There are many ways to try to understand a country, my favourite is traffic. It is more eloquent than it seems, just simply sharpen your eyes from a simple taxi. Take the case of Peru, one of the most beautiful countries in Latin America, and with the greatest potential, which has just closed the Pan American Games with flying colours. Its capital stands out for many things, and one of them is precisely the amount of cars and the way they drive.
Among the characters that one can find in this jungle of asphalt, some new actors have burst: Venezuelans. In a few years they are in everyone’s mouth. Soon you discover how the crossings, the ‘springbreakers’ – even in the middle of the desert in the North Pan American Highway – and the traffic jams become the workplace for many of them. For a simple sol (the country;s currency) they sell you anything. They are accompanied by their children and sometimes pregnant wives. Citizens of a country that was prosperous, many of them with good education and great kindness that overnight are forced to beg in a foreign land. Dress well, with the fashions and hairstyles that mark our globalized world. In them you can easily see despair mixed with gratitude for the alms received. With large doses of dignity strengthen their status as Venezuelans and demand freedom for their homeland.
Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not present only in Lima’s traffic. In addition to thousands of taxi drivers there are people who sell soda, coffee or hot chocolate. Some find their opportunities in exchange for a low salary as waiters or gardeners. Unfortunately, when hunger increases, prostitution becomes the way out for many women. There is room for artists in squares with tourists, acrobats and even businessmen who never imagined they would have to stand in line with the poor. It is shocking to see children, the most vulnerable victims of this tragedy, without a past to miss, a present to forget and a future still to dream.
Peruvian society in general is still welcoming and looks mercifully at the refugee, although there will always be misgivings of suspicion (one must not forget that some have lost out). They are able to put themselves in the place of the other, something that in Europe we find harder to do. Jonathan is a taxi driver. This guild is talkative and it is most representative of a town’s most visceral views. He lives in the popular district of Comas, in the northern cone of Lima. Son of a young mother, and sponsored by his uncle and the nuns of his neighborhood, he studied at a school of Fe y Alegría. He is a cook, but works as a taxi driver to make cash and start a business. It charges about 25 soles, about 6,5 euros, for an hour and half ride – about 20 kilometers. He laments that before he could earn about 130 soles a day, but now with Venezuelans the income has gone down. He would do the same. There are painful situations
The difficult coexistence
Peruvians with an average job, well-prepared, who sacked because better trained refugees arrived willing to be exploited (a teacher can charge $ 13 per month in Venezuela). Retailers surpassed by new rivals in a matter of weeks. Any salary is greater than the hunger and desolation of their land. The Church, followed by some NGOs, is the forefront in assistance. quite a lot of parishes cannot cope. In some popular areas families have welcomed other families, in some cases with illicit affairs included. Camouflaged in the crowd, criminal gangs have also arrived spreading their bad name to people of good will. One more example that the reception is never easy and that Peruvian society is in many cases exemplary in its hospitality. The international political situation favors the arrival of Venezuelans, is a way to rebuff Maduro. Public institutions are more ambiguous in the deal. Everyone knows that although Peru grows poverty remains a burden for many people.
These people have a lot to teach us, with their life and their experience. In a simple restaurant in the center of Trujillo we are served by a smiling waitress. It is inexperienced as that of one who starts a new job. He apologizes saying he is not from there. We ask him where he comes from and he tells us, like many others who work there than from Venezuela. With a certain Caribbean grace, he goes on and says that she does not run away from war, but from a democracy that got out of hand. They could not take care of her. It gives to think. His country has been in Chavismo for twenty years, Peru has accumulated several presidents hunted by justice – which means that there is a fight against corruption – and Spain has a harder time forming a government than maintaining it. Perhaps our perception is too poor because we put the emphasis on the majority – something that seems obvious. However, the vault key does not pass through, but through the control mechanisms. Every democratic system needs tools that stop human stupidity: limitation of mandates, freedom (and quality) of the press, ombudsmen, separation of powers, defense of human rights, anti-corruption systems … An alarm that goes off when affection prevails (and the defect) over common sense. Majorities may be wrong and end up in totalitarianism if freedom and a safe balanced game are not guaranteed.
Ricardo rides in our car in Lambayeque. It is not usual, assailants do not usually carry a sign. Nor is he afraid, little or nothing can lose. He speaks fondly of his city and everything he misses. Beyond its situation, there is still space to love the country, that tropical sky, fertile field and black gold. The same land that gave them life no longer feeds them. According to ACNUR more than four million have left their land, they are broken families and mortgaged generations. Some figures speak of a million refugees in Peru, being the main host country of Venezuelan people in need of international protection and the second destination of Venezuelan refugees and migrants worldwide (the comparison with the old continent is chilling).
Some continue to Chile and others stay. They are not afraid to talk about their homeland, knowing that Venezuela means many other things. It is the idea of homeland that in Europe, and in particular in Spain, scares us so much but that it seems so natural on this side of the world. It is not that of the clash of flags and the strength of the hymns. Between nostalgia and healthy pride in the roots that forged the individual. Homeland as a fellowship. Remembering the brother, who was there, who travels in search of a dignified life and a little freedom.
Firm, eloquent and self-confident. In the northern area they usually wait for their opportunity in the shadow of the gnarled carob trees, trees that endure the harsh climate thanks to their roots that reach up to 50 meters. In a traffic light of the snob district of La Molina in the capital, there is a very pregnant young woman with a two-year-old boy in her arms. She is talking awkwardly with some cops and we give her a little help. We ask about her yet unborn baby, her eyes get wet and with a big smile he replies that she still has no name, that she accepts suggestions. In their faces there is still hope. Perhaps it is that of the poor who has already hit rock bottom. Maybe that of the grateful who knows that it does not depend on him. Sense of brotherhood, help and listening. It is the life that emerges between the cracks of two facing worlds.
Understanding a country will never be easy, even having been born there. Even more complicated is to measure the greatness and magnanimity of a people. This is not only given by the past or military deeds, it needs to be updated again and again. In each generation I think one of the paths is that of hospitality, sometimes above one’s own means. The desire to think about the urgency of the other before our own ghosts, there are many examples and counterexamples in books. History judges for better and for worse, as we continue to do now. You can be poor and honest, honest and welcoming. You can be rich and devoid of many virtues. These refugees are not just people who require our help and commitment in any asphalt jungle, they can show us why it is necessary to understand well what democracy and homeland are. Hopefully, in a few years when history books know and judge this era will speak well of us, knowing that it was never easy but we knew how to live up to it.
Translated by Spanish Bytes from the original Spanish article by Álvaro Lobo Arranz
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