New Photos!!!

There are new photos from our last day in Iquitos and our travels to Huaraz and Arequipa posted in the top 2 flickr sites to the right ==>

Huaraz and Huayhuash (Andrew)

Well, we're out of the jungle and exploring the heights of Peru. First up was Huaraz, a mountain town that has been inhabited for at least 12,000 years, in a long valley dominated by the ice-capped Cordillera Blanca. We got there from Lima traveling by bus several hundred kilometers up the coast (through a seeming wasteland of overcast sand dunes punctuated by occasional small towns and irrigated crop fields), then turning east and going up a steep river valley. The valley was much more interesting than the coast, especially since the irrigated part between the river and road was lush and green, while on the other side of the road it was utterly rocky and barren. Eventually we also saw giant squares of corn and peppers laid out to dry in a mozaic of reds, purples, and oranges. We were shooting to get into Huaraz two days before a nation-wide strike, in order to give ourselves an excuse to acclimatatize to Huaraz's 3000 meter elevation without feeling bad for not immediately getting out into the nearby parks. As the bus got closer to town, there were already a few fires smoldering in the road and big logs ready to block it off entirely. But after some deft manuevering by our driver we arrived in Huaraz, worn out and frustrated from the terrible, violent movies shown on the bus all day.

At the recommendation of our friend Matt, we stayed at a beautiful little place called Albergue Churup and met up with him for dinner. It turned out that there was also a regional agrarian strike the next day, followed by the national workers' strike the next, so we had little choice but to stay in the city and explore areas within a safe distance of the hotel. There was lots of graffiti both supporting and condemning the strike, and apparently (judging by the graffiti dates), similar events had happened in April, May and June. It's hard to tell if they are making any progress with their demands. One of our friends joked that this is because Peruvians only strike until lunch time and then they go home and rest. That's not entirely true, but it does seem like they could be more effective with a little more organization.

Huaraz is surrounded by beautiful mountains and has some nice churches and a stream running through the city, but it is also dry, dusty, and many of the buildings have rebar spikes extending up from each corner, as if the owners are all hoping to throw on new additions as soon as they can. However, the dogs all look a lot healthier than those in Iquitos (maybe the cold naturally selects against mange and hairlessness?) and the cars are a lot quieter than mototaxis.

The day after the strike we took a one day "warm-up" hike to Huascaran National Park and the Cordillera Blanca to see some waterfalls, birds, and to get our mountain legs. The early morning taxi took us up steeply from the river valley to the tiny settlement of Honcopampa and along the way we saw men and women in traditional Andean clothing hand weaving wool (sheep or llama?), hoeing plots of land, and herding animals. At the beginning of our hike (the taxi just dropped us in a field and a couple of school girls from the nearby village pointed towards a valley and said "go that way") we were interested to see some plant -covered rock structures, which turned out to have been built before the Inkas arrived (no one we talked to knew what the structures were or who built them but Matt later told us they're probably Huacas 0r burial mounds).

The day hike went well and that afternoon we prepared for a longer hike in the Cordillera Huayhuash, to the south of Huaraz. Leaving the next morning at 5am while nervously keeping an eye on our backpacks, an extra tent, 3 folding seats, and a box full of food, we successfully navigated crowded bus rides to the small town of Chiquian and then on to the smaller town of Llamac. Arriving in Llamac we met our mule driver Elmer and his 2 mules, named Zorro and....Zorro. (Zorro means fox or possum, depending on what part of Peru you're from). The bigger on was white and got a larger load, so I felt some affinity, while the smaller one was gray and had a "J" stamped on it's nose, so Jess got attached to it. However, her's was a boy donkey so she called it "Joselito". It didn't take long walking up the mountain road before we appreciated not having to carry more than a daypack. We tried talking to Elmer some, but he was very reserved, so Jess decided her mission for the trip would be to make him laugh.

We spent the whole first day on the road, initially following a narrow river valley with rock-walled gardens, which widened as we got higher and turned into grassland full of sheep, cows, and horses. There were lots of small corrals built of stone, incorporating into their shapes the largest boulders that couldn't be moved. Every structure in these mountains is made of stone, as there is obviously no shortage of it crumbling off the mountains. And as the Japanese mining company in the valley has discovered, there is also plenty of copper. Unfortunately, this means they are contaminating the local river, but don't worry, they've built immense new irrigation systems to make up for it (which I'm sure will never stop working, especially with the frequent earthquakes...)

Jess and I fell farther and farther behind Elmer, as we were looking at birds and scenerey and generally walking slowly. We eventually spotted him a mile ahead on the road, and caught up in time to set up the tents (our two-person tent and a large cooking/mule driver sleeping tent) in a sheep and cow pasture just before it started raining. Jess then realized that over half of our eggs had been cracked by the bouncing of the burros, so we salvaged what we could for dinner. Elmer (who usually goes with groups that also have a guide and a cook) appeared to be a bit worried about his meal prospects over the next few days and offered to carry the eggs himself- by hand, in a plastic bag. We let him.

The next morning we found ice frozen to the tents and had to wait for the sun to make its way into the valley to melt it off. Meanwhile the burros, which had been tied for the night, took off down the road (twice) to try to get back to their homes so Elmer was kept busy re-collecting them. The hike that day took us off the road and up the steep Rondoy pass (4750 meters high), where we stopped for lunch and Elmer told us stories of mountain climbing accidents and plane crashes. Jess did not appreciate these. Heading down we passed one *bright* blue lake at the foot of the glaciered peaks called Solteracocha (lake of the single lady), and then went farther down the valley alongside another large lake called Jahuacocha (lake of the ... jahua). We admired the coots, ducks, grebes, and herons on and around the lake, but the pasture camping spot at the end was crowded with gringo hikers, mules, and old Andean ladies trying to sell us Cervezas or Coca Cola so we decided to move the next day.

We didn't have anything planned for the next day, so we moved camp up between the two lakes and then climbed up to Solteracocha to try our hands at fishing. Elmer was not very interested in sharing the rod he had put together (we don't think he gets to fish much on his own or with bigger groups) and then it started to hail, so Jess and I headed back down towards camp. The weather cleared up though, so we rented a fishing rod from the lady in a nearby hut (after refusing the Cerveza and CocaCola) and tried our luck on the beautiful clear stream between the lakes. I got a couple little trout interested in our bread bait, but none big enough to keep. Fortunately Elmer's worms were good enough to bring in 5- six inchers (!!), which we fried up with tomatoes and lime for dinner. (Not too much meat- really only worth it for the story.)

The next morning Jess and I made the tactical decision not to climb up into a nearby valley (my left achilles tendon had started hurting the day before), so the three of us went fishing again for the morning. Jess amused Elmer by jumping in the Frigid stream to go after a snagged fishhook, but still no laughs. In the afternoon we worked our way down the valley (and got to see another massive irrigation project built by the mine), before camping just over another pass (4300 meters high). We had an enjoyable final evening, with a huge dinner of soup, pasta, and hot cocoa, and some good conversations with Elmer, who was starting to talk more about his life in Mahuay. Jess even finally got him to laugh (with a stupid potty-humor joke)! The view from our campsite that night looked a little like some from the Blue Ridge Parkway, so we started thinking about getting home soon. Also, while Elmer was out tending the donkeys, an Andean Fox tried to come in the cook tent and help us finish dinner. Alas it was only noodles.

The next morning we headed down the steep slope to Llamac, grateful that we weren't going in the opposite direction, and arrived with plenty of time to catch the buses back to Chiquian and Huaraz. After a hot shower and steak dinner in Huaraz we were somewhat recovered, although still pretty wipe from our relatively short hike (this altitude thing is no joke!). Now we're off for Arequipa by way of Lima. Keep your fingers crossed for better movies on the bus!!

Last Weeks in Iquitos and Moving On (Andrew)

After getting back from our last trip to San Antonio and Atalaya, we launched into our last 2 weeks in Iquiotos with all the frantic energy, strategic planning, and stress brought on by a swiftly approaching deadline. We gave the voluteers from the program we were helping organize a little time off, before dragging them to the office to talk about their experiences living in communities for 2 months, figure out the details of their independent projects for the next 2 months, order their food and supplies for the field, and (most importantly for us) clean up and difçgitally store the information from their interviews in the communities. This last step ended up taking longer than expected, both from database technical difficulties and the sheer amount of data, so we found ourselves staying later and later each evening.


In addition to overseeing the data entry and answering questions (while struggling to keep them focused), Jess and I each had our own projecs to wrap up. Jess´s spare moments were consumed with writing up a plan (in Spanish) to modify the interview system we sent the volunteers with into a shortened, dividable form that would be easier both for future voluteers to carry out in 2 months and for the PROCREL feild team to piece together during short trips to other communities. I was usually found converting the volunteers´ hand-drawn resource use maps to digital forms, and overlaying their GPS points and written information on top of it for PROCREL to use in their master planning.


On the second-to-last Saturday we had a small going-away lunch at our friends Sergio and Maghali´s house. It was a nice way to share anticuchos, presents, and silly Long-family "tail" races before most of the team headed out for a long trip to the field. We worked increasingly frantically over the last week, eating delicious lunches prepared by the wonderful Elsa in the office kitchen, and tking over vacant computers for the volunteers. In the blank spaces between tasks, Jess and I took ourselves out for juice and cake breaks and delivered the furniture and cooking equipment from our apartment that we had silent-auctioned off. After work we packed up our other things and realized that they had been reproducing on their own when we weren´t looking. Our bags packed to the brim, we had to send a box by mail to meet us in Lima (the mail gets out of Iquitos a lot faster than it comes in- the box arrived before we sent the Fulbright commission an email to let them know it was on its way!)


After a sleepless Friday night, we "finished" our work (or at least got it to a place where we felt we could leave it) late Saturday. At that point we were ready for a good night of sleep, but we were convinced by our friends Pam and Cesar to go out to some of the bars and dance clubs that we had successfully avoided to that point. After several never-ending pitchers of less than stellar "jungle drinks" and an only slightly better drag show, we staggered home for a few hours sleep and a miserable-feeling morning finishing the packing. We did have a nice late lunc with Pam and Cesar befoire checking out of the apartment, taking some last-minute photos and making our last trip to the Iquitos airport. It was a little heart-wrenching to pass by familiar places for the last time, but we´ve promised ourselves that we´ll come back. This was a little surprising for me, because, as I told Jess, there were some points in the trip where I was pretty sure I wouldn´t be sad to go.


Pam and Cesar saw us off at the airport and as we waited in the departure lounge teh sun went down over the palm trees and rusted hulks of old planes along the runway. A fresh group got off our plane as it arrived, and we smiled t the gringos taking pictures of themselves and then we listened patiently to American high schoolers talking about the wonders of playing soccer and seeing monkeys during their week-long trip to an area we worked in.


We passed through our comfortable stand-by hostel in Lima before dropping off half our stuff at the Fulbright Commission and catching a bus to Huaraz, where we find ourselves now. It feels like we´ve just finished a long 2 weeks of final exams and are settling in for a cold Christmas break. Except it´s early July. There are ice-capped peaks to the east of us and we are using ALL of our warm-weather clothing. We´re going to spend a couple days adjusting to the altitude, catching up with a fellow Fulbrighter doing research here, and getting our gear in order before heading out to the mountians for some backpacking.


In some ways it´s a difficult transition. Even though we had several weeks winding down, it felt like we left abruptly and just as we were really getting involved in the meat of our work. It´s hard not to judge everything in these new cities against Iquitos (it really is a completely different culture here) or compare ourselves to the multitudes of gringo backpackers passing through, but we´re going to make the most of our last weeks in Peru and take it all in. We´re really looking forward to getting back to see family and enjoy the end of the tomato season. For those of you who haven´t heard, we both got jobs in the Asheville/Hendersonville area, Jess with the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy and me with the Nature Conservancy, which we´ll be starting after Labor Day.

Tarapoto and Nuevo Loreto (Andrew)

Last week we took our first “business trip” in Peru that didn’t start out on a boat. We, with our friend Pam, headed to the Iquitos airport on Friday. Due to a lucky twist of timing, we had the experience of seeing what happens when one of the famous soccer teams from Lima comes to play a rare game in Iquitos. We passed the crowd circling one of the plazas, but they caught up with us at the airport with horns honking, giant flags waving and bells ringing. It looked like this game was going to be much more exciting than the international match we saw. The security guards, however, didn’t look nearly as excited.

We arrived in Tarapoto in the dark just as the rain was hitting, and after launching ourselves into the pickup truck sent to pick us up at the airport, we arrived at our hostel, La Patarashca. It continued to rain hard the first night, so it wasn’t until the second night that we discovered that we were across the street from Tarapoto’s loudest bar. But there was a great little courtyard with rainforest plants and a leaf-thatched roof over a patio which was great for catching up on some of our work. There were also a couple parrots that started chatting at 6 in the morning, but we liked everything else so much (including the price) that we stayed through the weekend and into the week. We tried to visit a nearby waterfall on Sunday, which is often listed as one of the most interesting things to do around Tarapoto. Unfortunately, we got halfway there to discover that President Alan Garcia was visiting so they had blocked the road.

The purpose of our trip was to meet with an organization called the Centro de Conservación, Investigación, y Manejo de Areas Naturales (CIMA) which administers the Parque Nacional Cordillera Azul. The park itself spans the border of 4 Peruvian departments. CIMA works with 89 communities around the park to determine the amount of their resource use and implement monitoring and control for the park. Since PROCREL wants to do similar things, we wanted to talk with some of their staff and join them on a trip to a community where they are implementing a newer version of the social survey we used for a model when developing one for PROCREL.

We left in the wee hours of Thursday morning, throwing our stuff in the back of a Toyota 4WD pickup truck and cramming ourselves in the backseat. We met our equivalent in the CIMA organization, a guy from Spain now studying in New Zealand, who is here doing graduate research for a few months. The first part of the journey turned out to be the most dangerous, as we passed through an area where the road had been cut out of the cliffs and several couch-sized boulders had found their way onto the asphalt. The asphalt eventually ended, and the next hour took us over bone-jarring stretch of gravel roads until we reached a tiny town on the edge of a river. We were supposed to pick up two more team members, but they took one look at all the people in our vehicle and decided to go on their own with a motorbike. After fording the river, the road turned to clay, and even though it hadn’t rained for nearly a week, parts of it were still pretty muddy and rutted out. We were grateful for the abilities of both our truck and the driver. But even they couldn’t get us through our next obstacle- two log trucks and a giant bulldozer/monster-machine blocking the path (see videos). And that was before they dropped another tree across the road! Eventually, the monster hauled up the lost cargo, pulled out the trucks, and pushed the new tree out of the way so we were only stuck for an hour and half or so.

The town of Nuevo Loreto is reminiscent of our home communities in a few ways (houses clustered around soccer fields, lots of kids and chickens), but very different in most others (mountains looming all around, new crops, roads instead of rivers). The community was bigger, and had several sawmills working around the clock to produce furniture and better-constructed houses. The people were friendly, although like any new community we go into for the first time, it’s hard to connect with anyone outside our group of visitors. When the sun was out, tarps covered with cacao and rice would mysteriously appear in spots between buildings to dry out the harvest. Little kids led horses around and there were a few more pigs tied up in backyards. Once again we slept on a porch, although with a tent this time, but instead of music going until late in the evening, it started at 3:30am and went until dawn. Between that and the wall clock which played a song at the top of every hour, I was not a happy camper. The actual social inventory started the next day at the school, which was empty because the kids were celebrating “Flag Day”- which celebrates a noble (ie pointless) sacrifice of a Peruvian flag-bearer in the war against Chile. The inventory dialogues involved representatives from several neighboring communities and went for the full day and most of the next morning. We learned a lot from the process and got interesting ideas for new activities, although we came away with the feeling that the methodology we came up with is better suited for the circumstances of our organization.

We returned in the truck to Tarapoto without too much more excitement (only 1 bag fell off). When we stumbled into the hotel with sore lower halves and dusty bags, the uniformed attendants looked a little surprised. The last day in the city passed uneventfully as we recovered and waited until our late evening departure (we had built in some extra time in case of road delays). This time, there was no direct flight, so we spent the few hours of our layover on the couch graciously offered to us by Pam’s Aunt in Lima and arrived back in Iquitos at 7 the next morning. It was a fun trip, but we're glad to be back home for our last 3 weeks as we wrap things up.

Addendum to "Why Some Peruvians have Strange Opinions about Gringos" (Andrew)

On our trip to Tarapoto, we met another interesting “gringo” from the U.S. He told us that he had come to Peru for three reasons: “1. For Adventure, 2. To build a church, 3. To find a wife”.
Me: “How’s that going?”
Strange Gringo: “Pretty good, but the women are really aggressive here”
My guess is, that if you show up announcing that you’re from the US and are here explicitly to find a good wife (and a long-term meaningful relationship???...), you will probably attract a certain subset of the population. Good luck, strange gringo man, whoever you are.

A bit of an update (Jess)

We realized that we have still posted more from our two-month trip in Patagonia than our 8 months here. That is partly because it's easy to stop writing about things once they seem normal and our life here in Iquitos seems full and busy and, well, normal now. Nevertheless, it might make more sense for you guys reading back at home if we filled out the picture a little bit with the less flashy parts of what we're doing these days (i.e. not just the trips out to the villages).

A lot of our time recently has been devoted to working with our friend Pam organizing a volunteer program for PROCREL where recent graduates from environmental programs at the university here in Iquitos get placed in the communities around our proposed conservation areas for 4-month stints. The idea is that they will get important experience working on conservation initiatives in the field and interacting with rural communities (a TOTALLY different world than the city of Iquitos that many Iquiteños don’t actually have much exposure to) and they will help strengthen PROCREL’s relationship with those buffer communities while learning about the communities’ needs and activities. This last part has been Andrew and my pet project since Christmas, though it has evolved a lot since then. We are trying to adapt and design a plan for gathering and storing information about what forest resources people use, what areas are economically or culturally important, what are people’s perceptions about their quality of life, where their income comes from, how they feel and what they know about “conservation”, what they consider to be the strengths and weaknesses of their communities, and a whole range of other themes. This kind of information will be important for PROCREL and any other organizations working in the area in the future as they try to make a master plan for how the conservation area will be zoned, what sorts of programs will be developed, what their priorities should be, and how they can include local people in the protection of the area’s resources. This has been fun and challenging since Andrew and I don’t have any anthropological training, only have a few months’ experience in the area, and have less than perfect Spanish. However, we’ve been able to explore the ways that other conservation organizations have approached the problem and have received generous help from people working on social assessments in Parque Nacional Cordillera Azul (we get to go visit and watch them in action next week!).
We are using focus groups, household surveys, interactive maps, and various other exercises to get villagers talking about these things, and the volunteers are documenting all their responses in this first pilot round to test out how well the questions Andrew and I have written and chosen work. Meanwhile we are trying to make a database where we can put all the information that they are gathering, and we’re also going out to check on them periodically to make sure that everything is going alright. Hopefully, when we end our time with PROCREL in early July, we will leave them with an accessible database, a field-tested set of tools, and an adaptable methodology that they can use for doing the social assessments in the rest of the buffer-zone communities. I have heard that some communities are just about sick of being socially assessed because every organization that comes to work in them does their own version and then they don't share the information with the other organizations, so we are trying to be sensitive to this and not re-invent the wheel and use any available information already collected and make our data accessible to others, but we are kind of new to this, so hopefully we won't make too many unfixable mistakes.

Getting this ball rolling, keeping up with the logistics of having six volunteers currently in the field, and lending a hand with the projects of other PROCREL staff members has led to some long days in the office recently. Weeks when we are teaching English classes at night are even busier (classes have been fun recently- we showed an episode of Planet Earth to an appreciative audience of biologist students and talked about the English "nature words" that are used in it.) Then there is also the time spent looking for and applying to and worrying about jobs and other opportunities for when we return home not too long from now. Fortunately for my stress level, there is an AWESOME juice stand on the way home where we stop for fresh delicious juice (I prefer cocona, maracuya, and sometimes uva, Andrew’s favorite is toronja) which comes in a plastic bag with a straw if you get it “to go”, and a giant piece of warm pound-cake. This costs 1$ for everything. I will miss it terribly when we leave.

Why Some Peruvians have Strange Opinions of Gringos

Here are two examples from recent weeks that have shed some light on the way light-skinned foreigners are perceived and treated here in Loreto.

On our last trip on the Rio Nanay, we came around a bend to see a canoe full of water with a man and a woman holding on to the side (There is a picture on the second of the 3 Flickr website links to the right). We pulled alongside and bailed out the canoe, helped the people on board our boat, and retrieved as much of their floating cargo as we could (lots of limes). The mother was hysterical until we found their young daughter hanging on to a tree on the side of the river upstream. It turned out that a large passing boat (which we could still see going around the next bend as we arrived) had swamped them with its passing wave. They had lost their peque-peque motor (costs several hundred soles) and most of the cargo they were traveling to Iquitos with to sell, and they probably would have lost the canoe if we hadn’t arrived. They were several days from home and had now lost their income and their transportation.

We hailed some kids passing by in a canoe and paid them with soda and crackers to tow the bailed out canoe to their community nearby to be retrieved later. We then took the family and caught up with the offending large boat which had not stopped or slowed down (Also a picture on Flickr). Jess and I realized as we pulled up that there was a big red cross on the side and the words “Chosen Vessel.” When we pulled up alongside (they refused to stop), we could clearly see white people inside the cabin. We assume that these people were either missionaries or on some sort of religious tour. Either way, they were very reluctant to deal with our group and didn’t want to take any responsibility for the damage caused by their waves. Eventually the family just got off our boat and forced their way onto the “Chosen Vessel” with their stuff and we drove away, leaving them to negotiate some sort of compromise, but we felt quite embarrassed for the behavior of our fellow Americans.

The second story comes from within the city. There is a construction going up on the water just outside the La Pascana hostel, where we spent our first couple weeks in Iquitos. Our friend Nick (a fellow Fulbrighter) is visiting this week and we were walking along the waterfront boulevard when we stopped to look at the construction. We noticed a sign on the front that had a website address so we decided to check it out when we got back to the apartment. It turns out that this is a project to build a giant Egyptian-modeled floating pyramid. There are lots of pictures on the website, as well as a seemingly stream-of-consciousness description. Our favorite section is this one:

“I believe that Ayahuasca sets up a channel between ourselves and higher intelligences so I do not claim the architectural creativity is mine - I consider the project a blueprint from the Gods, or certainly higher alien intelligence. I have no architectural or engineering training or experience. Often I'd take some Ayahuasca and ask it questions like how do I join this piece of wood to this piece of wood? The Ayahuasca always provided the answers.”

May be the Indiana Jones movie wasn’t too far off with its aliens and pyramids in the Amazon. After he builds the pyramid, this guy intends to float it to the far side of the river (if he can finish in 2 weeks before the river drops!), anchor it, and turn it into a meditation/spirituality/ayahuasca retreat complex. With coffee, a gym, and wireless internet of course. There is a British Flag on top of the structure, so it doesn’t seem to be an American production.

Nick noticed the same thing we’ve seen with Iquitos tourists- there are two distinct crowds. One is the older, wealthier travels, here for an ecotour in the “Jungle”. The other is the young, dreadlocked ayahuasca crowd, usually as part of the next step in their experimental drug use. Out on the river, you’re more likely to run into a missionary or a businessman. So people tend to be confused when we introduce ourselves as interns with a Peruvian governmental organization.

Indiana Jones... in the Amazon! (-Andrew)

I can remember three times when I’ve gone to a movie where the audience interacted personally with what was happening on the screen (laughing doesn't count).

The first was in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” when the theater was full of Asian Americans who provided running commentary throughout the movie.

The second was watching “Bend it Like Beckham” in Chapel Hill, where the whole theater booed when the main characters decided to go to our women’s soccer rivals, UC- Santa Clara.

The third was last night in the Iquitos movie theater, watching “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”. I’ll try not to spoil the plot for all of you who didn’t run out and see it, but I will tell you that the adventurers end up in Peru. There were some quiet murmurs as the screen showed the plane’s route to Cuzco (which made no sense as a destination), and then shouts out loud later in the movie as the plane went to Iquitos before the route went downriver towards Brazil. It was a fun feeling- it’s pretty clear that our little city doesn’t get a lot of coverage in popular media. Our neighbors from this motorcycle-packed city also showed enthusiasm for a couple of the early chase scenes.

I’ll let you all go see the movie before we try to talk about the historical, environmental, and logical fallacies of the story. But when you go, be sure to cheer for little Iquitos as it passes through the screen and encourage your friends NOT to come visit Peru this summer, as we’re now terrified that the tourist crush will be worse than ever when we try to travel in July.

Some Memorable and Favorite Moments from a recent trip to the Communities (-Jess)

When Mariela or Eblis Jr. or Jose would get in the hammock and snuggle with me, and show me Cat’s Cradle games, or play with my hair, or tell me stories about their day, or just wiggle around until they’d eventually fall asleep on me.

Watching Candy (an otherwise relaxed pup) romp around from one side of the trail to the other just like my dog Sassy when she gets to go for a walk in the woods when Freddie and his dad took us out to their chacra to show us all the things that they grow (yucca, corn, sugar cane, plants for fiber, strange fruits that I don’t remember the name of but were pretty tasty, medicinal plants, and lots of other stuff) and Freddie cut us some sugar cane while Eblis dug yucca. I am definitely going to have a garden if I ever end up owning any land.

Finding myself alone in the forest after the rest of the group had moved off to another part of the chambira plot, walking a row of marker-sticks and painting the tips red and listening to the quiet and the forest noises and feeling the changes in temperature as I moved under different kinds of trees.

Listening to happy squeals from ever-growing groups of kids as we’d pull out the next game or activity (Red Rover, Frisbee, making cards, doing origami, playing Crazy 8’s or Old Maid or Memory, singing silly songs, Andrew flinging them into the river almost as fast as they could rush back and climb up on him again). Spending the afternoons playing, and realizing that even when we go back home to the States, there will be a village out there in the Amazon where a generation of kids know our names.

Watching the silhouette of a rat tight-rope-walk on a clothes line directly above my mosquito net and hoping he would not fall.

Going out to cut and measure rows with Don Uber and Doña Emma and 40 or so other people and trying to figure out how to manage my 15-foot measuring stick in the undergrowth without whacking into trees or people while they highly entertained themselves teaching us naughty words in Iquito. Now, despite the fact that there are only 20 or so people left in the world that speak this almost extinct language, Andrew and I can now say moderately obscene things. (Isn't that always one of the first things you're taught when learning a new language?) They taught us some other useful stuff too; “I’m cold” is one of my favorites because it sounds something like “Keeshy-mooshy”.

Coming home from working in the community work day and being tired enough and comfortable enough to fall deeply asleep in the hammock on the porch in the early afternoon and waking up to see 5 other people asleep in hammocks on the porch with me.

Watching Angela’s family dye their chambira fibers: Freddy was sent to pick normal-looking leaves from their backyard, Eblis Jr. ground them into a pulp that turned bright red, Angela got the water boiling and Freddy added some salt, Mariela kept stealing spoonfuls of soup that had been moved aside to make room for the dye on the fire, little Jose walked around pointing up to indicate he'd heard an airplane pass overhead, Juan Carlos worked on a stitching a basket, Eblis Sr. cleaned and sorted his fishing gear for a trip up to the lake that afternoon, and Andrew and I watched wishing that we knew how to do things too.

Watching from the bridge as the tiniest little sliver of thumbnail moon set over palm trees and the river below, while a cool breeze was blowing and I could hear everyone greeting each other as they passed on their way home from playing soccer or talking with neighbors, while little candle lights started popping out of the deepening dusk to light thatched houses where families were gathering for the night.

Haikus for San Antonio (-Jess)

Andrew says I'll do anything to get out of writing a blog post. I have resorted to bad poetry. We've put up a bunch of pictures and videos from this past trip at the links on the right, and those will probably help fill out the story if these expertly penned Haikus leave something to be desired. :-)

Ode to My Hammock

Soft, swinging hammock
Fit me, 3 kids, a monkey,
Until someone peed.

Upon teaching a new game

30 jungle kids
Squealing during Red Rover-
“Send the big Gringo”

The worst part

Approached by drunk men,
Peaceful moment smashed- lost, and
nothing can be done?

Adapted Quote from Andrew W. Roe

“could this be heaven;
they treat us like we're special
but don’t expect much”

Philosophical moments in the Mosquito Net

Frisky rats tonight.
Lying awake I wonder
what will happen next.

Modern evangelism

New TV next door
Shows U.S. movies loudly
Now kids play war games

Family time after dinner in San Antonio

After dark we sit
talking, singing by candles.
I want life like this.

Thoughts on Culture

What does it mean when
a teenage boy is thrilled by
a coloring book?

Thoughts on Societies

When all that you have
is the Land and your neighbors
living gets more real.

Who is this Woman and Why should You Care? (by Andrew)

The lady in this picture is Marina Silva, until recently the head of Brazil’s environmental agency. The BBC and NPR reported last week that she had resigned from her post in protest of the government’s environmental policies. She has been the head of the agency since the government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (“Lula”) took office in 2003 and has been a staunch defender of the Amazon rainforest. Many people involved in environmental protection are saying that her resignation is a major setback for the rainforest in Brazil and that the country is losing the only voice in the government that spoke out for the environment.

Marina Silva grew up in a wood-plank house built on stilts (like the ones we stay in) without electricity, phones or health care in the Amazonian state of Acre. She never attended school and helped her father, a rubber tapper.In the mid-1970’s, the government land agency divided the land and gave small plots to rubber tappers, forcing her family to become subsistence farmers. As a girl she suffered from malaria (at least 5 times), hepatitis, and mercury poisoning. She was sent to the city of Rio Branco for treatment at age 14 and eventually moved into a convent, where she learned to read, write, and was influenced by the sense of social justice of the nuns. She became involved with organizing sit-ins on unclaimed land and articulating an agenda to “Save the Amazon”- providing security both for the forest and for the people who lived there and engaged in nondestructive economic activities. She won election to the state legislature in 1990 on a platform of advocating sustainable development, then the federal Senate in 1994. She was a national heroine and when she became Minister of the Environment after Lula won election, she was a symbol that anyone could achieve anything in Brazil.

However, it quickly became obvious that President Lula was more concerned with economic development than conservation or environmental protection, and Silva was often frustrated by more powerful ministries and didn’t get funding to enforce existing laws, much less implement new policies. In recent years she has been overruled in her opposition to genetically modified grains, the construction of a new nuclear power plant as well as several government infrastructure projects in the Amazon rainforest, including two big hydroelectric dams on the River Madeira, and a major new road. She was also believed to be dismayed at the recent appointment of another minister to act as a coordinator for the government's newly announced strategy for the Amazon. In January, the Brazilian government announced a huge rise in the rate of Amazon deforestation. Satellite imaging revealed that in the last five months of 2007, 3,235 sq km (1,250 sq miles) were lost., because rising commodity prices are encouraging farmers to clear more land to plant crops such as soya. Marina Silva has blamed the increasing deforestation across the Brazilian Amazon on cattle ranchers and farmers.

Meanwhile, a founder of Brazil's Green Party, Carlos Minc, has been named as the country's new environment minister from the state of Rio de Janeiro (not in the Amazon). However, senior officials in the government say they are determined to stick with the “Sustainable” Amazon Plan - based on large-scale development of roads, waterways and dams (the quotes are mine). The resignation of Mariana Silva is a very bad sign for environmental advocacy within Brazil and the development path it appears to be taking.

The area shown in squares below represents the 4.1 million square kilometers of the Brazilian Amazon and shows how much has been cleared or is at risk. Each square measures 2,500 square kilometers.

• Light brown is land cleared by deforestation 1970-2007
• Dark brown is land likely to be lost by deforestation and drought by 2030 (WWF 2007)
• Green is untouched forest
• (the black box shows the size of California)
  

Information Sources:
“The Last Forest” by Mark London and Brian Kelly (2007)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7399715.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7402254.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7206165.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7360258.stm

Check out the Latest Batch of Photos!

We've just returned from what might be our last extended trip to the villages and have put up a bunch of new pictures. We're still working on the videos and blog entry (stay tuned), but we wanted to let you know where to find the photos since we had to make yet another site for them. (We keep running into our quota.) The top link under "Pictures on Flickr" in the side bar to the right goes to the most recent pictures.

Graffiti Lessons

How can you learn about what real people are thinking when you visit a city and get shuttled from fancy hotel to meetings to resorts? Well, one way might be to read the writing on the wall. In this case, graffiti in the streets of Quito, Ecuador. Here are a few samples of public opinion:


Bush, Urribe, Assasins, Terrorists
(Urribe is the Columbian president and widely viewed as an American ally/pawn- You may remember, there was a little border dispute between Columbia and Ecuador recently)


With oil and copper, a poorer Ecuador
(Better in Spanish because it rhymes: Con petro y cobre, un Ecuador mas pobre)


For Sale: A country with a view of the Ocean


Do you sense a theme? We haven't seen the same sentiments expressed in Iquitos (although I did see one denouncing APEC- the Asian Pacific Economic Council- which met here earlier this year) but things seem to be a little tamer in general here.

You can’t spell Iquitos without Quito …and Is (Andrew)

At the end of March we went to Quito, Ecuador for a week so that Jess could make a presentation about the current state of her Fulbright project. We were both ready for a change of scenery, and took the opportunity to visit her host family from a previous study abroad experiece, the Mirandas, and see some of the historic downtown area. Quito is a long city that runs down the middle of a valley 9,300 feet above sea level. It was cold, cloudy, and rainy all week and we quickly realized how acclimatized we had become to the lowland rainforest. There were some giant cathedrals (the immense gold plating and paintings of sinners that covered the insides were a bit disturbing) built by the Spanish in the 16th century, or, as our devil-impersonating tour guide described it, old enough that “our grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmothers” attended mass there. Many of the downtown street vendors have been moved to market areas and major renovations projects are going on to make most of the areas we were taken to very clean and safe-feeling (although a bit sterile). A fancy dinner on one of the hills above town let us look out across the city from the feet of the giant “Virgen de Quito” statue and see all the cathedrals lit up through the clouds.

In addition to many conversations with other Fulbrighters and learning lots about current events in the Andean region, I also had some more adventures with parasites (see article below) just to really make things interesting. That only slowed us down a little bit though. The commission took us to a resort in the rainforest, which was pleasant, (although nothing like the Muyuna ecotour), and we did play some miniature golf and went swimming in a river with actual rocks in it! (The rivers in our area don’t have rocks). However, the highlight of the week for me was a trip to the Tucanopy organic coffee farm. It was run by an inspiring group of Ecuadorian families, who grew most of their own food, worked to preserve not only their property but the whole region against extractive/destructive industries, and know how to make a mean pizza. After a short hike around part of the property we took a ride on their circuit of 6 zip lines. (See our youtube videos for an example) which was a fun way to see the forest, although I wished we could have spent more time there, on the air or the ground. Afterwards we headed back to Quito and then to Lima, arriving just in time to watch Carolina lose to Kansas. This week found us back in Iquitos working hard (and at times frantically) to keep the volunteer/social information gathering program running.

We might actually be living in Ecuador (a meandering historical tangent by Andrew)

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During the Fulbright presentation week, when we introduced ourselves as Peruvians, there were several pointed reminders that Ecuador and Peru were fighting each other not so long ago. Not knowing much about the conflict, I decided to do a little research and this is what I found out: The most recent conflict between the countries occurred in February 1995 and was known as the Cenepa War. The history of the conflict is long and complicated, but it’s a border dispute that goes back to the original Spanish empire, Jesuit missionaries from Quito and political alliances against Simon Bolivar. Ecuador has claimed as far south as the Marañon River (which would include Iquitos-see map) and until 1999, Ecuador's official motto was: “El Ecuador ha sido, es y será País Amazónico” (Ecuador has been, is, and will always be an Amazonian country). However, Peru’s military has been bigger and better organized in each conflict, and Ecuadorians are still a bit annoyed about it. As far as I can tell, the countries both have equally amazing human and natural resources. However, I’m not sure that Iquitos or the region of Loreto have much to do with either of them and if they had their own choice about it, would probably choose to be aligned with Brazil. Or independent….

There’s a Worm in My Nose!! (Andrew)

So for those of you reading the blog who don’t know, our adventures with parasites continued last week, but this time it was my turn! On Sunday when I woke up to catch our early flight to Lima and then Quito, I had so much swelling above my right eye that I could only open my eye halfway (Imagine Quasimodo). In Quito we met another Fulbright scholar, named Michael, who took me to his lab at the public medical university where they confirmed that I did not have Chagas disease (a strong possibility because of the places we work), for which I was very grateful. However, over the next few days, the swelling moved from place to place on my head, providing a combination of amusement and nervousness. We didn’t have time to get it looked at any further in Quito or Lima, but the consensus seems to be that it could be a parasite that results from water or eating badly cooked fish. This was almost enough to make me a vegetarian again, but there are some delicious dishes here and the non-meat options are severely limited. So for now, I’m just taking my anti-parasite drugs and avoiding ceviche, which shouldn’t be too hard.

Fútbol Madness (-Andrew)

On Wednesday night, Jess and I got invited to go to a soccer game with some friends from work and we leapt at the opportunity to see a new aspect of the city. We brought along a friend of ours named Lindsay, passing through Iquitos on the way to Lima and then Quito. Lindsay is a fellow Fulbright Scholar who is working as a linguist to document a nearly extinct language in a town in the southwestern part of our region. This was the first soccer game we had heard about since our arrival in October, and it turned out to be an international friendly game (i.e. not a World Cup qualifier) between the national teams of Peru and Costa Rica.

We arrived at the stadium a little before the ticket time of 7:00 to wait in a long, curving line through the dusty street, which periodically broke to allow a motorcycle to get through. When we got through the gates we were each handed a large (6 foot long) cylindrical inflated piece of plastic to wave in the stands. The fascination with disposal plastic short-term entertainment devices is always somewhat depressing; I’m sure we’ll see these plastic bags floating down the river soon. The bags were flying before the national anthem and most people had lost theirs before the start of the game.

The Iquitos stadium is one of the places I was invited to play soccer in earlier this year, so I was already somewhat acquainted with it. It’s a large, clean stadium, and unlike what I’ve seen on television from stadiums in Mexico and other Latin American countries, there were no barriers between the fans and the field (usually there is a tall chain-link fence with barbed wire to separate the fans from the players). Except for the occasional plastic bottle thrown on to the edge of the field, the crowd was remarkably better-behaved than I expected, and was much more reasonable than some drunken New Zealand rugby matches I’ve been to. It was more like a Carolina game- some good loud cheering for the home team, but they also clapped when the opposing team came on the field. Plus they were great at doing the wave around the stadium. However, some of the fans (mostly in the cheaper seats) made monkey noises at the Costa Rican players of African ancestry a couple times during the game, which startled and offended the three Americans. There's a lot of ways in which the isolation of Iquitos contributes to widespread prejudices.

Our tickets cost only 25 soles (about 8 dollars) which were not as cheap as the 10 sole seats behind the goals at either end, but not as expensive as the 50 and 100 sole seats directly across from us that appeared to be identical. However, the players did face that direction during the national anthem. It was amusing, however, that the 10 sole seats filled up and they let several hundred people down onto the track and up into the expensive seats. So we felt good about our choice. Just like the US, there were vendors walking around with food, however most it was things like fried platano chips and tropical fruit flavored popsicles (YUM!).

Peru wore white jerseys with red details while Costa Rica wore red jerseys with blue fringes in case you’re trying to imagine this or watch our youtube videos. I picked out a favorite player on the Peruvian side and decided to cheer for him the rest of the game. My reasons were 1) He played defense (like me) 2) He had bright blue shoes 3) His last name was Pizarro (for those of you who don't know, Francisco Pizarro was the Spanish conquistador who nearly single handedly-along with his germs-brought down the Inkan empire- not a role model, but interesting irony). I convinced Jess and Lindsay to cheer for him, but our officemates refused. They decided instead to call him “Sao”- the equivalent here of “Gay” (not necessarily having anything to do with his sexual orientation, but still meant as an insult- it's a pretty common expression here that Jess and I have not gotten used to, especially since it makes otherwise rational people sound like middle schoolers). Pizarro eventually came forward to score on a header, reinforcing my favorable opinion of him (although our colleagues disputed that he actually scored the goal).

The game was fairly relaxed, with both teams passing back to their defenses often (Jess called it “lazy” in comparison to soccer in the villages). It became even more “strategic” (my word) after Peru went ahead by a couple goals. There were some sporadic fireworks after the scores. Peru eventually won 3-1 and I decided to spring for a Pizarro jersey outside the stadium. Tonight I have to teach an Ingles lesson, for which I usually write out a conversation. Here is this week’s:

Conversación:
Peruano: Let’s go to a soccer game tonight.
Americano: That sounds fun! I’ve never watched a soccer game.
P: Okay. Meet me at the stadium at 7 o’clock. Go to the east entrance. Wait until you see me before you go in. Don’t buy a ticket, I already have one for you.
..…
A: This is a big stadium! Who is playing in this game?
P: Peru and Costa Rica are playing. Peru is wearing white and Costa Rica is wearing red.
A: And the grass is very green! Is the Peruvian team good?
P: They were as good as Brazil in December and they are better than the United States.
A: Yes, we are better at another kind of football.
P: That is because you are all fat.
A: Who is that player with the blue shoes? He is the tallest.
P: His name is Pizarro. When he was younger, he played in Lima. He plays defense and he will play in the World Cup.
A: He scored a goal! I hope he will score again. What is the World Cup?
P: It is the biggest soccer tournament in the world. It is held every four years. The next one will be in South Africa in 2010 (Two thousand-ten).
A: Our most important tournaments in the United States are happening right now. They are the NCAA basketball tournaments, one for men and one for women. Some people call it “March Madness.”
P: Who are you cheering for in those tournaments?
A: My favorite is the team from my university in North Carolina. Both the men’s and women’s teams are very good.
P: Well, I hope your teams win.
A: Thanks! I hope that Peru will win the World Cup!

Laugh if you will, but let’s see you write out an informative, teaching lesson every week and teach it in a foreign language (Sermons don’t count).

Go Tarheels! (and wildcats)

Frisbees, Niños, and Notepads (-Jess)

This past trip to the villages was one of our most enjoyable yet, and we were actually sorry to have it unexpectedly cut short (from 9 to 5 days), which is usually not the case on Day 5 out in the field. We went out with the entire team of 9 people this time, so even though we never knew in advance when or what we would eat or where we would sleep or bathe or use the restroom, chances were good that someone else would figure these things out. This freed up our mental energy to be more engaged with the people in the communities, and in conjunction with improving Spanish and more of a rapport with the team members, this trip tended more toward the fun and interesting rather than the vulnerable and lonely.

My aunt sent down 4 boxes full of toys and school and art supplies for the children of the villages, and though there wasn’t space to take all of it out with us this time, one of the highlights of the trip for me was starting to distribute just a few of these goodies. In the first village we visited (a new one for Andrew and I), the nine of us got off the boat with our packs and bags and while the seven other Peruvians on the team managed to walk peacefully up to the school where we’d be sleeping, Andrew and I got *swarmed* immediately by a small horde of kids who wouldn’t answer any of our questions but also wouldn’t stop staring and touching us. I am usually annoyed by this after a long boat ride, and have been known to go to extremes to get some sliver of personal space. Luckily, this time we had a floppy pink Frisbee (thanks Mom and Dad!). The beauty of Frisbee is that, to play, you have to be far apart from each other, which discourages swarming. So we left our stuff in a pile and went out to the main field (all villages have a big field in their center where afternoon sporting events are held) to throw around the Frisbee. The kids had never seen a Frisbee before, and their obvious delight in a new game and being played with by new people quickly overwhelmed all my feelings of annoyance. We changed the rules so that you had to call out names as you threw to other people, and so we were introduced to Edmid, Saiya, Tomas, Rider, Los Chicos en el Pasto (the boys sitting in the grass), and 10 or 15 others. Kids are more fun when you are all on a first name basis. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the field, and it felt good to look over and see the adults of the village watching us and smiling. Unfortunately, when the men wanted to use the field for playing soccer, we had to move over into the tall grass to continue our game. The next day and for the rest of the week, I had 247 chigger bites. We left the pink Frisbee with the kids in Villa Flor when we left.

In the next two communities that we visited, we gave out little cardboard/magnetic doodle pads that would hold a child’s interest for about 5 minutes in the U.S. but were fascinating to the village kids. I think their favorite part was picking out which bug sticker to put on the back to mark it as theirs. These were not just popular among kids; many grown men and women wanted one too. The kids liked to draw animals for me to guess- village animals like ducks and dogs, and also jungle animals like tapirs, armadillos, rays, fish, river dolphins, and boars. Watching them tote around their little cardboard squares for the afternoon caused a sort of a mixed sensation of pleasure that I could so easily be helpful in producing a few hours of happiness and entertainment for 20 or 30 children, and a fuzzy kind of guilt. These feelings were further complicated when, the next day, they had all lost their little pads. I liked the feeling of making an immediate and noticeable impact on their happiness. I didn’t like the fact that this happiness was tied to giving out material things. I didn’t like the feeling that you could give stickers and be a hero for an afternoon but then the next day they were nowhere to be found and the situation in the village was not really altered. I think that a lot of external aid and development projects may run into the same problems on a larger scale. It is really easy to make a short-term impact and if you stop paying attention at that point then you can walk away quite pleased with yourself, but if you stick around a little longer you find that any lasting impact will require a *whole* lot more thought and effort and investment, which is why I imagine there is a lot of frustration with making lasting positive impact for community development and conservation in this region. On the other hand, if you are not prepared to come in and start a whole long-term education program, a few hours of stickers and drawing together might still count for something. You get to spend some time playing together and paying attention to each other and you both come away feeling good and appreciating the other more. The stickers and things facilitate this, but really it’s the time spent and openness of interchange that ends up making a difference. The danger is probably to focus too much on the material aid and the temptation to stop there and call it “successful”.

Speaking of material things, once again I was reminded on this trip that I have an uncomfortable amount of stuff. Sometimes when we go visit the communities Andrew and I feel like we’re roughing it, but if you ever want a real kick in the butt to simplify your life, unpack your backpack in front of a barefoot 7-year old from an Amazon village. You will take out your bug repellent, your hand sanitizer, your sunscreen, your zippered bag of toiletries, your 3 pairs of different kinds of shoes, your hammock, your cameras, your bag of clothes, your sleeping sheet and therma-rest, your mosquito net, your books and pencils, etc. etc. and the child will marvel at each thing and it will start to dawn on you that this kid has basically none of that stuff and he lives here, while you are planning to stay for nine days and somehow need it all. And this is just a small fraction of the things that you have in Iquitos. And those are also hardly anything compared to the things that you left behind at home in the states. Since, when I spend time with them in their homes and on their boats and in their meeting halls, I don’t really perceive these people as “poor” though I know they do not have a lot, the unavoidable conclusion is that I have WAY TOO MUCH. Since it is now so clear, one of our new favorite things to do is look for ways to give stuff away. I know that I’ve always heard that giving is better than receiving, and I’ve always felt ambiguous about that because I really like receiving, but I have been pretty surprised at how good it feels to go around lightening our load. It’s more than just a pat on the back for being a good citizen. When we can get in this frame of mind, we feel more incorporated, more confident and proud of ourselves, and less clingy and dependent on things that distract from what’s important. So, an extra big thanks goes out to you guys who sent down so much stuff for us to give to people- we are really looking forward to it!

Stories from the Field (Andrew)

Our good, but unfortunately cut-short trip to the field this week took us to the highest communities on the Rio Chambira and provided several interesting stories. During our day in Buena Vista, Jess and I were hanging out in our hammocks between workshops and trying to get some work done on the volunteer surveys we’re trying to put together, while deflecting the curious stares of several children. We decided to share some of our cancha, or salted corn kernels, and I discovered that one of our bread pieces had molded so we give it to a boy to feed to the chickens. He took all the food in his hands and as he ran off, shouted something about giving it to his Dad. Jess and I exchanged glances and immediately felt horrible for only giving him a small handful of corn (and were not sure how a piece of moldy bread would be received as a gift), so we decided to give him the whole bag of cancha to share with his family. His father, it turned out, was the village preacher, whom we had met before on a previous trip to this village. Jess had taken a picture of their whole family and sent a printed copy back with a colleague of ours. One thing that the father made sure to include in the picture was his prized guitar. He asked if we wanted to play it, and we said yes, only to find that it was horribly out of tune. Jess made some excuses about the wet atmosphere changing the wood as I tuned it, which made the man very excited in itself. I played the only bits of songs that I actually know, which all seemed to go over well, until we all got distracted by the family’s pet baby parrot. The rest of the afternoon we heard the man playing songs on his newly tuned guitar, and later I was called in again to demonstrate my limited abilities. Everyone seemed to be very impressed.

Later on, in exchange for the guitar playing/tuning, the boys of the household showed us how to fish for piranha off the back of a boat tied up at the beach (a couple young men showed up, and we thought they were interested in the fishing, but it turned out they needed their boat back). We got to see the fishing methods we were taught on our ecotour done by people who, even though they were young, were obviously well-practiced. The equipment consisted of a short wooden pole with a line tied to the end and a small hook and lead weight for one, while another had a thirty foot line with no pole. The bait was dropped in the water and the pole was splashed about vigorously, as if to imitate a wounded animal, although interestingly, this was used primarily to catch smaller fish with pieces of fruit as bait. These small fish were promptly torn up or filleted (still alive) to use for bait on a line that was thrown out into the current. The oldest son, Florli, pulled in three medium-sized piranhas from the water, not far from where we had been washing ten minutes earlier and bathing the day before. They were vicious looking little buggers, and flopped around on the bottom of the boat, threatening the toes of everyone around.

Finally, and probably most importantly, in each village I got invited to play “Futbol” (also known as “soccer” or “the beautiful game” for those of you in gringo-land). After politely declining the first time in Villa Flor to go play Frisbee with the children and acquire my own chigger civilization, I decided that I should take advantage of the opportunity to play soccer with the village men (plus we gave away the Frisbee). So I got the chance to play in the villages of Nuevo Porvenir and Buena Vista. Here is how a typical futbol game usually happens: Every village has a field, usually the central feature of the community, which also serves as central community gathering place, children’s playground, and feeding area for chickens. This is much different than Iquitos, where fields are hard to find and usually surrounded by barbed wire fences so that the people who want to use it can be limited (and charged). The fields don’t usually have clear boundaries, so it’s best to keep an eye out for where the locals consider out of bounds. There are also occasional obstacles, including, but not limited to, children, chickens, dogs, peccaries, pieces of lumber, puddles, and piles of grass or uncut grass (cutting grass is done by machete). In Iquitos there is usually no grass at all. Also, in the villages there’s usually a river on one side of the field, so someone has to be ready to jump in the water to retrieve the ball. This can be problematic if the side with the goal is just above the river bank.

After forming two teams, everyone has to put it in a small amount of money- usually 2 soles, or about 75 cents. The money is held by an unaffiliated person, who as serves as timekeeper, to be given to the winning team at the conclusion of the game- if you win, you double your money. Some people borrow the initial investment from someone else, hoping to pay that back at the end of the game but keep the winnings. Each game consists of two halves, usually between 15 to 20 minutes each, switching sides in the middle. There are no referees and some of the rules are open for interpretation (e.g. no rules against being offside, no rules for throw-ins, and sometimes the goalie can knock the ball out of bounds but then retake possession). Goals are always open for interpretation, especially if the goal does not have an upper bar. There are also some rules that I don’t understand, as the only times I have actually put the ball in the goal, it seems not to count for some reason (I call this the “Gringo Rule”). Needless to say, the team I’m on almost always loses, but we had great fun on the giant, half cut field at Porvenir, and the tiny, mud-covered field of Buena Vista. I look forward to doing it again.

Catching Up (-Jess)

Embarrassingly, it looks like I haven’t written much of anything in the blog since December. Good thing there’s Andrew. I actually haven’t been out to the villages since December due to scheduling conflicts, the normal level of chaos down here, and a side project comparing the malaria diagnosis and treatment practices of three clinics/hospitals in Iquitos. Interesting results from this study include the following: 1) Malaria can be tested for several times by multiple doctors without being detected and may be mistaken for a bad cold, an unidentified virus, bronchitis, dengue fever, or a figment of the imagination. 2) The public hospital of Iquitos is *very* different from hospitals in Raleigh and not a place I’d care to spend much time. 3) The best way to get to see a good doctor is to have friends call friends who can look up their ER rotation and then sweet-talk your way into the ER where there will be people screaming and bleeding all around but the doctor will take pity on a glazed and sweaty white girl in her 10th day of unexplained jungle fever but you may feel like scum for taking his attention away from people who look like they’re much worse off. 4) To get lab tests done quickly, you should bribe the lab technician. 5) If you should find yourself asked to pee in a cup but there is no obvious bathroom, you may have to go use the emergency room bathroom which is wet on all surfaces and in the back part of a broom closet and not quite big enough to fit the toilet and close the door which means that figuring out how to pee in a cup will be a challenge for someone with a high fever. 6) Malaria treatment is free in Iquitos. 7) Apart from getting it diagnosed, it’s not too hard to deal with, especially if you have some really awesome and generous friends who’ll help you navigate the hospitals and clinics and make you drink lots of fluids and generally smother you with care. 8) The worse part is that you can’t eat cheese or any dairy product or fatty thing for weeks afterward. 9) Lentil soup is okay. 10) If you get sick in the jungle, don’t tell your mom till your better.
Anyway, it was a very successful and informative exploratory study, so much so that replication is probably not needed. Meanwhile, the rest of the time that I have not been writing in the blog, we have primarily been working at the PROCREL office in Iquitos. Andrew and I are helping to design their new volunteer program, learning about map-making, collating a series of booklets of tips on how to make a chambira basket that we can leave with the village women after their training workshops, designing surveys and workshops to do in the villages, and putting together an outline and toolkit to gather the information needed to create a master plan for the conservation areas where we have been working. Since a lot of this is new to us, we have been doing a lot of reading of fat Spanish documents, and also learning a lot of general lessons about the dynamics of working in an office. It is interesting and valuable, but not as lively and intense as the time in the field (hence the slowing of the blog entries), although that is maybe not such a bad thing sometimes. In life beyond our little table in the office entryway, we have learned how to make Crema Bolteada (like flan, or custard) from our caterer friend, Andrew had a birthday and the office threw a surprise party for him with games including an “adult piñata,” we found a delicious juice bar that is on the way home from work, we’ve re-started our English classes with the college group and are once again soliciting fun songs to teach them, and we are appreciating all the books and DVDs and gourmet American foods and things that you guys have been sending down. We can tell that time is passing and progress is being made because Andrew can now play House of the Rising sun on the guitar and I can almost touch my toes when doing yoga. Life is not bad here in Iquitos, but we were both glad to be going out to the field again this week.

Ch-ch-ch-changes (in Iquitos) (Andrew)

While the presidential candidates at home are arguing about change, many new and not-so-exciting things have been happening in Peru. I know that time marches on and of course, things have to change somewhat, but some things can be a little disturbing.

Most importantly for us, prices have gone up at several restaurants, including one of our favorites, Huasai. The fixed menu, which cost 7 soles when we arrived now costs 9 soles. Furthermore since Christmas there have been ominous changes at the grocery store. Our friend Maghaly warned us that the prices of staple foods might be going up, possibly because of decisions in Lima to increase taxes/decrease subsidies (possibly related to the free trade agreement?) or maybe just because of flooding upriver. While we haven’t looked at our receipts from the beginning of our time here, we have noticed some important changes in products in the stores. When preparing for our camping trips, we have some specific items that we know are delicious, easy to prepare, and appreciated when they are shared. However, on our most recent field preparations (our first since the New Year) we found that there were no more sausages or cheese in cans, or our favorite nighttime field drink, Winter’s brand cocoa. More importantly for our everyday life, not a single grocery store anywhere in Iquitos continues to carry pre-made tomato sauce, so we were forced to learn how to make our own from scratch. Yes, it’s a good skill to have, but it does take a bit more time and the tomatoes here are not very fresh.

Some of the more amusing changes have occurred this week, with the arrival of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperative (APEC, Peru is apparently a member) conference in town this week. The mayor of Iquitos decided to paint all the buildings (including the beautiful church) on the main square of downtown a sickly yellow color. And as if this wasn’t enough, he had new street signs put in on every corner, and street lights installed between the airport and town. While these might be considered important civic revitalization projects, the house-sized signs proclaiming “Welcome to Iquitos” (in English) along with the mayor’s name seem to give away the true intentions. Especially the one hung on the giant, windowless, abandoned hotel that overlooks the square. This building was also hastily painted just in time for the arrival of the conference members, perhaps to appear only kind-of dilapidated. However, the elementary school on the block between our apartment and the main square remains unpainted and falling apart. (Update: the Welcome to Iquitos sign has been replaced by a 50 foot tall “Please Come Back” sign at the end of the week)

You may have also heard that there are also some tensions arising to our north (For those of you that missed it, Columbia, using information from the US, attacked the camp of FARC, a terrorist/freedom-fighter organization, about a mile over the Ecuador border. Meanwhile Venezuela, on the opposite side of Columbia, is pretending to be offended and trying to provoke a regional war). Neither Iquitos nor the villages we work in are very close to the Columbia-Ecuador border, but there’s not much between us except forest. Although our friend Pamela suspects that Peru will try to play peacemaker and end up losing territory (“that’s how we lost Bolivia” she says), the chances that we will be affected are small. Hopefully things will calm down in time for our trip to Quito, Ecuador at the end of the month. It kind of makes one glad to be isolated as much as we are. Unfortunately we have been hearing rumors about deforestation enhancing roads being pushed in from Brazil to expand commerce. While this appears to be a ways off, both Dr. Wiley and a recent NPR article have informed us about recent road building activity between Iquitos and another small town to the north of us.

All of these things make me worried about what changes we will find at home (in addition to the anticipated immense culture shock). However, many things in Iquitos remain the same- negotiating things at work, hot days with sudden rain showers, difficulty finding a place for dinner that serves something besides chicken. And some changes are good- como mejorando mi español…

Hasta pronto!!

(And if you haven't seen it, watch the video of the presidential candidates professing their love for change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEaS-K3j3M8 )

Disease and Healthcare (Andrew and Jess)

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve written anything here and we know some of you out there have been holding your breath. I could give you some excuses about too much work or illness ….so I will. We’ve been busy. And sick. In fact, that’s what this blog entry is all about; our experiences with illness in the jungle.

Jess had been feeling mildly ill the Sunday before our most recently scheduled trip after getting back from the nearby reserve, Allpahauyo Mishana, for a birding trip with our visiting professor, Dr. Haven Wiley. However, she seemed to have recovered and we had made preparations to go to the village of San Antonio on a Friday morning for one of the final chambira weaving workshops. On Thursday night, unfortunately, while eating dinner with friends, Jess came down with a very bad fever and we decided that it would be better for her to stay in Iquitos than head 4 hours up the river. So early the next morning I headed off in the boat, waving goodbye to Jess and hoping that it was only a passing bug. She gave me a little bottle of Tylenol in case I started to get sick in the field.

My first afternoon in San Antonio passed without incident and our rapido (the fast boat) returned to Iquitos. Saturday’s chambira workshop was a lot of fun and I enjoyed learning how to weave baskets and trying to take detailed pictures of people’s hands while they did so. Unfortunately, towards the end of the afternoon as the workshop was trailing off and it was turning into community/soccer time in the village, we got word that a young boy had broken his leg playing on the field. I’ll spare you the details, except to tell you that there was a large group of people crowded around the window of the same hospital room where I had some stitches put in a couple months ago. After stabilizing his leg, the nurses decided that he needed to be sent to the hospital in Iquitos. So, at about 6 in the evening, with rainclouds approaching, they carried the boy down the rotten steps to the edge of the river and loaded him in an open canoe with an engine on the back for the 8 hour trip to the big city. I decided that the boy could probably use the Tylenol more than I could (I was feeling fine), so I offered it to the nurses who quickly accepted it.

The next day I woke up not having slept very well and got progressively sorer in my head, back, and throat. It became so painful that I had to leave the workshop and lay down for most of the afternoon. After a mild fever that evening, our boss, Didi got me to the posta for a few pills (I’m not entirely sure what they were). And I slowly began to improve, although I did have a runny nose and cough for the next several days. Unfortunately, I think I might have started an epidemic in the village with my infirmity. However, while I was suffering through my own illness, I found out that Jess was having even more fun in Iquitos…

(Jess): Malaria is not that bad.

Well, that’s all Jess has to say. Things are better now in Iquitos, but they seem to better equipped to treat Malaria than anywhere else in Peru. They are spraying for Dengue though…

Carnaval (Andrew)

Last Sunday we got to take part in Carnaval (or Carnival), the giant Roman Catholic celebration that happens just before Lent. The world’s biggest Carnaval festivities take place in Brazil (or Carnival of Venice??), but Peru has its own festivities that have been gearing up over the last month. Over the previous few weekends we had seen more and more children (who are on vacation from school at the moment) on the sides of the roads, throwing water balloons and the occasional full bucket of water. Some friends of ours tried to describe what was going on, and we found out that Sunday, February 3rd was going to be the biggest celebration day and would culminate in each neighborhood performing some sort of crazy tree-chopping ceremony. Our friend Sergio from PROCREL invited us over to his house for the day’s activities, and we eagerly accepted the offer of a familiar house and group of people to enjoy the cultural event with.

We wore old clothes after hearing about all the paint and clay that would be fair game on Sunday and after experiencing buckets of water thrown at us while riding mototaxis the previous day. We arrived to find Sergio out in front of his house, decorating a 30 foot tall palm tree brought in from a forest somewhere with balloons and streamers and plastic presents. We were immediately bombarded with balloons and buckets of water by the neighbors, so we retaliated and soon found ourselves soaked. After finishing the decorating and putting the tree up unsteadily (in a hole in the street, leaning against telephone wires…) we enjoyed a delicious lunch from Sergio’s wife, Magali. She made me (Andrew) wipe off some of the orange clay that had already accumulated on his face before eating.

After lunch, our friends Pamela and Cesar arrived, along with our friend Nathan from the Field Museum in Chicago. Then we set about filling water balloons and buckets to prepare for battle. The neighborhood residents were lining the streets, ready to wreak havoc. There were some unwritten rules about who was fair game for attack in a mototaxi (ie no dressed-up people, no mothers with infants), which meant mostly younger people riding around squealing. We could see the kids at the intersection down the street dousing mototaxis with buckets of water and took our cues from them for who to go after. And whenever traffic got slow, someone would run across the street to launch a surprise attack on the neighbors. Jess and Pamela really enjoyed painting themselves with colored clay. Cesar and I preferred to avoid it, but other people (mostly Jess and Magali) still managed to cover us. There was also some strange purple ink being squirted about, which we discovered would not come out of clothes and only came off skin with much scrubbing. Things went well until a strange woman from across the street began attacking us (maybe because she had been an easy target for our waterballoons??...) with motor oil, which she smeared first in my face and then in Jess’s. I was not too happy about this and tried to reach out to protect Jess just as she ducked, resulting in a bloody nose. We played for several hours, but didn’t wait around long enough to see the tree get chopped down, although there was some dancing around it. We had had plenty of fun and didn’t feel the need to endanger ourselves with a crashing tree, a scramble for presents, and possibly some downed powerlines. On our way back to the apartment, we were attacked by other groups of kids with waterballoons, who were impressed with our thorough multicolored dirtiness.

After a quick shower, I joined our American medical school apartment mates to watch the SuperBowl at a nearby gringo hangout- The Yellow Rose of Texas Bar and Restaurant- still sporting some conspicuous purple stains on my arms and face. It was a pretty subdued crowd (most of whom had spent the day terrified of Carnaval) drinking overpriced beer and I decided that it was much more fun hanging out with Peruvians. However, the last 10 minutes of the football game were spectacular and made up for it (I hate the Patriots and New England teams in general). It was a nice way to start the week before heading to our new office and sitting through long presentations for several days.

This Sunday was a little quieter, with a fun on a birding trip to Reserva Nacional Allpahuayo-Mishana in the morning with our professor Haven Wiley, who is visiting Iquitos from Chapel Hill. The Reserve protects an area along the road to Nauta that contains some unique white-sand ecosystems and endemic species, but is currently being threatened by leakage from the nearby city-dump (the rivers also run into the place where Iquitos gets its water supply- not a good choice of location). We visited an area that borders the Reserve at the beginning of our time here, but haven’t had much of an opportunity to get into the park. This time, we saw a lot of new bird species (see the species list on the side), and a neat frog (see pictures), not to mention some very interesting white sand habitats. And now that we have a better idea of how to get there (and which trail to sneak in on), we’re excited about going back on our own. We may not get that chance for a while though, as we’re headed out to the field on Thursday with the PROCREL team for 10 days. We have lots of work to do before then though, so we might not be able to post anything for a while. Send us an email if you get the chance!!

7 Gringos and an Anteater

Last week we were joined in Iquitos by Jess’s parents Doug and Denise, their friends Stan and Elaine, and our friend Kate who wanted to escape the harsh North Carolina winter and share in our Amazon experience. We had just returned from a long weekend trip to the village of Santa Maria, (where we got to observe village politics at their finest), inherited a small pygmy anteater which reeked havoc on our bathroom, and attended a public presentation of the rapid biological assessment results for the area we are working to protect. So it was a bit of a rush to get everything together for a family visit. But we were excited to see familiar faces so we had plenty of energy to haul ourselves to the airport at 6 in the morning.
After letting the travelers have breakfast and a quick nap to recover from their long overnight stay in the fishy Lima airport, we spent the afternoon preparing to launch on a weeklong ecotour. (The most difficult challenge was finding rubber boots big enough for Gringo feet). On the recommendation of friends and workmates, we had already decided to go with a company named Muyuna, which appears to be very concerned with local conservation and seemed to provide a little more authentic experience than some of the other lodges (i.e. no pools or air-conditioning). We spent the afternoon playing with the anteater, who we nicknamed Squinny (he had an infected eye) before delivering him to Mrs. Gudrun Sperrar, the owner of the local butterfly sanctuary and animal orphanage.
The next morning we headed out on a six day ecotour adventure; it was our first experience with trips to the jungle where someone else had the responsibility of thinking about food, sleeping arrangements, and transportation, and we can see why that might be more popular. The trip to the lodge was our first real experience on the Amazon River (we’re usually on smaller, black-water tributary rivers), and it was very different. Other than being much wider and cloudier, it was also nearly completely surrounded by small houses and farms, and had lots of reeds along the edges, but no steep banks. We arrived at the lodge on the Yanayacu River (meaning “Black Water”, but the rising Amazon had clouded it with sediment) just in time for lunch in their screened-in dining room. Our cabins were all on stilts and connected by raised walkways for the high water season, although this week there was still bare ground underneath. Jess and I we were pleasantly surprised to find running water in the bathrooms (showers in the field! Holy cow!) and added our own hammocks to the porch, from which we were able to see more birds than we had in all of our previous time in Iquitos.
Beginning with a hike that afternoon, the next few days were packed with outdoor activities. We went bird watching along the river in the mornings, caiman and sloth spotting at night, piranha fishing, swimming with dolphins in the Amazon, canoeing through flooded forest, and capped it off with a night of camping. The rainy season began in earnest and a few activities were rained out, but honestly we were exhausted and it is the rainforest after all. Our one-&-a-half-lingual guide, Cliver, helped us spot a ton of animals that we never would have seen by ourselves. We spent some time relaxing in the hammocks and read some of our new books (yay!!!) and catching up chatting about the world back at home in Raleigh. At night the lodge and its walkways were beautifully lit by small kerosene lanterns. Despite the mosquitoes, it was a fantastic experience and gave us our first real taste of the diversity of the Peruvian rainforest when it’s not too heavily taxed by human demands.
After returning to Iquitos, we spent a morning exploring the Belen market with our friend Cesar to guide us again. We saw many of the same foods and animals as before and the Itaya River still hasn’t risen all the way, so we were able to walk around the lower areas to see the houses on stilts again. We were a little worried about the safety of 7 gringos walking together through a crowded market (or at least the safety of their stuff), but it all turned out well. On Thursday we also took the group to Pilpintuwasi, or “la casa de mariposas” (the house of the butterflies). Gudrun wasn’t there, but her husband Roblar Moreno gave us a great tour. We got an in-depth tour of the butterfly raising process, and we watched as he fed Pedro the jaguar, Lucas the Tapir, and a larger species of anteater. Oh, and I think there were some monkeys around. There was no sign of Squinny, although they assured us that he had been eating termites and was recovering in the large protected butterfly enclosure.
On Friday afternoon, the two couples departed, needing to get back for work and Sunday obligations. Kate stayed a day longer to explore the Iquitos nightlife and Camu Camu pisco-sours before departing on Saturday. Coincidentally, our main UNC biology advisor arrived just as everyone was leaving, so we were able to catch up with him before he went to the field for his research. Now that everyone has departed things are much quieter around the apartment and we’ve had to go back to work and live a little more like regular people again. But we are enjoying all the presents that everyone sent along (but send more chocolate malt-balls, we’re running dangerously low…).
To our visitors, Thank You for coming and we’re glad that no one got too seriously ill. We hope that everyone will enjoy the new pictures and videos we’ve posted (we had so many pictures we had to start a new Flickr website). We’re also hoping that some of our visitors will contribute some postings about their own impressions (hint hint) that we can put on the blog.