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Published: September 16th 2007
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Oh my goodness, not sure where to start.
Maybe I should reintroduce myself first under my new official title " Sinead of the Amazon!" This is now how I would like to be addressed as I am officially a jungle Jane equal!
I´m very sorry for the lack of internet activity, I´m sure many of you have suffered sleepless nights as a result. I have, however , been stuck in the back of beyond for the past two weeks. I arrived in Puyo on Monday 3rd of September feeling very alone and vulnerable, due to the fact that this was actually the first bus journey I had taken on my own since my arrival in Ecuador. It didn't´t help that the bus broke down about 1hour into the 4 hour journey and I didn't´t have a flipping clue what anyone was shouting about (shows how well the Spanish is going)!
Still, I managed to find my way to the second bus ( i.e. was willingly shoved along by the locals who despite my efforts to blend in, guessed I was not from around these parts and knew I would be a volunteer at the centre). I arrived at the
My home for the next month
The bed room house. Very cosy!! Santa Marta Flor de Amazona Centre at 1:30 in the afternoon and was quickly introduced to everyone and thrown into a cage of monkeys to clean up poo!
The centre is amazing, I am going to be based here until the 29th September so Im already half way through my stay (sigh)
The day starts at 8am when we split into teams and clean out all the animals cages and give them new food. We currently look after 1 Coati, 2 Kinkajous, 1 Porcupine (escaped last week), loads of Parrots and Parakeets, 1 Woolly Monkey, 1 Margay, 16 Capuchin monkeys, 3 dogs and 3 kittens, don't think I've forgotten any animals but you get the idea ...a lot of monkeys! When we´re not looking after the animals or building cages we head out to work with a local family that own the land on which the centre is based. The main job for us at the moment is digging fish ponds. I don´t know if this sounds like a pleasant days work to anyone at home, but I can honestly say it is the worst 5 hours I have ever had to live through...at some points I´m pretty sure
Our Kitchen and Hammocks
The social Hub of Santa Martha ... Many a great meal and fire have been made here! I was close to death anyway.
We head down to the fish ponds twice a week and its about a 40 minute trek into the Jungle. The ponds are about 10m by 6 m and there no excavators hanging about in the rain forest (trust me I´ve looked), which means 8 people and 8 shovels and a hell of a lot of wet jungle mud! The point of the ponds is so that the locals can breed fish to sell , so it is a worth while cause, but thats not what you want to hear when your sweating your bodyweight twice over, being eaten alive by bugs the size of rotweilers and loosing all nerve feeling in your entire body! Then when your finally done for the day you can trek for 40 minutes out of the jungle, up hill´, carrying shovels, to relish the one luxury at the centre.... a hot shower!!!(that's one hot shower between 10 of us!)
I can also confirm that its NOT a good idea to be in the jungle during a tropical rain storm .. that's all I have to say on that matter!
From the above you probably think
The Front Garden
View from the front of the rescue centre. it sounds like a nightmare out here but its quite the opposite, Im loving absolutely every second and have now embarrassed the fact that I constantly smell of animal feacies and all my clothes are two shades browner than they ever were before. All I can say is thank goodness for the family holidays to my family farm in Ireland when I was little, I am well prepared from the hours of rolling in mud , looking after sick animals and constantly being covered in grazes, scratches and bruises. Its kind of like being 8 all over again except you get to drink $3 bottles of rum in the evening.
The evenings at the centre are definitely a highlight. We have a big open fire pit surrounded by hammocks which tends to be the place to be from 5pm onwards. We take it in turns to cook for the group and I must admit I have been impressed with my own cooking skills. I have progressed from a very good beans on toast to creating vegetable masterpieces and my puddings are second to none. I´m not sure if it just tastes good because it smells better that the area around us and all senses are destroyed by the fishpond digging.. we´ll see when I get home I guess! (good luck mom and dad)
We have officially made Friday night "meat night" which means after a week of various vegetable dishes, trekking to the local shop (40 mins) buying two chickens, killings them, plucking them, gutting them, cutting them and cooking them on the fire pit. Sometimes we all sit round and paint our faces with the chicken blood and howl at the moon ( Im only joking about this part, but you can see where Im going with the whole primal instinct thing! (sorry vegetarians).
Other experiences include me seeing two snakes, very exciting (one was red and black and I think poisonous) and the huge bugs at night. Thank goodness for my mosquito net although I think some of them could get through a breeze block wall if they tried hard enough. One girl here was stuck by a caterpillar in her first week and had to spend three days in bed. So it just shows, you spend so much time checking for snakes and other nasties and it the bloody caterpillars that are deadly!
There are so many great things to experience everyday. I have already forgotten how great it is to look out of the kitchen window whilst washing the dishes and see a spectacular view of the canopy, you start to take it for granted. I will get some photos up asap, but for the moment Im just happy to find a computer never mind an upload connection.
I will go now as my friend has waited very patiently for me whilst I suffer information overload. I´m sure I've missed something but I will try to get to a computer next weekend and fill in the gaps!
Hope everyone is ok at home (enjoy your showers and clean socks)
Love Sinead
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Ruth
non-member comment
Wow
Just happened to come across this - sounds very exciting indeed. I am looking forward to seeing photos, where are you from and what are you doing aside from killing chickens :-) Ruth (English teacher in Germany)