Poverty Voyeurism and other acts of default colonizers

by By the poverty scholars in Villa El Salvador, Lima Peru; Writer Facilitator Amanda Smiles/PNN

I struggle to smile as the tall gringo shoves the lens of his camera in my face. Focusing on my small, crowded classroom, and the tiny, eager faces of my students, I ignore the expensive clicks and hisses his camera makes as he steals his image of poverty. This gringo, whose name I do not know, because he has only introduced himself once, hurriedly, behind is costly black box, has recently arrived in Villa El Salvador, a shanty town of Lima, Peru. He is a volunteer, come to witness the poverty that is more than a Pulitzer worthy photo- it is our lives.

It is summer here in Peru, sticky, sultry summer, when the children are out of school and the parents still have to work. In Villa, poverty is in our roots, we have all grown up in homes made of no more than plywood, tarps, and tin roofs, so we all know the importance of education. This small, but vital, community run school, ensures that our children continue to learn even without textbooks. At the best, our children are given another chance that our poverty has robbed of them…at the last they are guaranteed one full meal a day, something this does not come easy in these parts.

The gringo’s camera wheezes again, as he captures another moment of our “romantic” lives. In some cultures they believe a photograph steals one’s soul. I believe the gringo’s photographs are stealing our history, because how can you sum up our entire struggle in a single photograph?

Villa El Salvador was founded in the 1970’s, after a mass migration of peasants from the highlands left many families homeless in Lima. A group of families squatted on private land, during a key weekend when an important international meeting was held in Lima, preoccupying the police. This lended several days for more families to assemble on the land, and by the time the government had time to react, it was impossible to evict them. Eventually, after several armed conflicts in which the peasants didn’t budge, the government compromised and moved them to the sand dunes, now Villa, and legally gave them the land.

I watch as the gringo moves on into the toddler’s room, where instead of helping to hold and feed the little ones, he will continue on with his camera.

Once the land was given to the families, it was divided evenly amongst the squatters and everyone was given the same size plot to build on. Land was also set asides for school, hospitals, parks, and, eventually, a university. Groups of homes were divided into sectors and each sector elected a Sectary of Education, Health, Economy, and Security, who would take up and solve community issues. Also, these Sectaries met with the general sectaries of the entire community of Villa, to plan and organize the future of Villa. These Sectaries included the Sectary of Women, Youth, and Human Rights.

During the 1980’s, when the terrorist group the Shining Path massacred and committed genocide throughout Peru, a second wave of migration to Lima occurred. Again, poor peasant families from the highlands journeyed to Lima, leaving their homes and farms in order to flea the reign of terror the Shining Path held over the Andes.

These families, poor and with only what they could carry, came to Villa for support. In response, the community organized soup kitchen, in which everyone took turn participating in. Mother’s clubs, run by women, organized the Vaso de Leche program, which delivered milk to poor families throughout Lima, ensuring that every child drank one glass of milk a day.

The children gather around the gringo in the playground, begging to have their picture taken. I wish, instead of photos, which the gringo has graciously offered to post online, a luxury far from our reality here, he could offer them a glass of milk. Clean food and water are what our children need, not their photos on the Internet.

When the Shining Path finally burned its way into Lima, it was Villa El Salvado that was terrorized the most. By its very existence, Villa was the antithesis to the Shining Path, whose mission was to destroy everything in the wake of poverty and corruption. Villa, on the other hand, chose to build and create solutions to help its people. The Shining Path pinned Villa as its enemy, planting bombs in important buildings, like the Vaso de Leche storage warehouse, and assassinating some of Villas most influential community leaders.

Still, the community of Villa resisted the Shining Path and took an active role in speaking out against terrorism. Community leaders continued to organize, despite death threats, protests were staged, and programs like Vaso de Leche remained running, even through the Shining Path deemed them “treacherous”:

Due to its resistance to the Shining Path, Villa won international recognition and awards for human rights and in 1986 was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. More importantly, though, during Peru’s darkest hour of the 20th century, Villa burned as an inextinguishable candle, illuminating the lives of Peru’s poor with hope.

Today, we are still taking an active role in planning for our future. Last year, the community finalized plans for the next 15 year, where we want Villa to be in 2021. Any person elected in Villa must follow these guidelines set forth by the community, ensuring that the needs of the residents are met and that we will continue to strive.

The gringo heads toward the courtyard, making his way out of the school. For a man who has everything, wealth, education, fair skin, he has, surprisingly, left our community with nothing. Yet, our community, which began with nothing, not even land, and still sustains on barely any resources, has given everything we can to create a ladder, or at least a safety net, out of poverty. While the gringo is now a ghost here, we have our history, of hope and resistance, etched in the scars of our streets, left behind for our children, when their turn comes.