Day 4: Black Market and Me
Being white, and thus in the majority ethnic group in the United States you are not really used to being the one who is different than everybody else. So when that moment comes it is rather striking: for the first time in your life, everyone is looking at you because you are different. Yesterday we went to Lima's black market for some shopping, and the way the Peruvians reacted when I walked past them, I almost felt like a walking circus act. Nearly every one stared. It's one of those feelings you will never really get at home, even a white person in a black or Latino neighborhood, or vice versa, does not match the level of curiosity that you encounter when you travel somewhere like Latin America (and I assume, Asia and Africa as well).
As far as the black market, it was rather nice seeing all these Robin Hood stall owners who sell pirated or counterfeit popular goods on an everyday basis and make a decent living off of it. "Adidas" jackets were about $8. Playstation 2 games for $2 apiece. Anything you could ever want, from shoes to electronics was in this market (it was really more of a mall than a market, it was covered and had 3 stories). On one hand, not many people, myself included, really enjoy the fact that US-European culture has so dominated countries as far away and culturally rich as Peru, but if the local shopkeeps can make a buck off of our cultural expansion, more power to them.
