*cough cough*

** WARNING! Some photos on this post may be disturbing!!**

I’ve been meaning to blog about something for at least a week now. I’ve been confused about this thing since I started traveling and I’m wondering if anyone has any insight.

WHY DOES EVERYONE MY AGE SMOKE HERE??

When we were in elementary school, my schoolmates and I went through a program called D.A.R.E. Don’t ask me what it means -- I thought it was stupid then and I think it is stupid now, but basically, it was meant to scare the shit out of us so we wouldn’t do drugs. Effective? Not at all, we all tried drugs. But did I leave with a solid understanding that smoking cigarettes had absolutely NO positive effects on me or my body? Yes.

But just in case we all forgot about D.A.R.E., the cigarette packets here have some warnings that may help explain the bad effects of smoking:

I know plenty of people who smoke back home but not nearly the same number as people who smoke here in South America (or my new European hostel-mates.) I had forgotten how nice it is to come home from a bar and not smell like smoke. Now, at a time when doing laundry isn’t that easy, I’m forced to wash my clothes after every wear, because I can guarantee that they’ll be so saturated with smoke at the end of each night that I’ll gag if I wear them again.

And don’t even get me started on my poor lungs! One night, the smoke at the bar was ridiculously thick and I had a thought: I wonder if smoking my own cigarette would feel better than inhaling all of this second hand smoke? (Maybe I had some sort of contact nicotine high, or maybe I had had too many beers, but regardless, it sounded like a legitimate question.)

So, did I smoke a cigarette, you ask? Yes, I smoked 2. And to be perfectly honest, it was better than inhaling the second hand smoke. I can’t explain it, but that’s just how it was.

Anyway, the next day I didn’t feel any worse than the other nights out at the bars, so I am forced to draw this conclusion: The only reason why people my age who are fully aware (and have always been fully aware) of the terrible effects of smoking actually smoke is because they would rather directly put the nicotine into their bodies than some Joe or Jane Shmo next to them.

(For your enjoyment, some anti-smoking wall art I found today when walking in Arica, Chile. It made me feel a little better...)