Life in the Woods, Peruvian Style! Part 4

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Now that I was securely in the middle of nowhere in the Peruvian Amazon, with only loggers and a cook for company, I was suprised by the sequence of events that occured.

Honestly, I pitched by bug-proof, water-proof hammock a very short distance from the encampment, and spent a large portion of my time relaxing, singing, reading, and simply listening and watching and being part of nature.

Typical days were usually waking up at five, helping Ireny cook breakfast, saying bye to the guys, bathing in the quebrada (creek), being in the shade during the heat of the day (so hot! So humid!!!), helping with lunch, conversing with everyone until evening, and slapping lots and lots of mosquitoes. Sometimes I went for hikes with Ireny or with Lucho, our gamekeeper. Often Ireny and I would visit the workers, who were cutting only Muena (a type of tree) about 45 minutes from the camp. Everyone pointed out and showed me how to try various edibles and medicinals.

And this was very placid (depsite the bugs and harsh sun) for quite some time. My electronics ran out of battery, as I knew they would, and everything was very tranquil.

A couple of things must be said about the aforementioned routine. Firstly, Ireny is very capable and would have cooked regardless of my presence. Also, the food was incredibly simple (repetetive, also). It was often as easy as putting on a pot of rice, pot of beans, various preparations of meat, and vegetables for the first week on top of a grill in a cob (yay!) hearth. I mostly kept her company and helped chop stuff. The Tíos had told me in advance they had no expectations of me to work, but I came with the intention of doing what I could. I mean, it´s beautiful and relaxing in the jungle but it´s my style to seeks ways to contribute. However, I think the biggest contribution I made was just talking to folks.

Especially after the breakdown of the only chainsaw of the company, the work was very slow and pretty boring for all included. I think the dudes were refreshed to have company after a day of chopping with axes. They made it no secret that I was a total and complete novelty, perhaps even oddity. Everyday, someone said something along the lines of, ¨Who would have thought we would have a gringa in our camp!? All the way out here in the monte!¨ Everyone asked me questions initially, and didn´t seem to understand my logic. For example, how could I be here in the forest simply because I like plants and find logging interesting and important as an issue? How could I be in Perú because a university is paying me to learn languages, about textiles, and to open my mind in general? How could my family only have two children, just my sister and I? And so on.

However, once we all got more accustomed to one another and they reailized I was a goofball, things became very familiar. They started singing a song with my name in it whenever we said hi. Thank fully, it was much less annoying than ¨Oh Susannah!¨. I received a chapa (nickname), and henceforth was known as ¨Susannita the sirenita¨. I dig it, because no one was calling me by the overly formal ¨señorita¨any more, and I do indeed identify with mermaids, thank you very much. That backstory goes a little something like this....

In Ucayali, there are many aquatic creatures. The immense paiche, the trecherous caiman, the powerful anaconda, and the brilliant bujeo, or dolphin, all call these cloudy and sedemented waters home. However, under the brown waters also live the sirenas, or mermaids. Strangely enough, in art, they are portrayed as white women. They are always women, and seem to exist to be spied by fisherman, who then have fodder for a lifetime of tales. Sometimes, as in the case of Acido' s cousin, they are robbed from the waters by men ad taken as brides. Not exactly my connotation for mermaids, but interesting nonetheless. (FYI there are also mer-men types, called yakurunas. They rob people, and a pretty much the male version of sirenas just supposedly more violent and scary. Go figure.)

I was not the only one with a chapa, pretty much eveyone had one.
Lucho is short for Luis, Camrade Artemio (after one of Peru´s most wanted) for Artemio, Brayan was ¨muchachito¨ (he is fairly young, he turned 16 in the time I was there), Pelau for Ricardo because he was born without much hair and the name just stuck, Carlitos for Carlos, La Flacita for Ireny because she is very sleder, Acido for Roger because he is sour and likes lemons.

Some summing-up of the time there included the following:
-Fairly hilarious English lessons, simply because of the scandalous nature of what the men wanted to learn.

-A gorgeous full moon on my the day of my father´s birth.

-Getting to know the scrumptious wild fruits aguaje and ungurahue.

-Hearing pretty much the same 10 songs as they replayed over and over again on the one station with good radio reception... not a highlight!

-In the first couple of days, Artemio was drastically sick and he and Pedro took off to get him some medical care. Lucho said that he thinks Artemio has stomach cancer. It was heart-wrenching to see this old grandpa-type unable to eat anything other than fariña (yucca-meal), and with a drawn face. I hope that he feels better and may recieve the care he needs.

-The pests included: Mosquitos, Zancudos, biting flies the size of my thumb called tabanos, little crab-like blood suckers called garapatas, and who knows what else! Yuck!!! Definitely a practice in equanimity!

-At one time, another group of workers had heard that there was a white girl in the camp, and two of them came all the way to our camp, quite a journey, just to see if it was true. They sang me ballads and asked me the same old questions, but were very sweet and tho whole situation was pretty hilarious.

-A happy birthday celebration for Brayan, and also in the spirit of my sister and Ireny´s youngest in far-off places. We had lotsof laughing and dancing. It was just an exaggeration of the usual silly vibe in the camp.

-Hiking to the absolutely most grand and splendorous tree I have ever met in my life, and feeling very small.

-Trying lots of wild meat: deer, turtle, armadillo, the huge rodent majaz, the wild boar sajino, three types on monkey..... again, not completely a highlight but a learning experience.

-Mmmmmmm....Amazonian honey is such sacred nectar!

-Intense storm days, with thunder litterally rolling across the sky for minutes on end, the high that comes from spontaneous torrential down-pours, and lightning storms like strobe lights for about 15 minutes. Wow!

-In general understanding the feelings and connections of the madereros to their work. Everyone, other than the Tios, was poor, under the age of 40, hadn´t had much access to education, and was in the situation of working for necessity and, to a lesser degree, or a love of life in the wild.

-Learning about their selective harvesting practices was interesting, and reassuring. I come from a place where clear cutting is the norm and I flinch when I hear about logging because it is basically the same as ecosystem decimation. What concerns me is that there is no way to tell how many groups there are within the territory doing the same thing.

Although, because Pedro and Artemio had taken a boat and Tio Alfredo had come and left rapidly when the chainsaw broke, I was unknowingly left without a means of returning to the city at the previously agreed time. I was slightly frustrated by this, telling Lucho and the others that if I could not communicate with my parents of university in time they would all worry. Which came to pass, unfortunately, as I waited until family members of Ireny travelled to the came. They were delivering the news that the father of her children was bringing her suit in court, and she had to travel down-river in just a few day for the hearing. They said that I could come with them, thank goddess. So, after a month travelling and living with the madereros, my time had come to say farewell to these kind, generous, and knowleagable men.

They mirrored my sentiments exactly by saying that they did not want me to leave, that they were all accustomed to me by now, that they would feel sad without me there,me when I would come back. As the rainy season has set in here, my old realistic option would be to await them upriver as they float the Muena down the Nishia and to the Ucayali. We shall see.

However, the journey with Ireny and her family consoled me as I felt I was leaving behind dear friends.

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