I live in
one of the most unequal countries in the world.
Of all the seemingly useless information I learned studying International
Development, the Gini coefficient is unfortunately seared in my brain – one of
the endless nifty ways nerdy statisticians have created to measure a country’s
worth. For what its worth, on a scale
of 0-100 (0 being perfectly equal, 100 being perfectly unequal), Guatemala comes
in at a shocking 61 - the highest in Latin America and topped only by Namibia
and Botswana in the world. While numbers
are interesting and incredibly useful for research papers in grad school, now I
live in this number. So where exactly do I lay
and how do my ideals line up with my (temporary?) home on the spectrum?
I am
privileged. Period. Born somewhere in the
middle class range, I take residence with the majority of my fellow Americans
who own cars, eat out when they want, take an occasional roadtrip down to camp
in the great outdoors, and generally have some (if even minimal) amount of
dispensable income. Guatemala on the
other hand, struggles to define a middle class, mostly because there is none.
Money is not the problem, Guatemala holds the highest GDP in Central America believe
it or not (another one of those silly statistician marvels of simplifying an
overly complex idea) Yet even so, nearly 70% of the population lives below the
poverty line. Another 10% own over half
of the entire wealth of Guatemala, either relaxing in their mega coffee farm
haciendas or crusing through town in their pimped out hummers payed for by the
drug trade. I guess this is where that mysterious and undefinable middle class
is, somewhere in that remaining 20% of the population. And I guess I am somewhere in there as well.
I have an exceptional portrait of this question of class, living in diversified and progressive Xela. Recycled US school busses tote Mayan women in every morning from the highlands to sell produce, shoeless and shirtless children shine boots in the park for 20 cents, twenty-something hipsters walk from university to organic coffee shop to dance club, a healthy population of expats take a break from first-class stature back home to ride in coach for a while, and wealthy lawyers send their kids to private grade schools more expensive than my university – talk about a spectrum. I don’t have a closet, a dresser or an oven, but I have a warm comforter for cold nights in the mountains. My bedroom walls are made of plywood, but I can splurge on a $3 box of wine for nights out with the girls. My office is an old concrete house with one desk for the entire operation, but I am paid 10 times more than the tortilla vender the next door over.
I have an exceptional portrait of this question of class, living in diversified and progressive Xela. Recycled US school busses tote Mayan women in every morning from the highlands to sell produce, shoeless and shirtless children shine boots in the park for 20 cents, twenty-something hipsters walk from university to organic coffee shop to dance club, a healthy population of expats take a break from first-class stature back home to ride in coach for a while, and wealthy lawyers send their kids to private grade schools more expensive than my university – talk about a spectrum. I don’t have a closet, a dresser or an oven, but I have a warm comforter for cold nights in the mountains. My bedroom walls are made of plywood, but I can splurge on a $3 box of wine for nights out with the girls. My office is an old concrete house with one desk for the entire operation, but I am paid 10 times more than the tortilla vender the next door over.
“Here are people of
all classes and stages of rank. From all countries of the globe. Every hue of
ignorance and learning, morality and vice, wealth and want, fashion and coarseness,
breeding and brutality, elevation and degradation, impudence and modesty.” I keep looking out thinking, That could be me. And that could be me. Why am I not indigenously dawned in bright colors with produce overflowing a thatch basket? Why wasn't I born as a shoeshiner? What is it that separates any of us?
