Deodorants and Democracy - Peru Cleans Up
By Andres Tapia, Pacific News Service, April 10, 2001

Peruvians have completely rejected former president Alberto Fujimori -- only 3 of 120 seats went to members of the party he once led. But his legacy, though finally at odds with his behavior, has made life in the capital much sweeter. PNS commentator Andres Tapia grew up in Lima, Peru. He writes on Peruvian culture and politics, immigration and spirituality.

During a recent visit to Lima, I was struck by how clean and restored the capital looked -- better than any time since I grew up there.

Cleaning crews atop large water trucks hosed down the streets of middle-class Miraflores several times a week, ensuring that streets lined with trees and multicolored flowers looked festive in one of the world's driest deserts

Lima's traffic is chaotic, but driving has been made easier by the wholesale elimination of legendary potholes throughout the metropolis. Enough trash cans have materialized in various places to leave little excuse to litter.

Downtown Lima, after decades of neglect, has been restored under the current mayor to its original glory and is now a truly spectacular showcase of Spanish colonial architecture. The government palace, the Cathedral, and city hall look on majestically as horsedrawn carriages lazily circle the plaza depositing tourists at chic cafes.

Once pickpocket traps impregnated with the stench of urine, sidestreets now invite pedestrians to stroll from restored colonial Lima to a restored Chinatown sporting a fresh, clean look with its formerly rat-infested streets converted to a pedestrian mall.

Especially striking is that Lima has been maintained all this in the midst of a rough three-year-long recession that politicians could easily have used to justify cutting back on beautification.

This focus on cleanliness carries over into supermarkets that now resemble their most antiseptic counterparts in industrialized nations. Meat, seafood, and poultry are no longer displayed exposed and untreated, but come cut-up, shrink-wrapped in Styrofoam with tidy labels showing weight, price, and "sell by" date.

Even public bathrooms - legendary for their atrociousness - are consistently clean. And in the crowded public buses, body odors are now under control largely due to an explosion of deodorant brands.

This new order runs up and down the economic ladder. Middle class Miraflorinos take pride in the sprouting of American fast food outlets.

Indians in modern dress and mestizo families from the mountains stroll the pristine grounds of the new zoo - the Centro Ecologico de Huachipa - gawking at exotic wildlife from the Amazon jungle. Interspersed with the Andean music piped over the loudspeakers is a voice warning against climbing the fences or littering.

A clean zoo for the poor - unimaginable not long ago - is only one sign that a new order has taken hold in a culture that used to be proud of maverick ways.

Dealing with lines used to be a contact sport . Now there is a strong ethos of waiting one's turn (even a presidential candidate showing up at his precinct to vote was told to get back in line). Speeding with impunity seems to be a thing of the past on the Pan-American Highway south of Lima as patrolmen and women in shiny new Jeep Cherokees patrol every six miles.

Much of this change came about during the controversial Fujimori administration. In his first term, the self-proclaimed technocrat promised honesty, technology and work. His no-nonsense approach led to thousands of miles of new highways linking the remotest parts of the country, new school construction at the pace of a classroom a day, and a matter-of-fact crackdown on a nation of tax deadbeats.

Fujimori was a breath of fresh air in a climate suffocating in ideology and inaction.

All of which made his fall that much more tragic. The man who seemed to have risen above all the graft of previous governments, who defeated the two main guerrilla movements, and who brought inflation down from five digits to single digits, fell victim to the seduction of imperial power.

When the videos showing outright bribery came out, Peruvians found they could no longer stand the stench of corruption. After 20 years of uninterrupted democratic transfer of power life in Peru - not just politics - is getting cleaner all the time.

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