6.16.09
My father’s birthday, y qué estupida estaba yo, he was on Skype, I called, and was so tired that I completely forgot what day it was. My mother had to send me an email to remind me. Bad Gracie.
Today we had 4 conferencias (lectures) and one lunch en el barrio chino—in una Chifa—I ordered a menú (8.5 soles~$3) of pollo enrollado, which is pollo stuffed with lechuga, chaufa (fried rice), and sopa de wantan (wonton soup). No era tanta riquíssima, pero estaba bien. De verdad, todo el tiempo I forget that I have only been here for two days. How hospitable this country is! Mi mamá peruana me da un besito cada día y cada noche, and also whenever she feels like it. Que sweet-íssima! Cleary, I am also already forgetting my English, que es una lástima because my Spanish is pretty crappy. So, here I am, with una mezcla de crappy inglés y crappy español.
The first lecture was in English, and was extremely interesting. Se trató de <<la situación política actual en el Perú>> and it was given by a profesora se llama Cynthia Sanborn, who teaches at la Universidad del Pacifico, adonde estuvimos, and also worked with Prof Steve Levitsky in Harvard. Please remind me to take a class of his when I return next January. I don’t have la energía to synthesize everything right now en una manera interesante—como no tengo la energía de quedarme en inglés o español—but I would like to make a short bullet-style list of things I learned, because they were truly were muy interesantes, y no quiero forget them, as I have established that I have a horrible memory. Bueno, una lista: the discrepancies and paradoxes of Perú—Perú is one of the fastest growing and richest countries of Latin America, but is also one of the most unequal places in the world. About 50% of peruanos viven en la pobreza, and education in Perú is malíssima, the second to last in Latinoamerica—better only than Haiti. There is un montón de discrimination in many directions—discrimination de race, de gender, y de origins. Especialmente, la cosa de la “indigena” is very touchy, and among Peruvians the term “indio” is derogatory, associated automatically with poverty, poor education, y de todas maneras cosas uncivilized. También the term “indígena” es algo muy complicada – que es verdaderamente una indígena? This is something that is not well defined, but more and more needs to be, because of policies that pertain to indigenous people. It seems like one of the most important factors is language—if someone grows up in a Quechua-speaking household, they will most likely be considered indigenous. Pero, in surveys of self-identity, there is a great range—6-42% self-identify as indigenous, and this discrepancy is due to the discrimination. As the majority of peruanos son mestizos, and the majority of indigenas are también mestizos, because they are not pure descendants of the Incas or anything, it is easy for successful indios, who speak castellano and live in a city, to self identify as mestizo rather than indigenous, something that seems to be very common across the world (that is, to shed embarrassing rural or poor origins in a new life to maintain a good image). Also, I found this part fascinating because it is the intersection of las sciencias sociales y las sciencias naturales—race and ethnicity are both cultural and genetic, and por eso, muy complicados, especially when thinking about policies and legal crap. Que más? I learned a little more about Fujimori, and his daughter, who is the current frontrunner (though not by much at all) of the upcoming elections with 25% of the vote. The current president, Alan García, has very very low approval ratings, and was only voted in with 24% of the vote, because he was considered the “lesser of two evils.” In general, Peruvians seems very jaded and pessimistic about la situación política. García has a policy that really plays to the wealthy—his approval ratings in the rich are something like 75% while they are ~30% in the rest of the population. The current situation in the Amazon is a good example of why. Also, voting in Peru, like in many países latinoamericanos, is obligatory, which I actually think is brilliant. Cynthia Sanborn, though she gave a lot of very interesting and valuable information, seemed very strictly North-American, estadounidense, en sus pensamientos politicos. Like many Americans, she perhaps overemphasizes the importance of democracy and human rights. !Ojo!—la palabra overemphasize—of course I think democracy and human rights are extremely importantes, but sometimes some people overdo it.
After this lecture, we had a little presentation de DEMUS—Estudios para la Defensa y los Derechos de la Mujer—de María Isabel Cedano, which for me was really pretty stupid, but whatever. Feminist movements are always a little distasteful—maybe I am being muy machista, but really I didn’t understand why we were learning about sexual abuse in our second day in Peru. From María we also got some funny little souvenirs—two boxes of incendiarios (matches) with pictures of sex offenders and words saying “Watch out this guy is a sex offender” on them, which were really a little funny.
Después, fuimos a la ILD—el Instituto Libertad y Democracia—where we learned about the economic ideas of Dr. Hernando de Soto, who has been called the most important economist in the third world, from a man named Victor Endo, who looked part Japanese. This was a very interesting talk también, it dealt with systems extralegales, and mucha gente pobre que vive afuera de una campana de vidrio—a bell jar, or tal vez major, a glass jar. Hernando de Soto’s idea is that capitalism works very well for countries like the United States but not so well for many other countries because the United States grew from a foundation which emphasized strongly property rights, and cosas legales, de papeles, and came with a legal system that includes everyone. The problem with many developing countries is that many people live outside of the world of paper, of de jure, that too many people live off of things that are de facto. This land is mine because I am here! No, I don’t have any proof or paperwork, but I gave the guy who owned it before me the money, I’ve been living here for years, and all my neighbors recognize this as mine. But the problem with this is, of course, that in the “first” world, the world of negocios, people don’t exist, solo existe the paperwork that legitimizes them. When I am pulled over by the police, I am not me, I am my driver’s license, my registration, etc. When I enter an airport, I am not me, I am my pasaporte. When I enter a shopping mall, I am not me, I am my credit card. So, land that I am living on also is not land if I don’t have a piece of paper that says so. This seems like a big part of the problem in la selva de Peru hoy en día, but surprisingly, and ironically, ILD are not working with this problem, because they only start a project when the government asks for their help, and the last thing García wants is property rights for las personas que viven en la selva, ?no?
Then, we ate at a chifa, pide pallidas de chino, tocamos unas fotos chistosas, y fuimos al Banco Central de Perú, where we had a presentation on inflation in Perú which was so esoteric and boring that 3 out of 6 of us fell asleep, and the minute we left the building, even the coordinators of the program were talking about how “dura” the lecture was. Then we visited a small museum which was also un poco aburrido, and went home. The van dropped us off in el parque central de Miraflores, and I walked home. It was already 8-something, and very dark, but I walked halfway with a guy who lives close to me, and the rest by myself. I was a little scared, and very glad to make it home safely, especially because everyone has been scaring me about how peligrosa Lima is, how never to go anywhere alone at night, especially since I’m a girl (a really weak one at that, with no chance of successful self-defense). I stopped in a pharmacy and bought shampoo and conditioner, and then went home, where I had a wonderful dinner of soufflé de asparagus, swordfish—pez de espada, dragonfruit, and that Peruvian drink with the purple corn. Bueno, ahora estoy muy cansada y voy a acostarme.
