Journal Entry from the First Day at Ciudad de Dios
Peruvians seem to be confused that Asian people can be American as well. While I understand it´s because of the fact that Peru has a large indigenous population, I still find it odd that even though all 12 of us are in the same group of people (the American gringos), Peruvians (not just in Ciudad de Dios) hink that e´re not part of the group. They keep asking where we´re from and kind of surprised when they hear Los Estados Unidos. It makes me wonder about the kind of image that America portrays...how is it that America is considered the land of immigrants, but also the land of white gringos?
Another thing that surprised me - I brought my sunglasses to Ciudad because I thought they would be useful when the sun shone. I waspretty careful about only bringing things that I might need and nothing flashy. I totally did not expect, however, that my sunglases would be the object of so many children´s facination to the point that they fought over them and even asked me to gift it to them. I think that even kids in the US would play with and fight over glasses, so the thing that surprised me the most was that Thalia kept asking me to gift them to her. It made me think about how these kids view us - do they think that we´re just the bringers of fascinating things?