Musing on the road...

The road from Cuzco to Puno is long, eight hours on the road and 388km in total.  I decided to take the same bus as the locals and avoid the easy option of the tourist bus.  This has its disadvantages: slower, no air-con, a more sinuous journey, less comfortable, more crowded and several stops to repair various parts of the vehicle en route.  The advantages are: cheaper, more chance to meet the indigenous people and you fly past the plastic tourist restaurant and crafts market like a fly avoiding a pitcher plant.

During the journey a young lad of about 13 years got on with his guitar.  After a while he addressed the crowd and told us he was going to sing in return for a little cash.  To be honest, his singing was awful but he had all the passengers in the palm of his hand.  Laughing all the way to the bank.  This reminded me me of a conversation I'd had with a couple of lads selling paintings the night before.

When they heard I was from Ingleterra one of them stated I must be rich with a mild bitterness in his tone.  The vast gap in wealth always makes me feel guilty, not that there aren't very wealthy people in Peru, there are.  However, as a whole this country is poorer than the one I happen to have been born in; evidenced in the fact gringo tourists are common in Peru but it is a far rarer occurrence to encounter a Peruvian tourist in the UK.

At the risk of this becoming a diatribe it strikes me that no matter how hard some people work - like the young singer - the odds are stacked against them in our global financial system.  Some people work hard and become wealthy, I've no issue there.  However, some are born poor, work hard and remain poor all their lives whilst others increase their wealth simply by investing the wealth they already possess without necessarily working for it.  I'm not a communist, I like the idea of rewarding hard work as the capitalist model should encourage.  However, it is our overly-complex financial system that allows people to cream off financial rewards without any effort on their part.  

When the young vendor asked if I was rich I answered that poverty is relative., that in my country I wasn't considered rich but in Peru I might be.  He agreed.  However, the extraordinary advance in communications means pretty much anyone can now compare themselves to anyone else on the planet. Poverty is relative globally.  All I'd like to see is a fair game for all.  One in which effort, talent, skill and knowledge are rewarded equally.  One in which trade is fair, where the resources of a country are not exported to rich nations before the needs of those people are met.  Let's get a little equality round here.

Forgive my preaching to the converted and obvious hipocrisy!