Slaughterhouse5

I was scanning through some of the Slaughterhouse 5 blog responses and it sparked me to write the first piece of this, about the poverty I saw in Peru.  The technical assigned blog post is beneath that.  Feel free to comment.  

Valerie Newby

3/29/08

Peru Reflections:

word count: 1031

I went to Peru this summer. While I didn’t see violence there, I did see something else I also think we have been desensitized to. Poverty. And this poverty, it had a great affect even on the adults. I was on a church missions trip. They didn’t coddle us on where they took us. We were working in a garbage dumb. Technically on the outskirts of one, but we drove through parts of it to get to the site we worked at. One of my jobs for a few of the days was to carry dirt that we were moving so we could put in the foundations for a building. Except this was not just dirt, there was all sorts of trash mixed in. Depending on how deep whatever trench you were carrying dirt from was would have different types of trash, different amounts. We found dolls, pens, chip bags, clothing, even a dead dog. But what really affected the group was actually going out into the main part of the trash dump. The adults as well as the kids on the trip, pastor’s wife especially was one of those who was extremely affected. At the first garbage dump we went into she had to go back to the bus we came in because it affected her that much, she couldn’t stand out there watching us play soccer with a bunch of little children, in the middle of a garbage dump. I have played soccer in a garbage dump. Something else to understand about this is that the sewage system doesn’t handle toilet paper in the area of Peru we were in, so that is thrown away in the trash rather than flushed down the toilet.

This kind of poverty, it was hard to understand. Another job I spent a few days working on was building re-bar towers. They would each become a part of the foundations, something that would support the walls. Some of these towers we built with the 4 long metal poles laying lengthwise along the edge of a pool of water. We thought it was a well at first. But then as we spoke to the Peruvians, we discovered that that was really a water pit that was filled with water by a hose. The water that it was filled with came by truck every few days, or maybe it was once a week. I’m not sure. But that pit was filled with water that was then used to water plants and wash clothes. We had one member of our group who had the thought to ask to make sure they didn’t drink that water, because it was definitely not clean at all. We were relieved to discover that they did not use that water to drink. But that poverty. It was so hard. Those people live in little brick houses with dirt floors and no electricity. They work in the garbage dump to collect recyclable trash. And I don’t mean bottles and cans like we recycle in the United States, I mean they recycle cardboard. Cardboard and possibly some other things as well, I’m not sure. But some of these people, to see them when the garbage trucks came. They had these long poles that looked almost like a pick-axe to sort through the trash with.

I live in Troy, Michigan, I have all my life. I’ve never had the opportunity to see poverty like I did in Peru. And the kids of these people who work in the garbage dumps, if they can’t afford to go to school, they have to go to the dumps with their parents. Because the parents can’t leave them at home. So these kids grow up playing in garbage dumps until they are old enough to work in the dumps themselves. What we were doing was building a day care center where kids would be sponsored, paying for either schooling or tutoring (whichever they need), one good meal a day, clothing, and medical care. Just $32 a month gives them all that. The Peruvian people we worked with to make to foundations for this building, they were so happy we were there. These people understood what we were doing, and were happy to have our help. There were also a lot of kids there usually. They wanted to help too. The atmosphere was a nice cooperative working atmosphere. It was pretty amazing to be working with these people, regardless of our language barrier.

This is the kind of thing one can’t experience living in Troy, Michigan. I hadn’t really seen poverty living here. And yet, through all the poverty there, the people were happy. The contrast I found with the happy people in Peru, living in poverty, versus the people in America who complain about everything, even though they have food and clothing and a home and don’t have to work in garbage to get it. The difference is strange. How can those people be so happy, to work alongside us, the Americans who all have grand homes and money and clothes and food, yet they live with dirt floors and one outfit and work in a garbage dump. We pay people to clean our houses with Lysol, yet these people, they live happily with what they have. Why is the world like that? Why are we so ungrateful for what we have? Why must we believe that we need more? What is it about our society that causes us to have so much stuff? I came back from Peru and looked around my room. The amount of stuff I have in my room is astounding. The rooms I spent time in Peru had so little stuff. So few pieces of furniture. So little on the walls. I couldn’t count how many objects I have in my room, but in Peru, I’m sure they could. These people, born into poverty, who learn the trade, and then as they grow older, don’t think there is any better way. Don’t want to leave the life they have, because they made it. They made that life. Why is it all like that? How could they even stand to work with us?

Real Blog Response:

word count: 738

Is war inevitable? Well I don’t think so. But I’d also like to pose the question: Is poverty inevitable? Why does the world have these problems. We think nothing of sending some troops out there to kill thousands of people. Oh sure, the President has a hard decision in front of him every time he orders something major, but really, shouldn’t any order that leads to lose of life be major? Yet the leader of our nation is not in charge of that. Who is? I have no idea. I have no clue who orders the military of our nation out into the battlefields. Who creates those battlefields, wherever they may be? Why can’t we all learn to live with each other. Learn that we are all different, but can’t we agree to some basic rules of life in the world, and then just deal with everything else. Have some basic rules that all must follow, and then just leave everyone to whatever religion they want otherwise? Well, apparently that doesn’t work. But is it really inevitable that it all goes to war? What does war solve? Maybe it could prevent over-population on Earth, but are we to the point we need that yet? And really, what is democracy? We vote to pick one guy who is in charge of a lot. But do we control who is the leader of our military. Is it even our military? We really have no control over it. It is separate. The public has no choice in who rises to the ranks of general, of commander. How do we know that the guy making all the decisions has our best interests at heart? That he doesn’t just want war, because that’s his job. His job is to make war. So isn’t it better for him to tell the President, ‘Oh, Mr. President, we need to go to war against this nation.’ Because then he gets to use all those skills he has been trained with for all those years.

If to be “morally adult” means that we aren’t surprised by the horrors we create, then we all have that requirement checked off. I don’t think one can be really surprised to see the sorts of pictures that are here. One could be surprised at their presentation, but how can you go through seeing all the media, all the movies and stories and pictures and tragedies, and still not understand that that sort of stuff is out there? This world is no stranger to war. Neither are we. Even the youngest children in our society play video-games about killing. Killing is made to be fun for those video-games, but some games are entirely realistic. They are made to be as life-like as possible. How can you be surprised that this sort of stuff really exists in the world? Yes the pictures are moving, to see it laid out like that is meant to shock a person. But seriously, no matter where you live, you can see all the violence in the media everyday. We are desensitized to violence through all the simulated violence we see, all the real violence we see on the news. We see violence as common, normal even.

Billy’s reaction to the violence is not good to begin with. He wants to deny it. But through his experience with the Tralfamadorians teaches him that even war must be accepted as a part of life. Just focus on the good pieces of life, accept the others exist, but ignore them should you wish. Let them happen, but leave them alone. Don’t dwell on things that can’t be changed. The Tralfamadorians don’t feel powerless, though that would be an apt description of how they live. They act like they cannot change things. But it does not bother them, as the word “powerless” is usually used as something you wish you could control, but you can’t. Humans don’t like to feel powerless about anything. If they have to they accept it, but people are constantly rebelling, against authority or whoever. Because they won’t accept the way things are, because they don’t want to follow the rules, whatever. But back to Billy, did he really just accept war, as the Tralfamadorians taught? Perhaps not, because he wrote his novel anyway. Or really, the author wrote his novel anyway. He went back to Dresden and wrote the anti-war novel.

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