About a week and a half ago, I went to Miraflores. It is a part of the city of Lima that is very fancy. This is where you'll find Starbucks, Papa Johns, a super-sized McDonald's, and so on. We did a group project where we walked around and asked people touristy questions, and then questions about how they dispose of their trash. The latter was related to our group, Manejo Ambiental Comunitario (MAC). MAC is the Spanish name for our program, Environmental Education. I have to admit that it is weird to walk up to people and begin asking them about what they do or do not through away, how they sort their garbage. In actuality, I didn't realize that was weird until a fellow group member pointed it out. Can you imagine some foreigner walking up to you, ask you if they can ask you some questions and begin to ask how you sort your trash? Do you recycle? Do you compost? I enjoyed asking people none-the-less.
Afterwards, me and a few of the girls grabbed some pizza at a local Italian restaurant. The place was a bit more fancy than I would have liked, but I enjoyed that the walls had autographs and money glued down like wallpaper. We ate pretty quickly and begin the journey of returning to the Chosica area. (I live in Santa Eulalia, just outside of Chosica.) We were given instructions in Spanish as to how we would find transportation home. We were supposed to catch a combi (a small bus with crazy drivers) to one of two locations. One location would allow us to catch another combi, and the other would be a point to catch a collectivo. What the language teachers didn't explain well enough for us to understand, was where we would find the collectivos. Collectivos are kinda like taxis except they can pick up different groups of people heading to the same general area.
To make a long story short, we couldn't figure out where the collectivos were and ended up getting on more combis than we should have to get home. A two hour trip turned into three and a half. The last combi to Chosica got into an accident. Many in our group had to stand because they literally pack them full like a can of sardines. (Peruvians call combis "sardinas de la lata". So half of our group was standing when the combi crashed into the car in front of us. A woman in the front who was standing and barely holding on screamed as she hit the floor. Terrified, I grabbed my friend Tina and put her in my seat.
On the way, I looked out the window at all the trash on the side of the street. There wasn't any trash in Miraflores. The municipality in Miraflores hires workers to keep the streets clean. But just twenty minutes further are streets covered, and I mean covered, in garbage. There are actual mounds of trash stacked stacked next to houses made of plywood. I watched as a woman pushed a stroller and a man held his jacket tight as he walked. And I thought about the injustice of it all, that this would be my first time in my life to experience such filthiness and here is this baby whose life has begun with it. I wondered how I could serve a God who would let such disparity exist. And then I remembered that I am called to be part of the solution, the hands and feet for a God who loves justice. I realized that the injustice would be for me to know that this exists and to go back to the States and try to forget it.
Injustice is something that I can choose to take part in. I got really sick to my stomach at the thought of never returning to a cleaner, "happier" life in the U.S. I really didn't intend to spend the rest of my life without warm showers in clean water. It seems so much harder to think that I am called to be with the least of these. And if I was to spend my life serving and living with the poorest of the poor, that strength is gonna have to come from someone stronger than myself. In all honesty, I'd rather eat pizza in Miraflores. And I think that is the source of injustice in the world, what I've found I don't like in myself - what we find that we don't like within ourselves.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment