Home Sweet Home

Its been 2 days since i got back to Cochabamba, my home at the moment. Travelling is fun and exciting, but moving from one hostel to another, spending some nights on the bus, constantly being on the move can be exhausting, so its good to be home.

But the trip was really great. I left Lima still not liking it very much, except for their "cine-bar"s. Get this, its a super nice movie theatre, and the seats are really comfortable, with leg space so big that you couldn`t kick the person in front of you if you were the tallest man on earth, and there`s a little table for every 2 seats, with a little bell to call the waiter when you want a drink. There was a great variation of drinks, including juices, teas, and of course, alcoholic beverages. DAMN, we don`t even have those at home!!!! See what i mean when i say the rich in Peru really live RICH.

Our last day, we also got to see the poorer side of Lima. Sandra`s friend works at a German school, and there was an excursion for the volunteers such as herself to see other parts of Lima. The living conditions of the poor are pretty horrific, and its mind-boggling to think some people are sipping margaritas while watching the latest release from hollywood while others work from dusk till dawn to pay for their one-room, rat infested apartment without a kitchen nor bathroom.

For a person who has never seen such living conditions, its really shocking, knee-weakening, and makes them think about how lucky they are. I don`t know when it was that I became desensitized to such scenes, but I`ve gotten to the point where i just easily accept it as reality. Maybe its from seeing too many documentaries on developing countries, or on certain wars, etc. But I think i went through that knee-weakening experienece in Kosovo, when i saw a small village in the mountains which didn`t have much to begin with, but was looted while the Serb families left in fear of retribution after the war. I don`t know which is worse, the poverty here in Latin America or the post-war conditions in the former Yugoslavia. But they are all pretty damn shitty. And what`s hard to swallow is that I know i haven`t even seen the worst of the worst.

In the future, I would like to see and hopefully help improve the conditions of people living in such conditions. And I like to think that my being desensitized to seeing poverty is a good thing, because if I´m emotional every time i encounter such scenes, how am I going to get my work done, right?

My future aspirations are to work in the field of international development, but don`t get me wrong, i`m not trying to be an altruistic angel, out to save the world. Of course i want to try to make life a little easier for people, but honestly, its simply because that`s where my interests are. Some people like chemistry, some others like english. Well, i like development issues. But I still haven`t been able to get some hands-on development experience, but its still a good experience for me to be here, living life in a developing country.