where are the men?

Todas las teorías son legítimas y ninguna tiene importancia. Lo que importa es lo que se hace con ellas. -Jorge Luis Borges

All theories are legitimate yet none of them are important. The only thing that matters is what you do with them.

I am a little lost today. I used to make fun of people who sat by themselves at lunch in restaurants. I am a social being, I wouldn't dare have the confidence to sit and have lunch in the company of me. But that's just what I've been doing the past couple days in Ayacucho, its been purposeful and I like it.

My hours at FINCA are 8am to 12pm and then 2:30pm to 6:30pm, Monday through Friday. The promotoras (loan officers) here work Saturdays also, but I and most other volunteers opt out of that for obvious reasons.

Thus, I have a nice 2.5 hour lunch and I kind of like it. It's not a siesta here, although places close. I have heard this clock of time is typically a time where mothers get their children out of school, take them home, feed them (lunch is the biggest meal of the day), clean house, and then set off back to work.

I enjoy walking around the open air markets (except the meat department... I will continue to convince myself "they are just rubber chickens"), smiling at the vendors, looking at the puffy breads with sprinkles on them, the bananas, the juice stands, the varieties of potatoes. You could really spend a whole day there just looking around. But what I found most interesting is how almost every single vender in the market is a woman.

One fun side note -- you can get 15 tangerines for .50 centavos here, or half a Peruvian Neuvo sole. Because the exchange rate between the US and Peru is 1:3, that is about a penny a tangerine! (Another reason to love the market).

FINCA has had a volunteer here for the past six months who worked specifically with the women, empowering and educating them. This branch of FINCA has been funded in part by a grant from OXFAM. The volunteer is leaving now sadly, as I'd love to pick her brain more, but she did tell me a little about what I've been wondering...

Where are all the men?

The volunteer told me that they had an exercise with the women where they were to give their likes and dislikes. This was a foreign concept to them, so the volunteer gave them examples. Many women responded candidly, with their peers present and in agreement, that it bothers them that their husbands don't work, they drink, and worse yet, they dislike when their husbands beat them.

They were very blasé about it. As I look around the city wonder myself where the men are, I wonder how much truth there is to this. Not that I doubt the women, because I don't, but this is a big paradigm shift for me.

My theory until now was that women represent a potential 50% of the workforce in the developing world that is simply unused. Well, that doesn't seem the case here. In fact, it may be quite the opposite.

I shall continue my investigation.

But the Borges quote also reaches me on another issue...
Getting ripped off or overcharged because I'm a foreigner.

This is inevitable so long as you live in a community with both tourism and poverty, but I just don't know how to deal with it. I know I was overcharged for my apartment (Matt and I are paying $200 a month, 800 soles, for a three bedroom apartment -- which is a rip off here, I swear!). I took the apartment because quite frankly, I wanted something soon, I'm sick of living in a hostel, and there is no classified section in the newspaper here. There is no newspaper. In fact, there are only two ways to find apartments. 1) wander the city and look for signs on apartment doors or 2) go to a frozen yogurt shop near the city center where people write apartments for rent in Sharpie every couple days. Craig of craigslist, you are needed in Ayacucho.

As I gave the deposit to the landlord, she brought to me two pieces of cloth. Let me describe them to you. One had an iron on patch of an imitation Winnie the Pooh with a Santa hat on it, and the other had some sort of cartoon character robots (also an iron-on patch). Both were on white towel material, about 1' by 1' squares. I have no idea what one would do with them. Hang them up? Use them as towels?

After signing the lease, she very awkwardly and unprofessionally tried to sell me these towels. She said she bought them for 35 soles each in Lima (about $10. in actuality, something like that would be around 5 soles). After telling me she bought each one for 35 soles, she asked me to buy them for 70 soles each. I couldn't really hide my offendedness this time, as I thought this was really her thinking I was a moron. I told her I am a volunteer, I have been saving and raising money to come here, and I plan on buying nothing for an apartment except a mattress to sleep on. That mattress will be about as cheap as one of her towels. Then, she proceeded to offer me them for 30 soles each instead of 70 soles.

With a dirty look on my face, I asked her if we were done, I took the keys, and I told her I had to go back to work. I sat eating by myself at lunch and thought, what do I do? Argue with them? Tell them I am insulted? Or just ignore it? What is the right theory on this issue?

So... I am confused, but I like this Borges quote because it kind of is like -- in Suzy terms (not to be confused with laymans terms) -- eff theory, just take everything as it comes.

So, I guess I will do just that.

SUZ