Jungle Fervor

In leiu of a texty entry, here's a foto journal of our trip to Pacaya-Samiria (largest reserve in the country, located in the Amazon jungle) and Iquitos (largest city in the world with no road going to it).
Need I say the trip kicked ASS?

The boat leaving Yurimaguas, on our way to the nature reserve.

Pretty cramped quaters on the boat - just like the busses. In fact, the river boats are the exact equivalent of the busses: cramped, stuffed, and filled with every immaginable thing possible.

Jungle skies NEVER dissapoint!!!!

Yup...you just chill...for hours and hours.

Never dissapoint....

Our canoes that went into the jungle reserve. Little dugouts that wobbled all over the place.

Impeccable!

See the three-toed sloth?

Our first night. The forest is currently flooded (high water time), so some endangered river dolphins were playing right under the deck!

Our second night. We took a nice dip in the river. It was HOT and humid, and the river so so cool and silky. No, our guides assured us there was no danger. The water was this wierd red color from all of the dissolved organic matter. Jungle tea as I like to say!

Some worms our guides used to catch fish. We ate fresh fish from the river every day (just a little for me but it was delicious). They fried some of the worms for us. Crazy, but they tasted just like peanuts! And were really oily. It was like a burst of oil upon biting them, no crunch at all. But I didn't go back for seconds.

Going through the flooded forest.

Our guides cleaning some fish. See the pirana??

Out of the reserve and onto the larger river boat down the Amazon to Iquitos. This tiny canoe is loading up his stuff. The ride was 24 hours from the reserve to Iquitos. Nice, slow moving made for a very lazy vibe.

One of the many river towns they stopped at to load/unload.

Gotta stay fresh!!!

The front of our boat. Yes, there were about 50 cows. Poor things didn't have any food or water for over 40 hours. There were also hundreds of chickens in the back of the boat.

Spledourous.

Is the beauty making you cry yet? If not, you have a very cold heart.

Sob!

A shanty town on the banks of a tributary in Iquitos. The houses float and rise and fall with the river.

Yes, the latrine empties into the river.

Illegal turtle and non-illegal deer at the market. The market in Iquitos was the most interesting we've ever seen. There was everything, hallucinogens, exotic animal meat, hundreds of fruits...

On our way to a butterfly farm and animal rescue place in Iquitos.

The monkey (rescued and tame) reported no lice. Yay!

Top Three Shenanigans

Our Latest Top Three Things:

1. 300-pound doctor insists on borrowing Brian´s cheap-ass bike without functioning front brakes. He continually accelerates going down a big hill, all attempts at stopping in vain. Crashes, and has to be taken to Piura (5 hours by truck) to get stiches. (Side note: he is one of our favourite people here. Smiled the whole way down to Piura because he got free time off of work.)

2. One of the teachers asked us for final grades for our very informal non-consistent computer class with the elementary kids. So we made up a simple test. All of them failed. Hey - it´s not the teaching, they just don´t get much practice!! I swear!! So, we expressed our concerns to the teacher, not wanting any kids to get in trouble at home for flunking computers. We managed to change every kid´s grade to an A for good participation. How´s that for standardized assment, Colorado Department of Education!!!! In your face!

3. When someone dies in town, it´s a big deal. They officially mourn as a community for 9 days. It just so happend that at the time when 4 other volunteers came to visit us for training, a dearly loved woman from our community died (Brian and I had never met her). Well, it felt wierd anyway, running around town in a pack of oblivious gringoes while people were mourning. Even worse when, riding in a truck brimming full with us Americans, we came speeding into town almost running over the burial procession as it was headed to the cemetary. ¡Que vergüenza! How embarrassing! For some reason, our driver (Peruvian) made the procession back up so we could pass by!!! AND HONKED! Ahhhhhhh!! Being in the cab, I just burried my head in my arms. In the back of the truck, the other gringoes couldn´t do much of anything, save dissapear. Brian took is hat off. Others just shrunk in embarrassment. We´re lucky they love us here!

So...what are YOU doing??

Well, it doesn´t take too long to get back into the swing of things after a vacation…naps after lunch, porch-sitting, long walks and bike rides, rice with potatoes and noodles soup, oh...and....work.

Some Peace Corps trainees came to our site as part of their training. I think they were a little overwhelmed. We´re pretty far out there and lack many travel-friendly facilities (such as mold and spider-free rooms). As heath trainees, Brian packed their three-day schedule with lots of hard labor (making a new garden at the kindergarten – DIG minions!! -, working in our garden at the health center, teaching basketball to some kids in another village, climbing up to the town´s water reservoir, giving classes at the health center and high school, etc.) They were a bit whipped. You all know, it takes a lot o juice to roll with the B-Man!! But it was nice to see some people we could relate to, Peace Corps volunteers aren´t anything if not interesting conversationalists.

The garden is all cleaned up from the plague infestation and we´re planting anew. It´s a long growing season here, which is kind of cool after being accustomed to the tight squeeze of a Colorado growing season. We have some nice alfalfa plants, but the bean seeds we planted rotted before they managed to sprout. Did I mention that the rains are approaching a bit early? We get some wetness most days of the week in the afternoon; which is actually a blessing because we don´t have to haul bucket after bucket from the faucet to water the plants.

Brian´s putting a grant proposal together for an improved cooking stove/family garden project (95% of families here cook over an open fire indoors, and have no access to fresh produce) to be carried out in our second year. ****I know, can you believe it?!?!?!?!? We´re approaching the year mark at site!!!!!! Dec. 4th!!**** An improved cooking stove is made of adobe with a metal top and a chimney so that it conserves heat, cooks faster, uses less firewood and sends the smoke out of the house. He´s doing a good job of making sure that the employees at the Health Center take initiative on most of the work. They want to start with building the stoves at the local schools, as the moms take turns cooking snacks for the kids and it´s a good way to initiate interest with a lot of people. Eventually, they´re going to focus the project on 30 families within the district with children under 3 years of age.

Well, the latest accomplishment from yours truly, Mrs. Trash? I managed to get another hole dug!! Wooohooo!!!! This one´s up in Sicchez Pampa, a village 1.5 hours walking distance away on top of a ridge. We built the ¨sanitary landfill¨ at the local school. The community did a clean-up campaign and we inagurated the first trash thrown into it. It was very sentimental for moment for all. I think the guys were loving the hole because they were nice and toasty drunk by the end of a 6-hr digging session (who can blame them, it´s not what you´d choose to do on a Saturday afternoon). I was just happy to see a dad yell at his kid for throwing a cookie wrapper on the ground while standing next to a nice, big, shiny new trash hole.

Young and old alike partake in the insanely fun task of digging a trash hole.


There were more guys here at the beginning, the cañaso (sugar cane moonshine) picked them off one by one...

In the other village of Las Vegas (1 hour bike ride down the road), 8 families managed to construct their very own landfills and clean up their property. YAY! The local principal there is a natural visionary and very active within his community. He´s my lifeline there because he always follows up on all our trash related activities. (I know, why would we ever need follow up? You´d think trash is a riveting enough topic to get people jumping out of their pants. Hugh. Go figure.) It´s funny though, and a classic example of the debilitating habit of praternalism so common here: Once people saw 8 families recieve a food basket for completing their landfills on time (we had a contest), the rest of the town – although informed along with all the others about the contest that is now OVER – decided they too want make a landfill in their homes. But only if they get a food basket for it. ¨Why would I dig a hole for nothing??,¨ said one community member. After all of the education about the environmental and helth aspects of proper trash disposal! Tisk! Now they all want me to give them food baskets for making a trash hole. This is exactly why as a teacher I never gave out prizes for good behavior! Damn, why did I forget about that!?!? Intrinsic motivation? Nawwwww..... However, the principal assures me that the next time I go there, each of the 30+ families will have a landfill at their home. Basket or no basket. I will simply tell them that they were all adequately informed of the contest, that it is now over, but that taking care of our health and that of our environment is something that we have to do continually. We´ll see how many happy faces I see on that day.

Here in my village, my counterpart and I decied to ramp up our plan. By the end of my second year, we will have municipal compost production, a municipal recycling program, and 80% of the 150 families separating their trash in their homes. My method of attack is house visits. Relentless house visits. Not just in my village, but in Sicchez Pampa and Las Vegas too. Face-to-face follow up and monitoring. What the hell else do I have to do? In my village, we made some flyers and I recruited the local teachers, police officer, and justice of the peace to go house-to-house with me. I refuse to do anything alone. I truly think the harder part will be getting the municipality to naturalize this project into an ongoing activity. My counterpart is my only connection to the municipality. As of now, I´m not getting the institutional support that will be needed to upkeep a system like this. They mayor is too concerned, albeit prudently, about the organic coffee and sugar exporting expoilts. The environmental regent, who should be the backbone of this project, only shows up in town to collect his paycheck. No exaggeration. So my counterpart and I have a lot of digging and prodding to do on the governmental level to find the support we need to gel the whole thing together. Incidentally, Peru just created a new Ministry of the Environment. Good? I don´t know, the country is notorious for it´s viscous and complex beaurocratic soup. But if what they say is true, the ministry will soon be assessing fines on municipalities who do not have a waste management plan. As you can guess, I now hope to scare my municipality into working with me more intimately.

Magical Realism

It´s not a new term, in fact, it´s an entire genre of writing. But by the words you can guess what it means. The ever so perceptive people who created this way of ¨putting things¨ could not have explained Latin America, and my experience in Peru, better. Things are normal...but not really. Just a bit off...but normal. Unexplainable. A bit odd, if you look close enough; if you have a poetic eye.
Like people watering the sidewalk and dusting the plants. Or a bus driver yelling at you to hurry and get on, NOW, and starting to drive before your foot is on the step (you freaking out that you´ll miss the only bus for the day) so that he can roll 5 feet down the road and stop to eat for 20 minutes (GO! GO! GO!, vroom, screech, hisssssss.....) When asked when something is going to happen, a Peruian will always tell you right now (ahorita), or in English translation, anytime between 15 minutes and 15 hours. Peruvians live in the moment, know how to laugh, love to socialize, and are not in a hurry for anything. All this gives a somewhat unpredictable and flamboyant air to life here. Which, obviously, can cause extreme frustration for an North American who is trying to organize, plan, hold meetings, and do things now. No, I really mean now.
But then there´s the other side. Like how we are learning to calm down. How to truly be generous – with your time and your interest in others. How to not do something if we don´t want to.
So, all strengths have their weaknesses. If they tightened up a bit, they´d make a lot of progress and improvements in their lives. If we loosened up a bit, the whole process would be a lot more fun. And so, I invite all of you to come experience for yourself the very REAL magic that exists here.
(To my family: Our Cusco trip is a perfect example of Peruvian Magic Realism)

Side note to Dad: Brian and I walked a total of 8 miles round-trip to watch the Broncos vs. Patriots game at a friend´s house with DishTV. If they only knew the sacrifices of their fans, maybe they would have made it worthwhile! Damn!

Family Vacation Part 2

Part 2b: Sandoval Lake, Madre de Dios
A real journey through Peru is not complete without experiencing the insane amount of diversity that the counrty encompasses. It is the third most biologically diverse country in the world, and first in variety of birds, fish, butterflies, orchids, medicinal plants; and second in primates. For an area just three times the size of California, Peru supports 84 of the 107 life zones and 28 of the 32 climates. And I never really comprehended this magnificence until travelling to the jungle. I have seen the coast, the dry forests, the mountains, and the cloud forests, but this is only two-thirds of the story. It´s hard to believe that one can travel from a scorching dry desert, through humid cool forests, to alpine tundra and glaciers, and end up in the largest jungle in the world - all within less than 2 hours in an airplane.

Getting onto the canoe to go to our jungle lodge.

Coming into Sandoval Lake. It is technically an oxbow lake, for my geography inclined readers.

For Joanie, the jungle was a welcome relief from the chilly climate of Cusco. For all of us, it was like being a kid again, seeing creatures and environments for the very first time. Kristyn´s uncanny organizing skills (we think her next career should be in a travel agency) landed us in a drift-wood constructed logde on an oxbow lake in a national reserve. We had to take a boat, walk 2 miles, and then canoe across a lake to arrive (cool, hugh?!) The conservation group that owns the logde helped the local farmers convert from making their living by exploiting and destroying the forest to eco-tourism. It is a non-profit, 60% of the proceeds going to local families and 40% going to conservation. The cool thing about the lake is that we were able to see aquatic as well as terrestial species, taking canoe rides and hiking through the forest. We saw river otters, caimans (South American crocs), macaws, tarantulas, leaf-cutter ants, sloths, turtles, tree frogs, monkeys, snakes, and incredible sunsets on the lake.

Kristyn, I LOVE you!!

An evening Pisco Sour with my pops ;)

Our guide was a very conscious and spiritually-minded woman, and helped us to appreciate the jungle through her eyes. What I liked about her most is that she wasn´t ashamed to share her strong energetic connection with the forest. So many Americans would be afraid of seeming ¨cheesy¨ or ¨granola¨ as we closed our eyes in the forest to listen and feel. But the purity of her appreciation wiped away these silly inhibitions and freed us to see things through her perspective. Maybe that´s why it was such a powerful experience for us. Either way, this will not be the last time!
Upon the somewhat sad retreat back to our homes, we stayed in Lima for two nights to slowly adjust back to civilization. It was really hard to leave my family again, especially knowing how truly blessed we are to have such a close and special relationship with each other. With a heavy heart, I made the trek back to Sicchez. But don´t worry mom, within a week things settled and went back to normal, as I´m sure is the same with you guys.

Ahhhhhh...... Just immagine the feeling......

Paying respects to the Goddess tree of the jungle.

And CHEERS!!!