Tourism still brings only modest profit to her community, but she's convinced it matters — the income potential is real, provided the investment to develop it actually materialises. Ecotourism, in particular, feels like the right direction: a way to protect and properly value local culture, nature, and history rather than simply extract from them.
Traffic in the city has grown, though she's careful to note that's down to population growth rather than tourism specifically — more noise, more pollution, but not tourism's doing. She doesn't see tourism reshaping traditional culture much either. What has reshaped it, more than any tourist, is the steady presence of American evangelists, who've drawn people away from Catholicism partly by handing out gifts and clothing — a habit that's left local children expecting presents from any foreigner they meet, tourists included.
Tourists should not give anything to the kids.
The religious shift has split families in places, though it's not without its upsides — evangelical prohibition on alcohol has, by her account, reduced the number of alcoholics locally. Gender roles have shifted too, and more positively in her view: where men were once far more machista and women rarely worked outside the home, many women now do.
That shift has reordered family life more broadly. Children can be sent to school more easily now that both parents work, but respect for elders has slipped as parents have less time to raise them directly — leaving some kids to spend more unsupervised time on the street, closer to drugs and alcohol than she'd like.
She doesn't think tourism has made the area less safe — a recent killing in the village, she's clear, came down to a personal dispute, not tourism, and the community has no real problem with drugs or prostitution. What she'd like most from visitors is simple curiosity: genuine interest in getting to know locals and their culture, paired with support for local products and attractions, and enough bilingual training among people like taxi drivers to make that exchange easier on both sides.
A gift handed to a child seems harmless enough. She'd rather visitors understood what it teaches the next child to expect.