A world full of exageration and excess

It was really interesting reading on information about Latin America. This part in novel caught my attention because we live in the latin community, and I personnaly have more knowledge on what is happening in this side of the world, when comparing to places such as Algeria or Uganda, etc. It was very interesting to see how Kapuscinski mentions his visit to Chile and what a big contrast he found in society. "In reality, however, the residences of this old ladies were simply a pathological and kitschy manifestation of Latin America- that is, the universal prevalence of the baroque: but also as general commitment to excess and electicism." (p.151) This is just one of the characteristics that most definetly describe Latin America. Most of the spanish speaking countries have a different and peculiar way of living, our culture is definetly, I believe, a contradiction. We as a bicultural community believe in progress, and we have the ability to get influenced by the most stupid ideas which make us naive. We create great idiologies but we never take advantage of them, and when we use them something goes very wrong.

Coming back to the book I made an interesting connection with another novel that I read some years ago from the author Isabel Allende. In the moment I can´t remember the books name, but it talked about the social situation in Chile, some years ago. "There is alot of everything here and everything is exagerated: everuthing wants to impose itself, shock, knosk the beholder sideways." (p. 151)

Another interesting fact that is mentioned in the novel, and that gives a great example of what the Latin society portraits is; when the girl from El Salvador shot herself after watching the soccer game, between Honduras and El Salvador. "She then shot herself in the heart." (p.158) What happened in this moment id definetly not something positive, but what really caught my attention was the fatc that after her death people followed her and used her as an example of patriotism and love for her country.