Issues

In the past month I have started at least five different blogs on random topics and I haven’t finished a single one. Rather than continue on this path of complete unproductiveness I realized that I could probably write one blog and convey the same thing. It’s surely for the better because I can’t imagine many readers would have survived five such blogs.

Education:
In Perú, the education system is abysmal. Really horrible. My 15 year old brother didn’t know what an island was. He couldn’t even locate Perú on the map. Believe it or not, he is actually intelligent; however, he has been subjected to one of the worst education systems in the Western hemisphere, second worst only to Haiti. Not only is the teaching method antiquated and devoid of creativity but the schools lack resources and teachers. Futhermore, of those teachers that are teaching, the rare few are outstanding. It is not unheard of for teachers to arrive at school drunk or just not arrive. It is also common for students to pay teachers to pass them.

Asistencialismo:
Asistencialismo is a word that doesn’t even exist in English, at least I can’t find it in my Spanish-English dictionary. Asistencialismo is a dependence on government handouts, welfare, and outside assistance. In Perú this phenomenon has been inculcated by its own government. During the rule of Fujimori, or “El Chino” as Peruvians call him, a huge number of social welfare programs were created. People became accustomed to free government handouts and now they expect them. Despite Fujimori’s highly questionable human rights record, many Peruvians love him. El Chino gave them free tin rooves and abundant food to cook in the local comedores populares, soup kitchens. What happens when the government has no more to give? Well, what has happened on the rural Peruvian coast is that people got so used to government assistance that they now take little responsibility for getting things done themselves. If they don’t get something free, such as a kilo of rice, they don’t participate.

Corruption:
The Peruvian government is corrupt. Peruvian police are corrupt. Even the teachers are corrupt. Money moves under the table and everyone knows it. Not everyone participates directly in the corruption, but it is an accepted part of life. For example, the mayor of Pacora spent S/.6.000 ($2,000) on his birthday party using local funds which must have involved some shady maneuvers. No one did anything. Nothing. Now the municipality claims to have no money. Until someone does something nothing will change. To quote a Calle 13 song, “Aprendí que mi pueblo todavía reza porque las fucking autoridades y la puta realeza todavía se mueven por debajo de la mesa.” (I learned that my town still prays because the fucking authorities and the bitch royalty still deals under the table.)

La hora peruana:
I’ve mentioned la hora peruana before. It is basically the widely accepted idea that Peruvians operate on their own time, which is an hour behind real time. For example, when scheduling a meeting, you will be told to schedule it at 3:00 so that people will get there by 3:30 but they will actually arrive at 4:00. While most people from the States literally could not handle this lackadaisical concept of time, la hora peruana is not the end of the world. If everyone knows and accepts that things will actually happen an hour after they are supposed to, well, I guess that is okay. However, if you actually want to get something done, la hora peruana can be exasperating. In the last year, every single meeting I have ever had has made me feel awkward because I feel badly for the few people who arrive on time but have to wait up to an hour for the meeting to start. I never know when to start the meeting, asking every five minutes if we should start yet, always told patiently that there is no rush. Inevitably the meetings always end up being less productive than they should be because people continue to arrive after they have already started and those people who arrived on time lose interest. Interestingly enough, la hora peruana bothers me more now than it did initially. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that punctuality is actually important when attempting to get things done. And, clearly, there is no shortage of things to be done.