get an audience the legal process is slow, with mistakes being made often.
Another symptom of the lousy government institutions (and one that is felt all over Mexico), is the lack of decent public education. Every few months you hear about a strike by the teachers and about the poor conditions at these schools. Some people might argue that there are several private schools that can fulfill your educational needs, but not everyone has the resources to put their children and in several first-world countries (such as the United States of America and several areas of Europe) you do not have to pay for a private school to get an education.
I also have to add that although in Cabo we still have a fairly low crime rate, nearby municipality La Paz has seen an increase in drug violence in the last few year, and if not stopped in the near future, we could see this problem migrate over to us as well. This is one of the hardest problems to stop as citizens, and it mostly lies in the hands of the authorities.
I also mentioned the weather positively earlier but with it come a whole new set of problems. Like the video we saw recently in class stated, arid weather is not good for agriculture (we also live in a desert environment, so our geography does not help us in that regard and except for the Hurricane Season, rain is hard to come across), and although we get most of our food from exports, if we were ever to get cut off from outside distributors (Like what happened, although only for a small period of time, in the aftermath of Hurricane Odile in 2014). Another great problem caused by the weather, especially accentuated by global warming in the last decade, is that the excessive heat causes the formation of many hurricanes, like the previously mentioned Odile in 2014 and the (extremely) recent hurricane Newton in 2016, which have caused multiple deaths, damages to properties (My house was greatly damaged during Odile, but it mostly affects the house of people with lower incomes which most often are not built out of sturdy materials), massive looting of stores and a reluctance for tourists to come to our town. 2015 has been the only year that we have been spared of any (major) hurricanes and who knows how many more will arrive in the coming years.
As for the other major aspect that informs the HDI (Culture and Religion), although most people in Baja California Sur (and Mexico in general) have a strong faith in religion (mostly the Christian or Catholic religion), I do not think it is that that lets down our Quality of Life, given that a lot of Mexicans are hardworking people, but instead the main blame falls on the government and institutions.
Although we might not be able to fix all of these issues, we as a community can attempt to improve several facets of our society. For me, the primary action we can take is to protest the government (in a pacific way) and to attempt to get better leaders (or force the ones we have to serve the interests of the people and not their own. This could result in a domino effect which (over time, as big change such as this does not happen in a day) could improve the education, police force, legal offices and several other aspects, as well as cause a bigger stance against drug traffickers than what we have as of now. To put these changes into effect, there would be need for a large group of people to care about the problem, and although many do, they are unwilling to do anything about it, and there are even more that are apathetic to the situation.
As for the geographical and weather aspects, there is even less we can do about, but there are a few things that could help our situation. Although the terrain can´t be changed, we can all attempt to stop the effects of global warming by using less electricity. Some might say, that it doesn´t matter because everyone else will keep on using the same amount as before but, as they say, every little bit counts. However my main concern with this mini-essay was to explore the problems with the political infra-structure that decreases our quality of life, and it is there where I think that, as a community, we can make a big difference.