Summer in Peru - A Need for Change, Reflection and Volunteering

As I sit back in Sheffield procrastinating from a dissertation, it feels a good time to reflect upon the last couple of months. I've been privileged enough to spend much of it in Lobitos, Northern Peru. It is a vastly different place to back home in the UK (I'm not just talking about the weather - though that was a pleasant change), and having the experience to volunteer for a local NGO, EcoSwell, has illuminated a lot of things to me. 

In many ways, my time in Lobitos is the closest I've come (so far?) to living in a different country - even then six weeks is a drop in the ocean. It is a tendency of holidaymakers to romanticise life abroad because, well, usually you're there on holiday and any break from regular working life is welcome. It is invariably the same for me, as frequently I was surrounded by other Western volunteers, but Lobitos' remoteness made it feel more culturally immersive than other trips abroad.

First and foremost, it was striking to see the impacts of the climate on both the physical and day-to-day life in Lobitos. Many of the roads hardly even resembled roads, such is the ferocity of the rainy season. That ferocity creates other significant challenges for locals, as access to Talara, the nearest place to buy food and essentials, is often blocked by a flooding river (see the picture below). In preparation for the upcoming meteorological El Niño cycle, which causes uneven weather patterns, sandbags were needed to protect the EcoSwell house from damage. 

Lobitos’ isolation also means that supplies we take for granted in the Western world are scarcer and more difficult to access. Water resources are few and far between, so the use of a (properly maintained) dry toilet can help save water and cost arising from it. I used to be so naïvely dismissive of how individuals can help the environment, but over time the value of small changes like this can be so great. That is not to say the multinational companies and billionaires are absolved of any blame, they must still be held to account. But where the richest communities use the most resources, it is the smaller ones that bear the brunt, and seeing that first-hand hit home hard. 

The friendliness of a small community that lives there is also notably different to life back home, or at least mine. I recall COVID-19 lockdowns in the UK when, in the midst of so much despair, anguish and sadness, people smiled or said 'hi' to strangers on their singular form of exercise for the day. Yet now that culture seems to have evaporated, both physically and metaphorically. Maybe it is the rurality, care-free nature of a small town, but Lobitos highlighted that the opposite is possible to me. The smallest acts can have impacts farther than we can imagine, and channelling the innate kindness of humans is so vital.  

The third, and for me most heart-warming thing that I learned from this trip is the power of activism, and particularly volunteering. Volunteering is, in so many ways, a great and underappreciated thing. The focus is always on the impact you have, which is amazing, because you can help a cause you care about and more cynically gain some job experience. But I think that so much of the value comes from the people you meet. The volunteer experiences I've had over the last few years have, despite their varying levels of stress and commitment, changed my life. 

That is not an understatement. Finding people with shared ambitions, shared views of the world, shared interests has validated many thoughts, concerns or worries that I previously thought were more unique - and sometimes that was scarier. Paradoxically, the diverse nature of all these people has opened my mind to so many things I had not considered. Be it field of study or country of origin, I feel grateful to have learned a lot from people, recognising their expertise through their experiences and work, and sharing mine vice-versa. People make the world go round, so it is enriching to encounter so many more.

A lot of this feeds into wider development themes that have felt as prevalent to me even when coming back home (perhaps because an International Development dissertation occupies most of my time now). There is an element of Western paternalism that has been constantly debated in the field, that I feel still exists in our attitudes both home and abroad. Aid work is associated with so-called “developing countries”, a term mired in colonialism that ideates less-developed countries being supported to reach the goal of perfection that their Western/richer counterparts have. It is so important that places like Lobitos aren’t forgotten, given the increasing intensity of the climate crisis that, as previously mentioned, is disproportionately impacting those who harm it least.

It is also critical that we try to improve our own society, that is riddled with marginalisation of poor communities and authorities continually trying to resolve these with inexplicable solutions. The Tory government’s overtly xenophobic decision to put refugees on a barge backfired due to an outbreak of Legionella bacteria that led to the barge's evacuation. Notwithstanding the carelessness and negligence that comes with sending people on a highly-dangerous setting, it is another example of their downright disregard for minorities.

Since being home, I’ve been for the first time to Huddersfield, Bradford and Coventry to watch Middlesbrough attempt and fail to play football. The latter two had frequently been described to me as “****holes”, so I suppose I arrived with a degree of skepticism. I didn’t see any evidence of that itself, but the prevailing feature of both was their dominance of minority communities and that feels enough to understand why they have the label.

By no means does that suggest they don’t need support, far from it. But the fact is that this is the result of decades of government underfunding that has beset virtually everywhere north of the London-South East bubble. The aforementioned towns, and many others, have an abundance of culture that is frequently brought in and developed by immigrants. I only need to mention the Anglicised popularity of an Indian curry in the UK to show that. It’s quite hard to share the sense of national pride that so many Brits have when day in, day out, you see characterisations that demean the contribution minorities (including my own family) make. 

When the government is hellbent on making political images out of refugees to ensure the racist in lots of the country is pacified, it is hard to feel like this can ever be resolved. They would be better served developing communities - not the sham attempt that is Levelling Up - that are in dire need. They cut the Foreign Aid budget, perhaps because “we need to look after our own”, and then proceed to lead a country where parents are skipping meals to feed their kids. 

Perhaps the real message I’m trying to make here is that almost every part of the world has unique value, even if it’s not overly apparent to you or I. Both idyllic places like Lobitos and long-characterised poor communities like Bradford and Coventry have development needs which are affecting people as we speak. In the absence of competent government to do it, maybe it requires action ourselves - and there, there again shows the power of volunteering.