Show Me the Money

I have been told by more than one person that I left the country at a good time. Being relatively fresh out of college with next to no experince and the economy in a recession, I would agree with the aformentioned statement. Lucky for me, despite the subprime morgage collapse and oil at a 100 dollars a barrel, the US government continues to pay me my monthly stipen. However, because the dollar has depreciated, the governemnt is actually giving me more money. Instead of making a whopping $300 a month, I`m now wraking in close to $340. Now try not to be too jealous of my fat pay check, because the amount of Soles I recive is exactly the same. And now the money I was able to put away before I left the states, will be worth less because of the soaring inflation. Hopefully, by the time I return home in two years, the economy will be on the rebound and maybe someday I may actually be able to buy a house in California.

Yesterday I went to hear the nobel prize winning economist Joe Stiglitz speak at a fancy country club in Lima. He was a very charasmatic speaker and it was a real pleasure to hear what he had to say. His talk focused mainly on the economic situation in America, how we got into this mess and his views on how we could get it out. I could talk for hours about what he said, but I`ll skip the summary completely. I`ll just say it was very refreshing to listen to a US economic strategy that had no political or personal motive behind it, and I completely agreed with everything that he said. Something really interesting about his speech was that it was given to an audience that was overwhelmingly Peruvian, yet he only brushed over Peru`s economic situation. I went with a friend from Mexico who had Stiglitz as a professor in Colombia. Her take on his speech is that it was a kind of cookie cutter speech that he could give in any number of developing countries. Another thing that stuck out to me about the event was that half of the audience were wearing headphones and recieving a simulatneous translation. I`ve never seen this live but it blew my mind to think about how hard it would be to be the translator. Put that at the top of the list of jobs I would never be able to do!

Then today I was reading one of my Newsweeks and there was an article on hip hop culture and the Euro. One of raps most recognized characteristics is it`s flaunting of money and "bling". Now, because of the weak US dollar, raps most notable artists are showing off and singing about Euros instead of dollars. When Nobel Prize winning economists and Jay-Z are on the same page, it`s a good sign the rest of America needs to get on board.

On a completely unrealated note, one of my hosts moms daughter had a baby yesterday. So today the newborn was over and everyone was so busy with the baby that nobody was paying attention to the two 1 1/2 years olds running around and destroying the house. I had been undecided until that moment as to what I would be doing for Christmas. I felt a responsibility to spend it with my host family. But after realizing that that would mean spending a day 20 family members who don`t care about me and think of me more as a burden than anything else, I`ve decided I will be spending the holiday with people I actually care about. I still don`t have a definite plan, but I feel really content knowing I won`t be miserable and feel alone in a sea of chaos.