Chica y America

Ok so first a few random thoughts about Peru
-when someone wants to ask you if you will share something with them they say invitame which i like cuz it sounds like invite me which is a lot better than hey gimme soma that
-the United States of America is not the only America and I can say I'm American but so is everyone in South AMERICA  so I have to specify that I am from the USA or as they say it here, oosuh.
-those speed bumps that are everywhere, sometimes they just paint the ground to look like a speedbump to make people slow down which is pretty clever and cost effective of Peru so they get points for that (I laugh when a driver gets mad cuz they fool them!)
-I dont know if I have mentioned Chicha Morada yet but its like water here, like they drink it like water but it is made from corn and some other stuff and it tastes like koolaid so I like it but it's like the go to drink here besides Inca Cola.
-Speaking of corn, they have their own type of corn bread here which of course is different but it reminded me of home

ok so now I'm going to talk about the culture of Peru a little bit regarding housekeepers/maids/chicas. Now I know that my opinion is going to differ from peoples obviously and I am in no way criticizing how things are done here I am just expressing my point of view. So in Lima specifically apparently it is very very common to have a girl working in your house doing work like cooking and cleaning and house work type things, and when I arrived in Peru my family had one of these. Her name was Chio and she had been with my family for three years so she knew how things worked and she kind of helped me around. But one day I woke up and she was gone, which now thinking of it they had told me she would be leaving when I first arrived but not being that great with my Spanish yet I didn't fully understand. Anyway she apparently fell in love and went off to be with him and live her life which is all fine and dandy but that left us without a chica in the house for a while so my mom did the work she usually did. Today, however, we went to the airport to pick up a 18 year old girl from a far away city in Peru for her to be the new chica. Her name is Charo and she is literally about 4 and maybe a half feet tall and I just can't help but feel so horribly bad for her. Before we went to the airport to pick her up my mom was talking to me and I think she could tell I was a bit wary about the whole situation because she kept trying to explain to me that this is good for her and that now she would have a good life and she can provide for her family back in her city now but still I can't quite get used to it. The whole car ride back she just kept saying si senora and my mom kept listing off all the things she would have to do daily and I just couldn't believe it. I mean when you look at it I suppose this is an ok life for her, my mom bought her new clothes and shoes and her plane ticket was paid for to get her here and my mom told me that she is getting paid pretty well- twice what she would get working in her old city. But even if this is a good life for her it's just so incredibly sad to me that she had to leave her home so young and go to a far away city with a strange family she doesn't know and now has to work in order for her family back home to have a better life. Something my friend told me though that actually made me feel better was to think about what she would be doing if she didn't have this job. It makes me sad but I guess that's just how things work here and I'mm obviously going to have to get used to it because this is where I'm living and I came here to learn about Peruvian culture and this is what it is. No one is right, no one is wrong, but it's all very different.