social-environmental context

These are still notes from my first day in Peru, but it is interesting and important to consider these issues in our own local contexts.

• Most countries along the equator have a tropical climate, but the Andes, Amazon jungle, and cold Humboldt current moderating the desert climate of Lima and much of the coast makes for incredibly diverse climates and environments. 
• 65% of the population of Peru lives in urban places, which requires more energy, has a more consumption-focused culture, becoming a "cancer for nature". Ack. Who said that? Why did I write that? That is really, really depressing. But if you think about how cities and suburbs sprawl out...
• Economy grows by selling natural resources.
• This brings me to the big reflection question for my week in Haiti, which I can't wait to tell you about: What is the value of soil?

• There are, in fact, laws about consulting with indigenous communities before granting extractive rights to international companies, but these are rarely, if ever, enforced. 
• Environmental standards are lowered in the name of commerce, to ensure that impact studies don't impede business.
• Two words: eminent domain. Ok, eight words. A government that often uses eminent domain irresponsibly.
• Peru has over 70% of tropical glaciers in the world; these melt into mountaintop lagoons that run down as a very important water source for most Peruvians.
• After Cairo, Egypt, Lima is the second biggest desert city.

Ok, so some of those are incredibly specific and local, but stop and consider some of these themes in your own region. What makes your environment vulnerable to climate change? Is it an economic issue (threatened resources and livelihoods) or a public health issue (extreme heat/cold, affected agricultural rhythms, reduced access to important resources like water)? How does the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Peru affect us, so far away? (Hint: it does, and not just because we feel sad about these struggles.)

So in the context of a place like rural Peru, or even in busy, bustling Lima, consider that people can't just turn up the A/C or the heat, and can't just go out and buy water if anything happens to the source. Same goes for many people and places in Haiti, both rural and urban. Many of these places still rely heavily on local food sources, too, which are also affected by changing climate and environmental problems.

And while we may not feel the effects of climate change and environmental injustice as strongly in the United States, it's here. New Jersey can be broken into 5 climate zones, moderated by the wee little mountains and the great big ocean, among other factors*. To me, Virginia is just a bigger, slightly warmer version of that environment. It also has 5 climate zones, which don't exactly parallel New Jersey's, but there are some similar environmental modifiers. Peru, just a little smaller than Alaska, has 28 climate zones. (You could fit almost 76 New Jerseys in the area of Alaska. Alaska has 4 climate zones.) Long story short, Peru has a lot of different things going on with its climate, which means if some of it is changing, then it's going to snowball and affect a lot of different systems all so close together. I do not mean to be ironic talking about snow when Huaytapallana glacier has lost over half of its mass in my lifetime.

All of these systems are connected. All of these systems affect each other. Air affects soil affects water and so on and on and on. We are all connected. Or, as this mural I found in Itta Bena, Mississippi reads, we're from the same soil.



Which brings me back to that same question... what is the value of soil?

*Northwest, northeast corridor, southwest, Pine Barrens, and coast. I hope somewhere, Dave the State Climatologist is very proud of me.

Joining Hands! pilgrimmage, prayer, reflection

That's the first thing I wrote in my Peru journal. I think that's how the trip was introduced to us when we woke up in Peru on Friday, December 5. December 4 felt like a lot of hurry up and wait, ordering an early cab to get to Richmond airport to make sure if anything went wrong I'd have time to call another one, sprinting across Atlanta airport to meet my team and make the connecting flight, sitting on said flight for seven hours...

But we made it. We began the week staying at San Jose de Cluny, a lovely convent near the ocean. I was thrilled to smell the salty air as we settled into our wonderfully small, simple rooms well after midnight. As soon as we left the airport, everything slowed down.

We started Friday morning reflecting on the following:

• ¿Qué pasa? What's happening?
• ¿Por qué pasa? Why is this happening?
• ¿Qué hacemos? What do we do? 

Even the short answers are convoluted. What is happening in Peru? Extractive industries and climate change are leading to all sorts of natural resource and agricultural problems, which certainly leads to conflict-- and this is hardly exclusive to Peru. Why is this happening? Well... greed. But demand comes from somewhere, doesn't it.

So what do we do?

You ask such good questions.

The week of witness in Peru certainly provided some ideas, compounded by the week in Haiti. The Joining Hands program is "committed to justice, restoration of the Earth and the abundant life promised by God for all people." We spent a lot of the first day setting the stage for the social and economic issues that would permeate the environmental conversation for the entire journey, from Lima to Huancayo to the mountain villages to Huaytapallana glacier and back. We definitely live in a broken world. So what do we do? I wish I had the answer. In the meantime, I will keep learning, keep trying, and keep inviting you along for the ride.

One thing I know for sure out of all of this: peace and environmental justice kind of need each other. It's so, so complicated but very important.

the greatest conversation in the world

I'm back from Haiti and can't wait to share photos, and tell you about all of the incredible moments from this trip and my trip to Peru in December, both of which were in support of the Joining Hands Network, part of the Presbyterian Hunger Program. I'm playing a lot of catch up with the rest of my life as I go through pictures and reread my journal, but I'm so excited and want to make sure these stories get shared. So here's an initial reflection--


We spent two of our days in Haiti in a mountain village called Dofine. When I say "mountain", I don't mean a highway to a higher altitude. I mean a difficult trip for our extraordinarily skilled drivers in Land Cruisers up and down and up and down and up and down and up steep, rocky trails. It took us a while to get there, but the visit was well worth it. We were welcomed with joy and love and lots of good food.

For lunch on Tuesday, I made an effort to sit with a table full of Haitians along with one of our translators, but as people got up to get different foods and drinks, they all left. A few youth and young adults took their places though. None of them spoke much English, and I had only learned how to greet people in Kreyol by that point, so we just kind of smiled awkwardly at each other and exchanged bon swa's, good afternoon's. They would say something short in Kreyol, and I would smile and shake my head, I didn't understand. I'd say something short in English, and get the same response.

Keheline, who I believe is 17, kept flashing me her beautiful smile. And I'd smile back. And after a while, we were just smiling back and forth and laughing with each other between bites of beans and rice and sips of lemonade. I finally got our driver/translator to come back over and ask her why she kept smiling, because I kind of thought the kids were making fun of me in Kreyol or something. Her response: every time she sees me smile, she smiles. Through the translator, she asked me the same question, and my answer was the same: I was smiling because she was smiling. We were literally just sitting there smiling at each other.

And that was our entire lunch conversation.

It makes me very happy to think about a world where that's the discussion we all have with people we don't understand, literally and figuratively. Thanks for the great conversation, Keheline. I'll do my best to keep it going everywhere I go.