7-January-2000
00009
Speaking a New Language
A mission co-worker letter from Peru
by Ruth and Hunter Farrell
LIMA, Peru - We're not economists, so technical terms like "free markets,"
"external debt" and "structural adjustment" usually leave us puzzled.
Yet these terms are spoken and written about daily here. The poorest
half of Peru's 28 million people are increasingly speaking out and
demonstrating against the International Monetary Fund's policy of
drastically reducing government spending (including health and education
programs that many view as essential) and opening up the Peruvian economy
to the full range of U.S. imports. The results have been a continuing wave
of foreign buyouts of Peruvian businesses that simply can't compete with
larger, foreign-run companies. While inflation has been halted, the trend
has significantly increased unemployment and lowered real wages. So how
does all this economic mumbo-jumbo touch real people's lives?
While riding the local VW mini-bus that plies the route from the MISIUR
office through the seedy Gamarra wholesale market district to the El
Agustino community, I watched an older women, her thirty-something daughter
and a 5-year-old granddaughter board the bus. Earlier that day, the
government had announced that bus fares would be allowed to "float" to
"fair market prices." When the driver attempted to collect 20 "centimos"
(6 cents) more than the usual fare from both the grandmother and her
daughter, you would have thought that someone had slapped her across the
face. She bowed her head and was silent for a moment. Then she began to
tremble, and I heard a low moan. Suddenly a torrent of cries and curses
erupted from deep within her, as she cried out that this was all she could
stand. Her daughter tried to calm her, but she was past the breaking
point. She took her fist and began to beat the driver. When the bus
stopped suddenly (nearly causing an accident), her daughter grabbed her and
the 5-year-old and removed them bodily from the bus. The older woman
dissolved in a heap beside the road and cried bitterly as the bus pulled
away.
Last week, the mother of one of the children participating in MISIUR's
program in Zarate attempted suicide. She later said she felt incapable of
providing for her children's needs and simply couldn't bear to watch them
grow up always hungry.
These two examples are exceptional, I know. But the exceptions seem to
become more common these days.
Recently, Hunter had the opportunity to travel to the poverty-stricken
"altiplano" region of Bolivia to visit some organizations that are
struggling to help communities of need gain ground in the battle against
hunger.
On that trip, I was reminded again of how our language often betrays
our unspoken assumptions - those stubborn places in our hearts that just
seem to resist the power of the gospel of Christ. In my everyday
conversation and thinking, I often use the term "Third World" (or more
politically correct, "Two-Thirds World"). It helps me out of an extremely
painful dilemma: when I see people living in back-breaking poverty, and I
know that so many people are living in luxury, my mind simply can't take it
in. So I desperately look for a way to relegate that person to a faraway
place. When sharing with colleagues about the poverty of the "altiplano,"
I caught myself shaking my head and saying, "You wouldn't believe it. It's
just another world." So far away. And then I met Jose.
Jose is the youngest of five children and lives with his family in a
wind-swept "altiplano" community two-hours drive from the Bolivian capital
of La Paz. I met him and assumed him to be about 7 years old, as he was
about the size of my 7-year-old son, Andrew. As we talked, I could tell
that Jose has significant mental retardation, the result, I was told later
by a project worker, of chronic infant malnutrition. His family simply
could not produce enough surplus potato, cevada (barley) and mutton to
provide for his needs. Later in the conversation, I learned that he was,
in fact, 10 years old, the age of my other son Billy. Already his
pencil-thin legs were bent by vitamin deficiency; his mind dulled by the
lack of nutrients. "There, but for the grace of God, go my children," I
thought.
But if God is our Father, I thought, then Jose IS my child - or, at
least, my brother's child. If I believe that Jose and his family are,
together with me and my loved ones, part of the Body of Christ, then his
malnutrition weakens me and all of us. Yet this is where the mind games
begin: my defenses go up and I scramble to find fault with Jose and his
family. They must be lazy. They must have poor spending habits. They
must be wasteful. It HAS to be their fault.
Yet I recently read that the gap separating the rich from the poor has
never been greater. Could it be that in this moment of unprecedented
abundance in my own country, when so many Americans of my generation are
able to live at a much higher life style than our parents' generation did,
that the "terms of trade" - treaties that allow a full range of U.S. goods
to flow unchecked into Peru markets while restricting Peruvian exports of
cotton, fish and fruit to the United States - have pushed the poor nations
over the cliff? And let you and me see our stock portfolios' value
mushroom? We're not economists, but these phenomena sure seem to be
related. And many Peruvian Christians believe that they are.
So how can we, as members of Christ's Body, maintain our bond with the
many other members who are desperately poor? Through prayer and fasting,
yes. Through sharing our surplus with those whose needs are greater (II
Cor. 8:14). And through concrete actions to insure the poor are treated
with equality and dignity (II Cor. 12: 21-26). Perhaps the year 2000 will
see an increasing number of American Christians commit themselves to making
a difference in the fight against hunger.
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