> I had never felt safer in any city around the world, including my own. While many buildings were falling down and their inhabitants living in near poverty, th

> I had never felt safer in any city around the world, including my own. While many buildings were falling down and their inhabitants living in near poverty, their spirit seemed unbreakable. We may not agree with their economic or social policy, but the people here seem genuinely happy. Interestingly enough, you can say this about most places you visit for a short period of time. As a tourist you typically get a surface feel for the place. After spending a measurable amount of time (9 months+) in a Similar place (the dominican republic) with friends who said similar things after short visits, I can say much of this is attributed to seeing people in nice, quaint, sanitized parts of life you see as a tourist rather than an accurate description of what's actually happening culturally. That's to say that you don't really get into interpersonal relationships when you're in a place for a week. People seem generally happy because most people are friendly - specifically to strangers - especially when those strangers mean revenue or money for themselves, their business or their community - especially on the first pass. After spending time and living there - there's many of the human emotions you're familiar with stateside including contentment, joy, but also anger, sadness, jealousy (and yes) unhappiness too (gasp) - it's just that you don't see the negative emotions when you're only there for a week. It's always a little disingenuous or a little naive when people come back saying "they have so little, but are so happy." It is true on one level, but also is conveniently dismissive of recognizing that you only experienced a sliver of their actual lives.