Moritz Thomsen has written a delightful and deceptive memoir, the significance of which carries far beyond considerations of entrepreneurial hardships in the tropics. Leaving behind him an early zeal to bring western progress to Ecuador, which he chronicled in his first book, Living Poor, the fifty-four-year-old ex-Peace Corps volunteer returns to the tropics to establish a farm along the Esmeraldas River. The difficulties of this endeavor quickly assume a secondary priority as the farm becomes less a business and more a lens through which the author assesses the Latin culture.
Thomsen quickly dismisses the trappings of modern enterprise as ineffectual. “Science and technology in the tropics are whores” (p. 111). Confronted with rampant thievery and chronic lying from the farm workers, the author reviews the history of the land and people, and in a generalization applied to all of Latin America concludes that, “South American history is a squalid tale of stasis, betrayal, the abuses of tyrants, the empty and evil rhetoric of demagogues, the rape of the masses” (p. 41).
The true worth of Latin culture and society, its ambiente, Thomsen discovers in the individual. In a disjointed and “vaguely chronological” fashion, he presents the stories of Ramón Prado, his partner and “the biggest liar I ever met, and the most honest man” (p. 78); Dalmiro, an ancient white-haired machetero offering his last cow for the love of a young woman; Victor, a beautiful black man who was the worst of thieves; and Santo, a young lover who devoured hummingbird hearts. While Latin society is hopeless in a material sense, the author concludes that spiritually it is a rich symphony of the color, the beauty, and the enigma of the people.
The author’s observations range from the mundane to the philosophic. His style is difficult, but his conclusions provocative. This is an excellent selection for those wishing to move beyond the “facts” of Latin America.
