Poverty & Relativity

This entry has been brewing in my head for about a week, and more and more relevant experiences and conversations keep presenting themselves. Hence, I figured I should write this out before it becomes a book! Recently a group of us were discussing the pocket money that Peace Corps provides us during training--a little over a dollar a day, which is enough to use occasional internet or buy a small snack. It's not much, but it is more than we technically need. Volunteers are frustrated though, because it would be nice to have more money. One girl commented, "Poverty Sucks!" which reminded me of a quote from aBarbara Kingsolver book which I shared with the group: "Poverty Sucks... yah, they should make a bumper sticker or something." That quote made us all laugh, and another person commented that bumper stickers would be a great idea, because that way all the people in this country that have cars (only the very wealthy), could display it. AHH... irony! That conversation led to another in which someone told of the time that Newsweek International ran an article about the "really poor" in Appalachia. The magazine was flooded with feedback from International development workers because of a photo that showed a really poor family's house--it included a t.v. and refrigerator. Extreme poverty does exist in Appalachia, but if differs from poverty in the developing world. Even here, it has been fascinating to see how people understand theirworld and what they consider poor. The family that I live with considers themselves well off. They have lights 24 hours a day, an inside bathroom, hand soap, a semi-automatic clothes washer, a 13"t.v., a microwave, and a bath rug. They eat meat almost daily and bought a cake for a 10 year old's birthday. They also have about 3 hours of running water a day, a zinc roof that leaks when it rains, 6 hours of real electricity a day (lights are supplied by an inverter), unfinished concrete floors, a dirt yard, plastic chairs, and they sleep 4 people in one room, with two beds. To accompany the little meat that they have, daily they eat rice, viveres (root vegetables), and what-we-gringos-like-to-call bean juice--due to the lack of actual beans in the mix! An average teacher's salary here, which places them in the top 20% earning bracket of the country is USD $260/ month -- exactly what Iwill make once I am sworn in as a Volunteer. The thing I find so interesting is this idea that I am to spend 2 years living with and as a poor person. I cannot allow myself to believe I am experiencing poverty. Peace Corps Volunteers make enough to travel the country, eat occassional McDonald's and pizza, eat protein, fruits and veggies, and live in a safe place. I will not have AC, internet or running water, but I'll also sit in the top 20% earning bracket of the DR. Today our group toured Centro Leon, supposedly the best museum in the Caribbean. After the museum we gorged on Domino's pizza. Once we'd rested a few minutes, we climbed back into the trucks and drove 15 minutes to Barrio Moscas--"Neighborhood of Flies". Barrio Moscas formed at the edge of the city of Santiago's garbage dump. It's an unorganized collection of shacks built of scrap metal and wood. The people in the barrio make their living off of the dump. There are businesses that will buy scrap metal that has been found by the people for a very small price. So everyday, men, women and children spend hours climbing though the garbage, searching for metal. They light fires to the garbage in order to burn through the organic material and are sometimes burned by the fires. They also raise pigs, goats, and cattle on the garbage and sell them for meat. I saw pigs eating plastic and cattle grazing in a field of tires. Two bare-footed boys around the age of 6 befriended us as soon as we arrived. The guided us up a trail (it felt like we were hiking--the dump is that big--30 years of trash), over a river that was filled with garbage and had water that was a very odd green color (they told us they bathe there) to the top of the dump. While we took it all in, they rummaged for stuff. One of the boys stepped on a large piece of glass, looked at it, casually pulled it out of his foot, and kept scrounging. With our hearts heavy and their heavy load of trash, we proceeded back down. I was feeling especially pensive, trying to process the magnitude of the situation, when one of the boys found an old Pepsi sign. At a particularly steep and slippery part of the hill, he flashed us a huge grin, then slid down the hill on his Pepsi sign, laughing hysterically the whole way.