We are being invaded. Interspersed throughout the little country towns are open spaces that go unused except as a place to dump your garbage. It is very common to see dogs or vultures sifting through the mess, and when driving by it is best to hold your breath because some of the trash will inevitably be on fire and the smoke smells horrendous. About a week ago, there were suddenly large groups of people in these dumps, raking up the trash and tidying up in general. At first I thought it was just a project put on by the local government to clean up the area, but the next day the people were still there. Poles and sticks had been stuck in the ground throughout the area and tarps had been attached to some of them. The next day the sticks and tarps were a little more organized and began to resemble small shacks, like the kind kids would build in the backyard with whatever they could find in the garage. The fires from all the trash were still burning, and I honestly don’t know how anyone could stand to be around that smell for more than 5 seconds. But those people weren’t leaving. Today there are woven mats serving as roofs on many of the shacks, with people laying on tarps or sitting in chairs. It’s like a group of people decided it would be nice to have a massive camping trip in the garbage dump, but what is really going on is not nearly so frivolous. All of those people are squatters.
Land rights in Peru are a tricky thing. Most of the land that is being taken over probably belongs to someone, you see, but they may or may not be paid for the land that is being taken over. What happens is that a large group of people will decide to move all at once and take over a plot of land that hasn’t been used for awhile. They don’t ask permission, they just all show up one day and start building their homes. I find this to be a very indicative of cultural behavior here. It is a very passive aggressive way of handling the situation. There are times when the owner tries to reassert his claim on the land, usually by requesting that the squatters leave and at times, if that doesn’t work, bulldozing whatever has been built. It seems like an odd way for a town to be established, or at least a very unorganized method. It is also a good example of the group mentality that exists here. If it was only one family, it would not work. The one squatter would quickly pack up and go home at the first sign of trouble. But as a group they are incredibly hard to deter from their goal. And I hate to say it, but I can’t help but think that they are just perpetuating the amount of crime that happens here. They are technically stealing land, but people act like it is a normal thing. Just like when someone steals your cell phone, people shake their heads but in general consider it a normal part of life. They are not outraged like we are in the US.
It is also a good example of how informal the economy is here. There are no zoning laws to deal with, no sanitation laws to live up to, no leases to sign or legal documents to mess with. No government agencies are asked to interfere and no court dates are assigned to settle the matter. It is just the squatters and the landowners on a face off. The place I stayed during training was settled in the same way, and there are still conflicts about who owns what. By this point they have a house, electricity, running water, paved streets, even a park, but it still is not clear who actually owns the property this is all on. So it is interesting to see how the process begins, although I am a bit concerned about what will happen next. I mean, some of the squatters have taken over the neighboring town’s soccer field and I don’t think the people there will take kindly to the loss of their favorite Sunday activity.
I am also concerned about what this will do to the local job market. People already complain about the shortage of work, and I can’t see how increasing the demand for jobs will help anything. I would think that it would boost the local economy by providing more customers at the stores, more passengers for the taxis, more restaurant goers, etc, but that would mean assuming that the people moving in have money for those kinds of things and most of the time the people in these circumstances don’t have those kinds of resources. If they did, they would move into an already built building in town. They are not moving here because they have a job, they are moving here looking for work. No one would live under a tarp, breathing in possibly noxious fumes from burning garbage, if they had another option. Guess we’ll see how it goes.
