somewhere under the sky

home

after traveling, it feels wonderful to be in one place, to feel settled. i admit that i love traveling because i have less things. i always come back after traveling having forgotten how many possessions i have, books, clothes, etc. despite the hassle of having so much stuff, i feel centered. i love having one place in which i cook, eat, sleep and do laundry. a home of course, can be anywhere, the point is that there is one place to which i return. home is where the heart is, as an old saying goes, and if that's the case, i have several homes all over the world. so it is a bit of contradiction, i suppose, to say that i am settled; because for the moment, it is a temporary settlement.

my thoughts on home, and the undeniable fortune that i have to have one, brings me back to what i saw in Perú. i wrote before on the homes of the poor that i saw in the northern coast. further travels provided other opportunities to view their living conditions, for they are not just on the northern coast. looking out the window on the bus from Puno (on the border of Bolivia) back to Cusco was like watching a video called "This Is What It Is Like to Be Poor." when i speak of the "poor" i of course use the word in its financial sense, because differences between the financially rich and poor are visible, whereas differences of the heart are harder to discern. the people of the countryside live in homes no bigger than a small apartment, one floor, and made mostly of brick and mud. roofs do not seem standard.

what was most difficult to see was the view out the window of the bus ride from Cusco to Lima. this was a 21-hour bus ride (a one-hour flight) through the mountains and up the southern coast. i took this bus 5 days after the terrible earthquake which hit Perú on August 15. we drove through towns where entire churches had collapsed killing those inside, homes had been destroyed, the highway had been split in two. tents were set up in front of damaged homes, families were camping. the worst sight was the people, many of them children, standing on the side of the road holding out bags in the hope that travellers would throw them money.
the U.S. is comparatively financially better off than Perú and we have still not recovered from Katrina. how can a country already so poor repair what has been lost?
if you feel so inclined, please go here to donate: www.thehungersite.com

posted by leah v @ 6:08 PM