Studentcolumn: No road sweepers
Gilbert Klumpenaar, third-year student International Business and Languages at the faculty of Economics and Management in Arnhem, does his traineeship at a big international agrarian company in Lima, Peru.
Uncommon jobs
In the stream of strong economical growth markets as China, India and Brazil, also Peru tries to follow up. But if you look at this country’s facilities only, you’ll see it is still far behind. It can be noticed by the street scenes in Peru as well: the government creates many jobs which aren’t very common in Europe. These jobs are mainly there to offer the people social security. They won’t get rich of those jobs, but they will at least have some income.
Police officers versus traffic lights
The street views in Peru show many differences. There are traffic lights like we have, but they don’t work during rush hours. Police officers regulate the heavy traffic on each important and busy crossing. Therefore there are incredibly many police officers, in Lima only, a city with approximately nine million inhabitants.
Respect for the cleaners
Furthermore, the city needs cleaning. In Europe, we bring road sweepers into action but the streets in Peru are still cleaned by human muscle hands. Every morning when I walk to my job, I see a lot of people armed with a broom and a wheelie bin walking to the district they have to clean. These people are easily recognized by their overall which carries the name of the district and their protective mask. These masks are very important because the people often have to clean the motorway and many cars here aren’t environment-friendly. The cleaners work six days a week, and live for their job. The most important districts of Lima are thus very clean. Not afraid of anything, they mark out their area and start to clean. I would think twice about it as long as traffic here plays fast and loose with eh… everything….Respect!
