I hardly ever hang around the financial area of Lima, a part of town that is usually filled with executives, bankers, business people and the like hustling about and lots of headquarters of national banks and big companies. Huge and imposing skyscrapers are not my kind of thing and neither is the huge expressway with vehicles rushing past 24 hours a day. Nevertheless, I have been going to this part of town to teach an English class at Banco Continental, where I happen to do my banking. As expected, the building is overpowering humongous and one could get completely lost if it weren't for the security guards' assistance. After walking down several hallways for about five minutes I have to turn in my ID, get a visitor badge and wait for the lift which takes a while given that there are hordes of people coming up and down all the time. There are four spacious lifts on each of the twenty-one floors but it still takes a while to get to where I need to go. Needless to say, the building is absolutely gorgeous inside. It is one of those places that makes you feel important. And teaching the employees is quite fun.

One of my other classes is at a company that supervises insurance companies. It's a much smaller place that looks like an old colonial house. There's a black gate outside and a guard always asks who I am and what I'm there for but he won't let me in. He goes inside the building, or house, and comes back 2 minutes later to open the gate for me. As soon as he does that, he asks to check my backpack and he also asks if I'm carrying a laptop. Once he's inspected my bag, I have to walk through a metal detector and get frisked by another guard. Once then I am allowed to go in but I have to turn my mobile off and give it to yet another guard who will put it away in a locker. I am then escorted to the conference room where I teach my class. It seriously feels like going to a prison to visit someone and it became even creepier when my student told me they have security cameras all over the place, including the conference room!!!!

It is quite interesting to see the different socio-economic classes here in Lima. This language school I work for mainly caters to professionals in really big and important companies and I can tell the students are not your typical working-class Peruvians. All of my students live in nice areas of town, they are independent and they drive nice cars. Not your average Peruvian. It just blows my mind to see the differences in social status, but there is something that simply annoys me and this is not in regards to my own students but to people in general.

That feeling of superiority people have. I was at the supermarket yesterday and this lady, who was clearly an upper-class lady, was acting all important towards the check-out girl. The tone of her voice and her whole demeanor was nothing but pedantic. Clearly she thought she was the best next thing and suddenly, she got out an American passport and ordered the check-out girl -- yes, she didn't ask, she ordered -- to put her passport number on the receipt for whatever reason. She walked off without so much as a thank-you and I had to laugh at the whole thing. I got this awkward yeah-this-happens-sometimes smile from the check-out person. Now a lot of this people have not always been upper class. Lots of them have worked hard to be where they are which is good, but why do they have to change? Even if they were born upper-class, why do they have to have this imposing I-am-so-bloody-important attitude and treat others like they are meant to serve them?

Oh, the mentality!