As teachers, they see tourism's influence on young people up close. It provides real jobs and income — enough that families eat better and stay healthier. The education system here has improved remarkably, thanks partly to tourism, but just as much to the community's own efforts.
Still, there's a question they keep coming back to: can the money tourism brings actually guarantee their children a future? Socially and culturally, they've watched changes take hold among the students that worry them.
The clearest sign is a quiet loss of the old norms. Semana Santa — Holy Week, long central to local culture — is increasingly ignored. In its place, young people have taken up Halloween, imported wholesale from American influence.
Worse is the rise in alcohol and drug use among the young, which they trace directly to tourism. Tourists created the demand, and the supply has followed them right into town — sold, unmistakably, at the souvenir stands. Money students earn working in tourism, meant to help their families, ends up spent the wrong way instead. The pattern shows up clearly at school: promising students who take hotel jobs after class often lose their footing the moment alcohol and drugs enter the picture.
“It is no coincidence that the drugs are sold at the souvenir stands.”
Sustainable tourism projects are thin on the ground here, crowded out by foreign interests and a tourism scene dominated by surf culture. There is a national park where, with a guide, visitors can watch turtles laying their eggs — but even that raises questions. Plenty of experts caution against exactly this kind of activity.
None of which erases what tourism offers. Their students learn a great deal from it, and have grown noticeably more aware of the wider world. The teachers want to build on that by offering language courses — a goal they're actively working toward, and one that, ironically, depends on tourism succeeding to fund it.
Their ask of visitors is simple: set a better example around drugs and alcohol. It's the one thing tourists can offer that doesn't cost them anything at all.