I have been in Peru for a substantial amount of time now and as the title suggest, it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Don’t get me wrong I definitely have enjoyed my time here because a lot of people have been very kind to me and there are a lot of beautiful places here. But I would be lying if I said I notice things that aren’t exactly to my liking.
The police are a problem. The police here are very abundant, but are very rarely doing things that people expect the police to do like they do back home. Normally you can see police about every five blocks or so but they are often reading the paper or talking to each other, or even napping, yes literally sleeping on the job. I have even seen them pull people over for nothing. When I went to Nazca with my friend and his host father we were pulled over for no reason, we weren’t speeding and we had our seatbelts on. My friends host dad proceeded to give the officer ten soles, which is not very much at all, but the officer said have a nice day and we drove off. My friend asked his host dad what just happened and it turns out that the police here don’t get paid well so they often pull people over to basically get tips. This also helps the corruption in the government.
The other major problem here is the trash. There is an incredible amount of poverty here and that leads to a lot of the sanitation problems. Often people don’t have regular trash pickup in the poorer areas and it leads to people just throwing their trash anywhere. Which that causes a lot of environmental problems and some people choose to burn their trash which leads to air pollution and burning trash is an awful smell. But there is hope to stop the corruption and the trash problem.
The police are a problem. The police here are very abundant, but are very rarely doing things that people expect the police to do like they do back home. Normally you can see police about every five blocks or so but they are often reading the paper or talking to each other, or even napping, yes literally sleeping on the job. I have even seen them pull people over for nothing. When I went to Nazca with my friend and his host father we were pulled over for no reason, we weren’t speeding and we had our seatbelts on. My friends host dad proceeded to give the officer ten soles, which is not very much at all, but the officer said have a nice day and we drove off. My friend asked his host dad what just happened and it turns out that the police here don’t get paid well so they often pull people over to basically get tips. This also helps the corruption in the government.
The other major problem here is the trash. There is an incredible amount of poverty here and that leads to a lot of the sanitation problems. Often people don’t have regular trash pickup in the poorer areas and it leads to people just throwing their trash anywhere. Which that causes a lot of environmental problems and some people choose to burn their trash which leads to air pollution and burning trash is an awful smell. But there is hope to stop the corruption and the trash problem.