Playground? Wheelchair Friendliness in Peru

There are no real reliable numbers of how many Peruvians are “disabled”, but it has been estimated at 13% of the population, about 3 million people. There are no estimates of the percent of disabled people in the Peruvian Amazon or Andean regions, which kind of speaks to the problem we face in Cusco. Maybe we are spoiled in America with the Americans with Disabilities Act, but Cusco is the least wheelchair friendly place I’ve ever been. I can’t imagine having to get around on wheels! There’s stairs at every turn, and there are ramps from the street to the sidewalk but not regularly and they’re pretty steep if you ask me. Disabled children are oftentimes excluded from the education system, and in a major (really major) company, only .0006% of their employees were disabled. There are laws protecting the disabled, but it seems, like many regulations in Peru, they’re not really taken seriously. The disability law was only approved about 5 months ago. What does it entail? Here’s some of the big points:

"-People with disabilities are entitled to integral rehabilitation in their community 
  -People with disabilities have the right to inclusive education
  -5% of labour force in the public sector and 3% in the private sector should be persons with disability
  -Any vacancy left by a person with disability need to be covered by another person with a disability
  -All transport units have the obligation to be accessible
  -In congressional elections, political parties, electoral alliances and independent movements, have to include at  least   10% of persons with disabilities
  -In developing its Participatory Budget, the Regional and Local Governments need to prioritise projects and initiatives presented by persons with disabilities” 

(sources: http://www.cbm.org/Peruvian-Congress-approves-disability-law-372083.php, http://www.ideanet.org/content.cfm?id=5b5c7e)

How much of this will really happen and be enforced? Only time will tell, but my bet is not much. The point is, its already difficult being disabled, how much more difficult can we make it by making everything an uphill battle?

Sweet playground

Onto lighter things. Today we went out to the playground! Its actually a pretty nice playground (old, but nicer than a lot of Chicago parks), but not the most wheelchair friendly, which is what prompted my accessibility rant. For the most part, the kids can’t walk, they need to be carried (or at least held up). I wheeled Flor outside and scooped her out of her chair…little girl is heavier than she looks! We walked around, and she was just on cloud nine. She can move her legs, and makes walking and jumping motions but she can’t actually support herself. We walked and jumped around until my arms were about to fall off. We sat down and I pretended to be sleeping and she poked me in the eyeballs until I got up (typical Flor). We played for maybe half an hour more, and then I finally convinced her to go inside because all her friends were going in.

Florcita and I 

Later in the day, some strange people wearing orange shirts came to play with the kids. I think they were part of some church organization because there was a man with a bible in a suit boppin around. One of the strange ladies told me that Johan cries in the night if he doesn’t eat a lot of food, and I was like okay strange lady go away. The strange volunteers seemed like they were in high school. One of them was named Besatra (I had her write it down for me) and she wanted to help feed one of the kids. Poor girl had no idea what she was

Jhon David, the baby Besatra was trying to feed.
Doesn't he look sweet when he's not screaming?

getting herself into, she looked like she was about to cry. She was trying to feed one of the babies, and he was just spitting everything out. The strange lady that yelled at me about Johan was yelling at her too! This poor girl can’t be expected to force feed this baby, she’s probably only like 13! I didn’t like that old lady. Luckily, she never came back.

Unrelated note: A cab in Cusco is 3 soles, unless its late at night in which case it can be 4 or 5. A cab to the clinic costs 3, but for some reason on the way back its always 4. What a rip-off.