Reflecting on Peru

Finally! I have completed this blog about my time in Peru with a Medical Mission team. It has taken time and it has been a great way of processing the time there and no doubt will continue to be as I read through it many times myself. It will also include another step of my journey, personally, as an RN volunteering with Medical Misison teams, as I travel to Tanzania in the Fall with another team. So, there will be much more to read! For now...if you want to start chronologically in Peru...go to the very first post and move on from there.

Coming home from Peru was much harder than I realized, in terms of the "re-entry" to North American culture. I was only gone 2 weeks but it is remarkable how two weeks in a developing country can impact you. I came home and just wanted to hide away and isolate myself for a time, in order to process all that I had seen and experienced. I felt exhausted, overwhelmed, deeply moved and profoundly grateful for the people we met and worked with in Peru.

You will read many times in this blog about the strike issues we ran into. The strike lifted shortly after we left, but did begin again and it has been a difficult time for the native peoples of Peru and their challenge to communicate and work with the government of Peru. The main issues are land issues...the government is selling off huge acreages of jungle land in the Amazon to developers for palm oil and other natural resources. This Amazon land is a land that the indigenous people of Peru have lived on and worked off of for their entire lives. The issues are land claims and they are environmental. Many of these people already don't have clean water...they survive off of the Amazon River and its tributaries. Although the water is filled with parasites and is dirty, it is their means to life...they clean, bathe, cook, drink and feed their animals from it. The increase in industry in the area is polluting this water and therefore causing harm to the people of the region. As trees are cleared, the vital aspect that the rain forest plays in our environmental livelihood is impacted and although we may not see that impact immediately, we will.

So the issues are complex. The people are filled with passionate concern. Yurimaguas is at the heart of much of the strike because it is a major river port, importing and exporting goods throughout South America and beyond. In some parts of Peru there has been violence and death as a result of the protests, but so far Yuri is safe from direct violence. The gasoline and fruits and vegetables though are scare and basic groceries have been a challenge for some time. I am grateful that we have communication with our friends in Yuri, via email, and so we are kept up to date on how they are doing.

People must be held responsible on both sides of the conflict...government and indigenous leaders. It seems to me, that the government is being a big bully, but that's my opinion. I understand the desire for progress, however, this should never be at the expense of your people...nor of the natural resources that a country is privileged to harbour.

So the stories unfold. I now feel a vested interest in Peru: friends are there and I will return again. So I will watch, not just with my mind, but with my heart, as news comes forth from this region. I enourage you to educate yourselves too...the news pieces can be hard to find, but they are there, particularly through the BBC.