There Are No Straight Lines in Lima

I know I have only been here a week, and that my knowledge of Lima and its many cultures is limited. I realize that I am like Ransom in C.S. Lewis' "Out of the Silent Planet": "He did not yet know things well enough to see them." But in order to know them, I must think on them.

I didn't expect Lima to be a completely different world. I expected different food, different etiquette, different norms, different relational standards. What I think I've come upon, though, are not different things, but a kind of other. Nothing, so far, has been able to fit in my different category. People here don't drive differently; they are working within another system entirely.

Or the children for example. I've found (and the Matthews also agreed) that it is terribly common here for children to whine and speak with incredibly loud and annoying voices - some describe it as a "child-run society". That would be different. Try as I may, though, I can't fit it into a category. Because as I watch Romina and Janella on a daily basis, I am awed by their understanding of the household as an economy. They make up their beds every morning without asking; they know if Martha is late getting home in the afternoon to start cooking and know how to do so; they quietly and joyfully obey their parents. What is this? For some reason, to me, I can't describe it as different, but as other.

Cultures don't seem to exist in some sort of file folder system of categorization. It's made up of so many nuances and mixed standards (that I didn't know you could mix) that it's almost hard to compare America and Lima.

Geez...what does that mean?