Statement, Observation, Confession

I'm sitting in Starbucks in Lima, trying to gear myself up to write Part 2 of my work updates and decided I had one frustrated statement, one strange observation, and one slightly embarrassing confession.  We'll start with the bad, end with the easily mocked.

One Frustrated Statement:

I am sitting in Starbucks, and across the table from me are a group of teenage girls decked out in fancy headbands and bangles and necklaces, drinking S/.13 frappacinos and frequently taking breaks from the group homework they have to check their blackberries and fancy iphones.  I keep thinking about where I was yesterday, in my town where not everyone has a dirt hole to go to the bathroom in.  Where the moms cook with firewood. Where many of the kids don't wear shoes to school and have one pair of clothes.  Where they drink crude water and are constantly sick with diarrhea and parasites.  Where they spend their time outside of school helping their parents with the manual labor to get form day to day and taking care of their siblings. Where most of them have big black cavities in their teeth because they are rotting out and are on a steady countdown to the year when their first adult tooth needs to be covered over in shining metal, but only when they can afford it.  These girls have beautiful white teeth, one even has braces, painted fingernails, fancy shoes, matching clean clothes, and get to spend their time hanging out in Starbucks on a Saturday afternoon.  I don't blame them, they are lucky to have been born with the privilege they were born with.  I'm not an idiot, I know this all applies to me as well, but that doesn't make me less angry.  What would a child from my town do with a life like the one I was given?  A life of privilege like these girls have?  It makes me sad.  I know there are similar situations in the States, I'm not naive, but I actually move back and forth between two different worlds in the same country on a regular basis.  Lima is like this other universe, another prosperous neighboring country to the profound poverty that exists all throughout the rest of the country.  It's SO centralized, all the power, all the wealth, all the resources. Of course, capital cities all have their tiny wealthy population, but compared to Lima, to Miraflores (district in Lima), it can hardly be compared.

I was in Lima a week ago and I walked into a department store.  I walked by the electronics section.  There was a giant HD flat screen TV and looking at the clarity and magnitude of it, I literally got dizzy.  It was too much, too clear, after staring at the teeny tiny fuzzy black and white box we have in the kitchen in my house in Iraca.  That was before I slipped and fell on my ass because I forgot how to walk on a slippery mall floor.

It just makes me sad.  I guess that's it.  That some of us can live like we do, and others have to live as they do, struggling and working so hard to improve their lives.  It may seem obvious, but it's weird to feel like I'm on the other side.  I live with a Peruvian family, I have more liquid resources than they do but not too much more, I live in that town, I work with those people, I feel part of that poverty.  What makes me different is that I know it isn't permanent.  It also makes me a little ashamed.  I'm here, I'm living it, but I'm relieved by the knowledge that it isn't forever.  I'm going to leave, and leave them here.  I dunno.  I can't really explain it.


One Strange Observation:
A few months ago, we were supposed to bring members of our community to a big training.  We were passing through a city to get to our final destination and we stopped to get lunch.  We ended up near a mall and decided to bring all these campo men and women, who had rarely in their lives left our sites, to ride an escalator.  A few of them were terrified and ended up staggering their way onto the escalator and then looking around in wonder as they steadily rose to the second floor.  It was really endearing to watch.

A week ago, when I was in Lima, I was at a mall looking for an iStore because my charger crapped out, and there were about 15 esclators that no one was stumbling up or down.  I sort of realized that the ability to comfortably ride an escalator and/or the knowledge of what an escalator is is an indication of wealth or close proximity to wealth.  You don't have escalators in poor areas, and you don't use them a lot here unless you are in a shopping mall.  You don't go to a shopping mall unless you have money to spend...or you're like me and you just want to look at things that belong in a world you haven't been in for over a year.  As for people in the campo, most of them don't get to the capital cities because they can't afford it, have too many responsibilities in their home, or just have no reason to go because they don't know anyone.  Or if they do go, they are certainly not going to go to the mall, where there is nothing they can afford.

Here, it seems, escalator familiarity is a sign of wealth.

One Slightly Embarrassing Confession:
What do I do if I happen to be in a big city and I'm feeling sort of crappy?  I go to Pay Less Shoes and I try on everything they have in my size, especially the heels, and I wander around the store in them.  Yep. I know. Pathetic.  However, there are three miracles involved in this one process.

Miracle #1: I used to shop at payless shoes all the time in the States and it is a wonderful comfort to go back into a store I know from home and try on shoes.  The only thing that wrecks the momentary escape is that the price stickers are in soles (that's peruvian money...not the bottom of the shoe).

Miracle #2: Pay Less actually has sizes that fit me unlike everything else clothing related in this country.  Clothes, for whatever reason, cost so much money here (or maybe it just feels like it), and I can't afford to buy anything anywhere with the money I get for my living allowance from Peace Corps.  Also, even if I did, it is impossible anywhere but Pay Less to find pants, shoes, shirts, sweaters, whatever, that fit me.  I love that I can walk in there and find my size without a problem. Woot.

Miracle #3: When do I EVER get to wear heels? I don't. ever. When do I get to feel pretty?  Hardly ever. It's nice, for 10 seconds to feel a little flirty because most of my time is spent in sneakers and athletic pants or jeans and a tshirt. It is also just nice to put on something completely unnecessary, something extra.  It grosses me out a little bit how much excess I had in my life before I joined Peace Corps...and how gluttonous so many of us are without realizing it, but I still can't lie. Pay Less is my guilty pleasure.

General Conclusion:

I realize that frustrated statement and slightly embarrassing confession are at strange odds with each other and the conclusion ultimately means I'm an ass, but I'm still working out the glitches of being who I am now and who I was, and this is just a good example of how those two worlds tend to smash into each other, mostly causing guilt and a little bit of shame.