Since landing in Quito this past Thursday, I have seen my first glimpses of Latin America, where third world country and developing world actually mean something and poverty manifests itself in diverse and scary ways.

I have never been to the developing world and that is why Quito has shocked me so much. The only thing I can compare it to is the area of Philly that the Amtrak Northeasterner runs through on the way to DC. Decrepit, dirty, glued-together looking houses with garbage in backyards and trash littered in the grass and the sidewalks. Except this time there are people sitting in the grass, mothers nursing their babies, beggars kneeling with hands outstretched, people in suits mixed with people in dirt-caked rags.

I have been trying to understand how people rectify what they see in the streets with their own comfortable existences and one thing I’ve been hearing is “pero no se muere de hambre” or, “but they don’t die of hunger.” Then again others have told me people do indeed die of hunger. The upper middle class recognizes they are living in the third world and that the majority of the country is poor and in need of something important. But I guess that’s just the way society has come to be accepted.

Still, though, it will take me awhile to get used to the dirty children running around trying to clean shoes, old people with all sorts of deformities sitting in the middle of the street, stray dogs running everywhere and policemen at each bus stop. Many Americans, but certainly not all (ever seen any of Jacob Holdt’s photos?), live so completely abstracted from the base level of existence. Many of us don’t worry about needing food, shelter, clothes, clean water, taking public transportation, walking alone at night, getting into taxis… here in Quito and in many other parts of the world, they do.

The most glaring contrast I have noticed is between the makeup of the population and the different billboard advertisements in Quito. Every single ad, I kid you not, has some white, blonde, blue-eyed model smiling with her whiter than white teeth advertising something, be it Western or non-Western. It is so prevalent to the point of absurdity. Aside from us students, I have seen like 2 people that are white with blonde hair. And they probably dyed it. What impact does such a disparity between real and ideal have on Ecuadorian society? Not like this is unique to Ecuador; we didn’t have African Americans in ads and on TV shows in anything more than token roles until more recently than we’d like to think.

I am unsure how the rest of my time in the city will unfold; how familiar I will become with it. I don’t have the ease of the German train system, the flexibility of a bike in France, nor the peace of mind I am accustomed to when traveling. At this time in Strasbourg, I was running around the city, map in one hand camera in the other, trying to explore every nook and cranny for myself. Well Becky, you’re not in Strasbourg anymore.