Ahhhh child labor. There are some things I will and will not miss about Peru. I will miss the markets where you can buy an entire blender full of fresh juice made any way you like it for about $1 US made by a pleasantly plump mom-like lady. Actually, I will miss how far my dollar goes in general. I will miss the dogs running all over the city even if they are dirty and don't like people and sometimes like to chase after white people. I will miss my professors asking me to pick them raspberries from our very tall raspberry trellis at school. I will miss that every day is different and every day something unusual happens whether it's a riot with people burning tires (because somehow burning tires symbolizes that the people don't want a commercial company buying out Machu Picchu) or running into someone from Colorado with so many similarities it's scary. I will miss that the people here work damn hard and I never hear anyone complaining. I will miss the snazzy cafe with the cute waiters and good cappuchinos, although I guess we have those in the States. Now that I am living safely and securely in a hostal within the grounds of my project at the Clinica San Juan de Dios, I certainly don't miss the sounds of children getting hit and screaming next door to my previous house. I'm not really sure what kind of malicious mischief a 4 year-old can truly get into or for what a young teenaged girl needs to scream for an hour straight. Today I learned that domestic violence is tolerated unless a family member reports it - if you tell the police, and you're not family, they won't do anything. I also found out from a fellow volunteer at my project with the teenaged girls that he has taken two of them, after they have left the project to go back to living with their families, to go have abortions (which, surprise, are illegal here) after being raped by family members. I won't miss the dirty 3 and 4 year-olds coming into restaurants to sell me candy because they need to make money 'for the family', nor will I miss the dirty parents of these children who openly ask me for money for 'their children' with alcohol on their breaths. I won't miss hearing Peruvians talking about how wrong it is for white people to come into their city and try to help all the poor children. Although I was heartened today in my art studio project to hear that most of my girls dream of being lawyers and professionals so that they themselves can help the children. I won't miss my eyes being red from all the exhaust on the main drag in town (the air there is almost worse than in Paris). I won't miss having to purify all my drinking water. I won't miss that I have to buy my cheese in one store, meat in another, curry powder in another, and that the yogurt is never refrigerated, and often not the meat either for that matter. Although I have been blessed that I haven't been struck by a serious bout of Travelers diarrhea.
Today's art studio project was to create a collage of all the things you want in your life. Most of the girls chose pictures of cars and houses and children, some wanted to be chefs, others lawyers, a few wanted husbands but emphasized that the husbands and children need to wait until after they have their professions. One girl with a picture of a mosaic of Jesus in the center of her collage said she wants to see God in her heart.
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