Barter was the way trade worked since prehistoric times, long before the invention of money.
This makes this issue perceived as a thing of the past.However, it is something that has a lot of relevance in the present and will probably also have relevance in the future.
The importance of this issue lies in the fact that it allows us to access a set of valuable things without having to think about the money we need to pay the bill.
Isn't this something crucial today, in a world plagued by inflation and economic crises?
Now, the main reason why barter fell into disuse was due to the difficulty of ensuring that those who seek what one has, have what they are looking for.
A problem that can now be solved thanks to the platforms and apps of the 21st century, which bring together millions of people willing to make exchanges easily in one place.
Thanks to this, our family is exchanging lodging and food for teaching English with foreign native speakers.
They offer their work for free in exchange for traveling and having life experiences in different places around the world.
Volunteering as a Tool for Homeschooling
A very important aspect in our transition project has been the change in the way in which our children and we (mom and dad) have been educating ourselves.
The year 2017 was the last year in which the (by then) little ones were enrolled in a school.Then, since 2018, they moved to what is known as homeschool.
Although this change has many aspects, what I want to highlight on this occasion is how, for our family, education stopped being a paid service and became a free one, thanks to a group of individuals who volunteer their services.
Those involved in our homeschooling, in addition to my wife and me, have been people who, for one reason or another, share their knowledge with anyone interested.
Within this group, there are many individuals who offer their classes in various fields of scientific knowledge (mathematics, chemistry, history, etc.) online.
However, we only barter with those who work in person, which is the case with international volunteers who help us specifically with learning English.
These volunteers come from other latitudes (covering all their travel expenses themselves) to live with us for a short period of time.In this way, they teach their native language while having a cultural experience at our side.
The world of volunteering and volunteering in the world
Before continuing, it would be worth knowing what volunteering is, how it works and what its main characteristics are.
As its name indicates, it is the work that someone does voluntarily, without receiving any financial remuneration for the help provided to a person, family or local community.
Although we choose to rely on international volunteers to supplement English learning, they dedicate their time, skills and energy to contribute to a wide variety of causes.
Indeed, volunteers are willing to perform various types of tasks, not only in the field of language teaching or education in general but also in health, social assistance, household chores, farming, or environmental work, among others.
The above does not mean that a person will do everything at the same time in one stay (if you got your hopes up for a moment, keep in mind that slavery is not allowed), but that those are some of the areas of work in whichHelp is usually requested.
Now, it is precisely the versatility of volunteering that facilitates barter and contributes to the improvement of the living conditions of many people and their environments around the world.
The above makes this practice a task of great importance to find other ways to relate to others in the midst of a world in which everything is bought and sold.
But (there always seems to be a "but"), you might be wondering, how many people out there are doing this sort of thing? "Probably very few, just a handful," you might think...
According to the "World Volunteering Report 2022" from the United Nations Volunteers program, there are more than 1 billion people worldwide engaged in some form of formal and informal volunteering.
Bartering in practice, our experience
In 2022 we decided to create an account on workaway.info, through which we began to have contact with volunteers who identified with our life project and were encouraged to contact us to offer their collaboration.
The exchange scheme is simple: food and lodging are offered in exchange for volunteer work.
The host defines the specific type of help required and the amount of work (in daily hours, Monday through Friday) expected.
It's important to note that the host should not demand more than five hours per day. It's crucial to keep in mind that volunteering is not an opportunity to exploit unsuspecting individuals.
Regarding free time, the volunteer can choose how to take advantage of it, whether resting, sightseeing or sharing with the hosts in their daily activities.Which is one of the aspects that motivate foreigners to visit.
The majority of volunteers are young people, interested in discovering other ways of living life, different from those they already know in their place of origin.Hence they feel attracted to things that we consider the most “normal.”
To date, we have hosted three volunteers, two from the United States and one from the United Kingdom, two women and one man.
Overall, all of them turned out to be very kind, respectful, and eager to achieve the intended goal, for which we defined a stay of no more than 15 days, although it could have been longer if we had wanted.
Although it was not easy to make the decision to open the doors of our home to complete strangers, there are mechanisms to manage the fear that this entails.
On one hand, various volunteering platforms have reviews that allow hosts to learn about the previous experiences of other hosts with a particular person, which provides insight into the candidate's background.
There is also the option of hosting the volunteer in a different space from where the children sleep (in a nearby house, for example), to feel more at ease with the safety of the minors.
Once these fears are overcome, one starts to relax and connect with the newcomer, and after a few days, it becomes a social relationship that flows naturally.
Although we tried to communicate in English with the volunteers all the time, there were moments when situations led us to speak in Spanish.
Out of the three people we hosted, two had a good level of Spanish, and one did not speak it.
This could be good news for some hosts interested in having volunteers but with a limited proficiency in English. There are many volunteers from English-speaking countries who speak our language.
Regarding the development of volunteering, from the first experience (in 2022) we decided to involve other children from the village.We considered it a good opportunity to share with others the opportunity we were giving our children.
We initially expected to have a group of 6 participants at most, but after spreading the word, we ended up with 16 involved, aged between 10 and 15 years old, with a very basic level of the language. All of them were our neighbors' children.
We carried out the activities in a community hall and in a local school very close to our homes, which originally belonged to a foundation and later came under the administration of the Silvania Municipality.
For the second experience (in 2023), we try to take advantage of all the learnings from the first season and improve some aspects.
One of the improvements was the constitution of a group of mothers and fathers from four families who were actively involved in the entire management of the program.Thanks to this, everything became easier and the experience of each of the participants and the volunteer improved a lot.
In general terms, the focus of the English program we designed in the first and second years was not primarily on traditional classes but rather on a practical approach (learning by doing). This included many games, activities, and conversations. The kids enjoyed it a lot.
If you'd like to take a look at the audiovisual record of these experiences, you can visit: https://www.facebook.com/silvaniabilingue
The Impact of Barter on a Large Scale
Beyond the particular benefit that we have received with these experiences, when the focus is broadened, the significance of barter at a socioeconomic level is understood.
As mentioned earlier, the number of volunteers worldwide is substantial, representing a considerable workforce. Thanks to this, a different economy based on gifting or barter comes to life.
This contrasts with the functioning of the capitalist market, where the ultimate goal of every economic transaction is ultimately capital accumulation.
Despite this, it is possible to find other ways to satisfy our needs for goods and services, which requires going beyond the typical mechanism of buying and selling.
There is the transition, in opening new spaces in our daily lives to introduce other ways of making transactions or exchanges.
It is worth clarifying that this does not mean the total suppression of capitalism, but rather the slow erosion of its great influence.What is possible thanks to the inclusion of other ways of giving and receiving in our daily lives.
It is about moving from a single economy (in which capitalism dominates) to an economy in which there are many economies: the economy of gifts, that of barter, that of social currencies, that of time banks, etc.
Two geographers and economists known under the pseudonym J.K.Gibson-Graham called this new reality "diverse economies."
Thanks to this shift in paradigm, aspects like competition, accumulation, and closed systems can be partially displaced by cooperation, circulation, and openness.
The result: greater circulation of goods and services, which in turn generates a reduction in inequalities and exclusion.
Isn't this a way to make the world a better place?
Comments