Building a Happy City

by Kayla Polley (New Zealand)

Making a local connection Peru

Mud and clay are the backbone for Cuzco’s run-down housing of the poor. If it weren’t for the jubilant, lively people living within it, as it’s steadfast pillars, the whole city would collapse. In Cuzco Peru, the hierarchical set up is different to that of my home country of New Zealand. In New Zealand, the wealthy usually want views of the landscape, so they buy expensive properties up in the hills if available. Cuzco however, as one giant basin, houses all the wealthier citizens of its 1 million populous in the flat of the basin, and the poor are subsequently squashed into the shacks on the hills. My 15-year-old self, sat in a van with the rest of my Spanish class, exuberated by the turbulence and unprecedented danger of ascending what was barely a road, winding up to the top of the basin to volunteer at a primary school. To help visualise what the shacks were like lining the road and cluttered on the hills, picture a kindergarten child’s made up ‘house’ of playdough. Throw in a few bricks and corrugated iron slabs for roofs and it will be remarkably similar. But now stack four on top of each other, with stair cases 10 inches wide with no railing joining them all together. It was a sickening juxtaposition to where we had just come from; a magnificent and sturdy church in the flat inner city (Plaza de Armas) with walls of gold. The primary school was beyond the slanting hills in the Andean highlands. The first day, the altitude sickness hit me hard and the most I remember is giving the 5-year-old class my pencil sharpener, as they had been using knives instead. It was the second visit where my connection with the beautiful, lively kids of Cuzco went beyond the level of gift-giving. We took bountiful fruit to share at lunch time. To put into perspective of how cheap the fruit was in Cuzco, I was able to buy a whole bag of passionfruit for $4 NZD, while in New Zealand passionfruit is $18-$28 a kg. Coming from a country where you are brought up with fruit in your lunch box, and where free apples are given out in classrooms, I made the naïve mistake of thinking fruit was a universally abundant and available item. More so here, considering it was so cheap. But we learnt that in Cuzco, all that grows in their soil is potatoes (3500 different types!!!) and quinoa. After handing out the apples and oranges, I saw a little boy, Jose, put the orange I handed him into his bag. In broken Spanish, I told him it was to eat now. “Ahora, comes ahora.” But Jose saw life differently to my first world attuned eyes. He told me that he had 5 siblings at home and they had never eaten an orange before, so he wanted to share it with them all. The fact they hadn’t tried oranges before was shocking enough, but the young boys’ simple words held a deeper meaning. He was only 7 years old, and yet held so much compassion, that his desire to taste a luxury item that he had never had and keep it for himself, was conquered by his empathy for his siblings. I snuck him 3 oranges. The local’s continuous smiles and their happiness that radiated from them constantly, despite their poor and devastating conditions, could be argued to be down to ignorance; they don’t know any better. If they can’t afford to fly, then they don’t know where those planes go, and therefore don’t know what else is out there. If you can’t compare yourself to those living in wealthier cities, life would seem pretty good. However, I believe it is deeper than that. Richness in happiness comes from having a good heart. That little boy could have eaten the orange himself, as many would, leading to instant but fleeting happiness. Instead, in his heart he knew his siblings would be grateful for it, and their happiness would make him even happier. A richer happiness. What a beautiful thing, to be rich in happiness. Oh how rich that boy must be.