Peru - Lonely Planet Publications [25]
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Based on the real-life search for the elusive leader of Sendero Luminoso, The Dancer Upstairs is a gripping novel by Nicholas Shakespeare that was made into a movie of the same name starring Javier Bardem.
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Also significant are the economic issues. While the boom of recent years has helped reduce the poverty rate by about 15%, there is still an extraordinary disparity between the wealthy few and everyone else, with about half of Peru living under the poverty line. In some segments of society, highly traditional notions of gender roles – men at work, women at home – remain firmly in place (though there is a burgeoning generation of professional women). Attitudes towards homosexuality remain retrograde.
But even as the meaning of ‘Peruvian’ varies from one individual to another, from one region to the next, there are unifying elements. Peruvians share a fervor for robust cuisine, soulful music and the thrill of a neck-and-neck soccer match. At any time, a small gathering can turn into an impromptu party. Peru is a country that takes family and friendship seriously, treating its guests with warmth and consideration. It is a culture, ultimately, that faces its setbacks with stoicism and plenty of dark humor – and also lots of hope.
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LIFESTYLE
With a geography that encompasses desert, Andean plateau and lowland jungle, Peru is relentlessly touted as a land of contrasts. This metaphor couldn’t be more appropriate in describing its society: a mixture of rich and poor, indigenous and white, black and Asian, young and old. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Lima, where wealthy neighborhoods, full of sprawling modernist mansions, abut shantytowns built with salvaged tin.
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For a well-written, well-reported overview of the capital’s social and cultural past, pick up James Higgins’ Lima: A Cultural History.
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The recent economic boom has been good to the country. Roads have been paved, trash has been picked up and urban infrastructure – even in poor neighborhoods – has been improved. However, there is still a yawning disparity between rich and poor. The richest 10th of the country receives 41% of the income, while the poorest fifth makes do with less than 4%. The poverty is grinding: the minimum monthly wage stands at about US$200, and according to one UN report from 2008, 54% of the population lives below the poverty line, with almost 20% of the people surviving on less than US$2 per day. Approximately one in four children under the age of five is malnourished, and more than a quarter of the population does not have access to electricity. Naturally, it is rural, indigenous people who make up the majority of the country’s poor and represent an outsized share of the extreme poverty cases. In rural areas, the poor survive largely from subsistence agriculture, living in traditional adobe or tin houses that often lack electricity and indoor plumbing.
In cities, the extreme poor live in shantytowns, while the lower and middle classes live in concrete, apartment-style housing or small stand-alone homes, much of which was produced throughout the 20th century. Units have a shared living area, a kitchen and one or more bedrooms – these are generally shared by more than one generation. More affluent urban homes consist of stand-alone houses, many built in a modernist or Spanish style and bordered by gardens and high walls.
The national life expectancy has reached an all-time high of 71 years – a vast improvement from 1960, when it stood at a meager 48. (As a comparison: life expectancy