If I've learned anything at all from living in countries where there is a lot of poverty it is that money is everything. Consider what money can buy: besides the obvious, food clothing, ipods and international travel. Money can buy freedom, health, choice, power, knowledge and love. I am not being cynical: you (your family) have money therefore you don't have to work and you can pay for (the best) schools, where you learn all sorts of stuff, including that you are the best. Also money is buying you experiences (travel, books, sports, movies) that give you more knowledge, thus more confidence, thus more power. Then you (young woman) are rich enough to not marry the first man you see who mistreats you and abuses you and cheats on you. Money buys you the power to not become pregnant at 15, and to choose the man/woman you will love and who will love you. Also money will buy you peace at home because you will not be fighting about why you don't have. You are rich enough to choose where to live, what job to have, how to speak, dress and look. You are rich enough to have free time, and choose how to spend it. You are rich enought to make informed decisions. To an extent money can buy you health, in terms of avoinding all poverty-related diseases and payign for the best cures. So money buys not only quality of life, but life itself.
On a different note...I am suddenly feeling drained. Today I talked to a man in the Mayor's office who gave me the news that triggered my exhaustion: the houses we were planning to use for the Andean product tasting project with the women are most likely going to be demolished. They were built last year even though permission had been denied by the central government, and the construction was entirely funded by the local government. Permission was denied because the piece of land where they are built is "untouchable" because apparently there are Inca ruins (In the Sacred Valley there are thousands of houses built on Inca walls).
The town of Huayllabamba is in court trying to oppose the government's plan to throw down the buildings; they have lost the appeal in Cusco and are now at the Supreme Court in Lima... I am speachless about the whole situation and about the Mayor not mentioning anything about this. Oh, I almost forgot another detail the Mayor hadn't mentioned: a parashooting club wants to rent the houses if they are not destroyed.
We'll have to find a different way to set up the project.
The town of Huayllabamba is in court trying to oppose the government's plan to throw down the buildings; they have lost the appeal in Cusco and are now at the Supreme Court in Lima... I am speachless about the whole situation and about the Mayor not mentioning anything about this. Oh, I almost forgot another detail the Mayor hadn't mentioned: a parashooting club wants to rent the houses if they are not destroyed.
We'll have to find a different way to set up the project.
On the positive side everything with the volunteer project is going well, we are getting partnership offers left and right and everybody in the Sacred Valley wants to host volunteers. Simone is very happy with his host family and the stunning beauty of his community; yesterday and today I went to visit him and it was quite refreshing to have some home-ness here.
5 comments:
E' bello constatre che i tuoi figli hanno imparato cosa volevi che imparassero!
I think I agree with the anonymous, Dad I suppose...
Money cannot buy a GMAT!! And it cannot buy you the eloquence of Barack Obama!!
Nobody will guess who wrote you this comment
there was a quote saying something like "the relative importnace of money and health depends on which one you have lost"
I know the quote, even if I don't remember who said it. Of course it's true even though if you're sick you'll have more possibilities if you have money than if you haven't. Sure when you have money there are still lots of things money cannot buy, love, friendship, special gifts you have. But the same special gifts remain unknown if you don't have the possibility to develop them. Without money, yours or endowed to you by an external agency, you can't attend a good university, or take the GMAT. How many good people and wonderful qualities remain unveiled and wasted, we can only imagine, we'll never know. However of course money is not enough and cannot buy everything (luckily). As they say money is not everything but it helps...
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