Yeah! Hurrican Dean didn’t destroy Cancun! That’s the only thing I’ve heard about Dean’s effect on Mexico, specifically, Yucatan.

I remember when Dean started drawing near. All of the news channels had their eyes on Cancun. Nothing much existed before and certainly nothing afterward. We were all watching the radar to try and get word on Dean’s projected path. After all, Veracruz was mentioned as one of Dean’s next stops. But no one seemed to care. People talked about Cancun and then Texas, as though there were nothing in between.

So Dean came and went and everyone rejoiced that Cancun survived and that 6,000 tourists would be arriving that same week. And that was that. Excitement’s over, folks. Nothing to see here. Keep on moving.

Then, thanks to Kyle over at Immigration Orange, I read this article. It’s not from a Mexican newspaper. It’s from the Miami Herald. It’s about the devastation Dean caused. That’s right: devastation. They wouldn’t have you know it, but Dean destroyed homes and, most of all, crops.

Thousands of Mayans lost their homes and belongings to the hurricane. But that’s not the worst of it. “Village after village is carpeted with fallen mangoes, oranges, guanabanas and mameys that will never be harvested.” Here is the real travesty.
What about government aid, you ask? One man is quoted as saying, “If I just sit and wait until they help me, I’ll die waiting. If I wait, with my hand out, who’s going to give me food, and where am I going to cook it? I’d rather start working, first.”

The Mayans requested nothing more than drinking water, a few sheets of roofing and enough food to get them by now that their crops were destroyed. They finally received some bottled water and thick blankets. Keep in mind that this is a place where the heat makes even sleeping in a bed unbearable.

These are people who are used to fending for themselves. They are accustomed to being left behind by the Mexican government. It’s obviously a trend that continues. Mayan villages are no match for Cancun.

Photo credit: Eduardo Verdugo, Miami Herald