Within the past few weeks, I have traveled to Iquitos in the Amazon basin, and Tarapoto, in the selva baja of Perú. If I try to write everything I did while there, it would take more time than I have, especially considering I have midterms to study for. I'm going to focus more on my time in Tarapoto, since that was the most recent, and, in my opinion the most awesome.
For those of you who don't have time to spare, here's a quick list of things I did while working on a farm outside Tarapoto, Perú:
-climbed a mountain
-got stung by a bullet ant ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraponera )
-cured the pain with the vaginal excretions of Stephanie, the mother of the family who owned the farm
-swam in a waterfall
-killed a cuy
-ate a cuy
-ate some fatty grubs
-became proficient with a machete (though my wounded hands would say otherwise)
-became covered in mud
-learned how to say cheese in French
-lost a little self control and started scratching my infinite bug bites
-gained knowledge and understanding of the importance of preserving the natural world and being caretakers of the earth rather than just takers.
Now for the more poetical version:
Wayra Sacha means wind of the forest in Quechua. The farm was aptly named. The family who owned it is slowly working towards expanding biodiversity and restoring the soil and the forest. Cesar, the father of the family, calls the place his medicine. He is a sinewy man, about my height, and is full of dreams for the future and sadness for the present state of our world. Stephanie, his wife, is from Switzerland, but speaks French and Spanish. She did her doctoral thesis on butterflies. Often when we were working in the fields or in the forest, we'd see a burst of electric blue, and Cesar would call out: "Morpho menelaus", the scientific name of this beautiful mariposa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpho_menelaus
Wayra Sacha is home to 9 of the 13 different families of butterflies of the region, and this is not counting all the subfamilies, species, and subspecies. The diversity is tremendous.
It was our second day there that we climbed the mountain. Our end goal was to reach a waterfall in the valley and swim there before heading back to Wayra Sacha. We left at 5 am and reached the summit around 9 am. It was quite possibly one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen. We looked down upon gliding vultures in the valley below, green and forested on one side, and on the other lay a blanket of clouds. Swallows swooped around our heads, and the sun gave us the perfect amount of heat after being in the shady and cool forest. I could have stood there for hours just to look upon the valley. Then I felt terrible stinging pain on my right achilles heel. I look down to see a humongous ant just above my boot line. I hissed and brushed it off, but the stinging pain remained. I told Stephanie, and she quickly dabbed some whitish cream on the sting. After about a half an hour the pain subsided. I had to ask her three times before she told me what it was she had put on it. Apparently vaginal excretions work as an anti-inflammatory or something. Surprisingly, I wasn't disgusted at all. It's kind of miraculous that something that can cure that much pain can be found in our own bodies. She said that sperm can do the same thing. It works on bee stings as well.
After resting on the mountain top, we began the descent. We could hear the waterfall, and stopped to rest again at a smaller waterfall on the way. It was a considerable hike, and my legs were definitely feeling it. In the end, we got a little lost and headed in the direction of the high way. We ended up going to a more touristy waterfall and had to pay to enter, but it was still absolutely beautiful, and after hiking for a good 7 hours, the chilly water felt heavenly.After swimming for a while, it was time to walk back. We took the highway all the way this time; we wouldn't have returned until after dark if we had taken the same route. My legs were sore for the next 3 days.
A day in Wayra Sacha consisted of being awoken by screaming roosters
and hens just past dawn. Then you'd lay on your mattress in your
mosquito net for another half an hour or so, wondering at how a chicken
could sound so damn loud. The smell of the cooking fire meant coffee and
tea were being prepared, and soon breakfast was on the long rectangular
table in the main room of the tambo. I'm going to miss the huge pile of
fruit salad I got to consume every morning. Sooo delicious.
Work
was done at a leisurely pace. We helped Cesar transplant radishes, weed
the rice paddies, and cut stalks of corn and sugar cane to feed the
guinea pigs. All the work was done with a machete. The key to using a
machete is the angle. Forty five degrees gets you optimal sharpness.
After that, not much force is required The main project was a frog pond
they were constructing. This was probably my least favorite. We were in a
shady, muddy area of the forest, filling sacks with mud to serve as
retaining walls. The area will eventually be filled with water and serve
as home to diurnal frogs.
Our last day there was spent milling coffee beans to break the outer shell, then separating the shells from the green little beans. It was a tedious process, but Grace put on the 6th Harry Potter which she had on her computer, so the time went fast. The day of our flight, we descended to Tarapoto proper and explored the city a little bit. We managed to find an organic ice cream shop. We were ecstatic.
Stephanie and Cesar have two children, Jai and Bruno, who are 6 and 4 years old, respectively. They love to play "no me atrapas"or "you can't catch me", and on our days of rest, we spent our energy chasing the squealing boys around, and catching them up in our arms. Gotta say, kids are exhausting.
There were also three French students working there. It was difficult to communicate because I don't know French, and they didn't know much Spanish. We all pitched in to cook together and clean up, and we managed to have a few good conversations. In spite of our lack of ability to communicate, they seemed like happy and warm people, and it was nice to have other peers around to work and play with.
Cesar and Stephanie have big dreams for their land, and we came at a time when those dreams were just starting to take shape. I'd be interested to see Wayra Sacha in three or four years. They eventually hope to open their doors to eco-tourists in order to share the immense diversity that the selva has to offer. I was glad to help them, glad to escape bustling Lima for a while, glad to hear the sound of rain and thunder rather, glad to be covered in dirt and sweat, glad to not know or care how I looked. My roots are in the earth, after all.
