On a recent trip to North Dakota, my service group and I were discussing beauty, and feeling at home in the wilderness. Surrounded by the stunning Badlands on all sides, feeling like the only small human beings in the vast expanse of everything wild, we were humbled. We were amazed. Our breath was constantly taken away and we were in awe of the world. Conversations about where we wanted to live 'when we grow up' came up often, as the theme of our trip was "belonging at home and in the wilderness". And through listening to other people's musings of their future dream places, I realized one thing, most all of them revolved around the beauty in the landscape. And most of all, that beauty was centered around wildness, around trees and lakes and oceans and waterfalls. People saw themselves living on the beach, living in a forest, living in the Badlands or in the mountains. And it felt so natural to picture ourselves outside, it is, after all, where we all came from. I do believe humans feel at home in the wilderness, how could we not? But to me, beauty is not only in the wild, and more than mountains or rivers or ocean, my landscape is my people.
During my last month in Peru (as I've mentioned a million times before) I stayed in Zapallal, a shanty town on the outside of Lima, for a couple of weeks. This was the best thing I have ever done in my life. Zapallal is, on paper, filthy. The streets are pure dust, with stray dogs roaming among the trash. It is located in the desert, but not the beautiful desert we like to picture, it is atop a big pile of dust and dirt. Dirt, dirt, dirt, everywhere. The people live in cardboard boxes, the children don't have shoes. It reeks of garbage and pollution. The sun literally never shines. Is grey, and depressing. No one would ever go there unless they had to.
Zapallal, Peru is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I was scared at first when I arrived, I felt out of place even more so than I always did in Peru. But the second day I was there, I climbed to the top of one of the dust hills with two local women, both missing most of their teeth and dressed in tattered clothing, one with a baby tied around her back. They laughed and smiled and talked to me without any judgment of my limited Spanish. They kissed me when they met me, and they meant it. We got to the top, and as we looked out at their town, I was overwhelmed with a certain sadness, I realized that it was no longer the dust and pollution that was making it hard to breathe, it was the crushing severity of their reality. I looked over at them, with a pity that I am now ashamed that I ever felt, and they smiled and said "Isn't it beautiful?" My life was changed.
Hay belleza en la pobreza. Hay belleza en las caras de mi gente, en los pies en el polvo, en las casitas de carton, en las colinas del desierto. Hay una belleza mas pura que cualquier bosque o lago del mundo. Y ese lugar siempre será mi hogar.
(There is beauty in poverty. There is beauty in the faces of my people, in the feet in the dust, in the cardboard houses, in the hills of the desert. There is a beauty more pure than in any forest or lake in the world. And that place will always be my home.)
An Italian woman came to Project Peru to do art education with the children, and made this awesome video. It is the voices of the children there whom I love so dearly describing their home. And in the end you can see Zapallal, the most beautiful place in the world.
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