Nuestra Navidad en la Selva (Jess)

In our most recent trip to the field, Andrew and I were charged with a daunting but ultimately really enjoyable task: making sure that the children in the villages we are working with all had a fun Christmas festival. Due to some miscommunications and funding that didn’t come through, PROCREL wasn’t able to give small presents to all of the children as had been hoped (there are 5 villages and some have up to 80 kids under age 10). Fortunately, there is a great Christmas tradition here called a “Chocolatada”, and fruit-cake-things called Panetónes and hot-chocolate had already been arranged for everyone in the villages (adults included!). So, Andrew and I set to work coming up with ways to cheaply supplement this (our team decided to pay with our own money) with activities that the kids could do before and after their cake. We combed the market district of Iquitos and came up with a dozen yo-yos, jump-ropes, and wind-up cars, and some colored pencils and stickers for prizes. Toy trucks, plastic tea-sets, and puzzles were donated by one of the team member’s wives, and our leader Didi bought an unbelievable amount of candy. We got some water balloons for games, and had fun at home practicing how we might fill them up when the only source of water was the river (we settled on Gatorade bottles with squirt tops) and experimenting with the volume and air/water composition for optimal pop-ability. I also couldn’t resist and bought a bunch of (semi)washable paints to use for finger-painting murals (which we discovered were also useful for making the apparently popular red Rudolph noses).

Armed with these supplies, Andrew’s experience as a summer-camp counselor, and my family traditions of silly games during holiday get-togethers, we put on a couple of chaotic but mostly-successful festivals (Aunt Juanita, I needed your bull-horn). One of my favorite moments was when, after a rocky and reluctant start, the children in San Antonio really got into the finger painting and we needed to bring out more paper and tables so that the mothers and older kids of the village could join in too. A couple of older grizzled men walked up because they were curious and I asked them if they would like to paint; one guy shyly said yes so I asked him what color paint he would like and he took the whole palette- Andrew walked by later and caught him painting red hearts. The water balloon games were a smash-hit; both for the on-lookers and for the kids. Another of my favorite moments was when we switched it up and had the Mamas (several of whom are our age) play a round of water-balloon toss to win prizes for the kids too young to compete. There were some spectacular splashes, much to the hooting delight of their kids and husbands. Passing the balloon down the line using only your chin got the most giggles. Three-legged racing relays were a bit too complicated, we never got around to playing red-rover, and occasionally a kid would get upset if he got stuck with a clumsy partner in the balloon toss, but overall I was amazed by how smoothly things went given my ability to give directions in Spanish. Mostly I think this was because we gave out lots of candy every time someone lost (and the winners got to choose a prize).

However, it made me wonder whether or not I would ever do well with the responsibility of having kids full-time because of the amount of time we spent wondering: What kind of prizes should we buy them? Plastic toy trucks? But they don’t have trucks here, and we don’t want to encourage them to move away to cities or promote oil exploitation. And what if someone strangles their self with a yo-yo string or chokes on a puzzle piece? And what about the kids who won’t win prizes- we don’t want them to fight or encourage them to think that plastic things will make them happier. And what do you do with the kids who want to play but they are too young and can’t follow directions and just stand in the way with their finger in their nose? And what about the candy- do we want to contribute to the sorry dental state of the village? Plus, every time they eat a piece of candy, even if you’ve given it to them for picking up trash after the event, they throw the wrapper on the ground. (One time, Didi had all the kids yell “I will not throw trash on the ground” repeatedly in order to get lollipops. In response to her next question, “And where will you put the trash instead?” the unwavering earnest yell was “In the river!” Yikes!) Teaching kids is a big job. As the day progressed and most of the adult population turned their attention to the village soccer tournament, we occupied the kids with gel pen “tattoos” of birds, butterflies, snakes and scorpions. Go to the video and picture links for some snippets from these events (including a look at Andrew as a tropical Santa Claus!).

Meanwhile, back in Iquitos, we are getting ready to have our first Christmas away from home (boooo). We have been pleased to discover that, thanks to new-fangled inventions like wireless internet and YouTube, we can watch favorite nostalgic holiday specials like Charlie Brown Christmas and Claymation Christmas Carols. I am also getting over my latest bout of stomach catastrophe, hopefully in time to have a tasty Christmas dinner with Sergio’s family (one of the guys on our team whose wife is said to be a terrific cook). Andrew is particularly excited about one of the presents we’ve decided to give ourselves this Christmas- a toaster oven- so now we might be able to do simple baking and make things like biscuits! We have borrowed a medium-sized potted plant from the courtyard at our apartment complex and covered it with blinking colored lights, flagging tape bows (thanks to Andrew’s mom), and some origami Moravian stars that Andrew found a website to refresh himself on how to make. It is actually very lovely- we might try to keep it as a permanent apartment fixture. We are planning to go to a 10 pm Christmas Eve service at one of the churches in town, and we are hoping to touch base via Skype with the family gatherings that we are missing.

Christmas in Iquitos is kind of an odd thing because, for one, it is the same temperature as it is the whole rest of the year- HOT! For two, there are no coniferous trees around here. Despite this, the city is covered in the same decorations that we have at home in the northern hemisphere- furry-coated Anglo-Saxon white-bearded Santas, snowflakes, plastic fir trees, and songs like Jingle Bells. It really makes no sense. Plus, there is the same prevailing “Buy Buy Buy!” message that we have in the states, which makes even less sense to me in light of the fact that many people here don’t exactly have tons of extra cash. Since it was probably pretty hot and non-coniferous in Jerusalem too, I am wondering where most of our traditional Christmas imagery comes from. It is very interesting to see what parts of our culture really take off in the more remote places in the world. On the other hand, I am a big fan of the Chocolatadas, and it will certainly be new to share a copoazu-flavored ice cream cone on Christmas day. We miss you guys, and we hope that everyone has a great holiday season!