Patria

Today there was an article in El Diaro (a Bolivian newspaper from La Paz) about a movement to slow and eventually stop the importation of used clothing into Bolivia in order to support local garment industry. This has been one of the that get under my skin.
As I remember when I lived in Bolivia and when I visit, used foreign clothing is ubiquitous. There are Aymara and Quechua people high in the Altiplano surrounded by the Andes, living in mud houses and scratching a living from the arid earth that sport dusty suit jackets, dirty polo shirts, and other garments that confound me. How did they get a hold of that item, why are they wearing it?! I asked. The answer is simple an enterprising person in the US gathers up the tons of discarded clothing we produce and sends it down to South America for a tidy profit.
The clothes are cheap and carry a little of the city/American mystique with them. So people drape themselves in garbage.