Back when we were kids, growing up in Central America...

[Baitball Blogger]

we would tease newcomers who asked us what it was like growing up in a foreign country. We used their prejudices to make fun of them. We would tell them that we went to school in canoes, (Not so, we had standard school buses, like in the US); and we told them that the most helpful phrase to learn was, "No dispare," or don't shoot. Which couldn't be further from the truth. The places I grew up in were very gentle and steep on traditional good manners.

But I look at what has been going on in the U.S. since I arrived forty years ago and see how much this country has been devolving. We have anti-government types and young and old white men who work out their issues with guns. Red flags everywhere that there is something rotting in our society. And it has been going on for sometime. I remember coming across old HOA meeting notes (1980-1993) where an anti-government type asked whether they should charge the school district for allowing public school buses down their private streets!

If I were to suggest a helpful phrase for foreigners who come to this country, it would be, "Don't Shoot."

[awesomerwb1]

1. That's funny.

Where in Central America if I may ask.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. Panama

[secondwind]

2. We lived in El Salvador when I was 4, 5 years old, my father was Commercial Attache to the

Dominican Legation.... we lived in a cul-de-sac, where other diplomats, etc lived ... I remember this fondly.

There were gatherings at different homes, the folks laughing, talking, and us children running around with nannies chasing
after us...

[Baitball Blogger]

4. The kids raised by the diplomats were the kindest, most courteous people I met.

Very mature for their age and would be very respectful of the cultures they were living in. However their parents raised them should have been shared with the rest of America.