Wabbits

In the cartoons that I watched as a kid there was always a stupid character; one that acts big and then fails on the delivery. He is the coyote who gets blasted by his own dynamite or the hunter who falls into his own trap. The one we love to see thwarted by his own arrogance.

He chases his prey with a foolhardy zeal. Leaning forward into the run, snarling determinedly, his feet are a blurred circle of animated urgency. In the background the scenery rolls past, unaffected.

He doesn't even notice that his target has hidden behind a rock. He just keeps running until the ground beneath his feet runs out. He has been running on sheer air and despiration, but it's too late now. He claws at the sky but there's only one way to go, and it isn't up. And so he falls off the edge of the screen with a high pitched whistle, followed by a crash and a mushroom of dust.

There he is, lying in a made-to-measure depression in the dry earth; legs splayed, taunted by the chirping of cute little birds circling his bruised body, and struggling to raise his head.

We can almost feel sorry for him. We know the futility of his ambition. His plans are never as ingenious as he thinks. He is pathetic, but we do just love to see him fall.

They always manage to get up and start the chase afresh though, these characters. They can be beaten to a pulp with a frying pan or get flattened by a grand piano, but there's always still just a bit more chase left in them. And sometimes, just sometimes, it looks like they might just get what they're after.

......And then they don't.


The dust is beginning to clear now, but I still can't pull myself up out of the earth far enough to figure out what it was I was chasing. It could have been just the long shadow cast by a cartoon cactus, after all.

Re-awakenings

I am hoping that anyone who has been reading this will not be surprised by amonth of so's lull in updates.

Yes, I know that I have been out of the rainforest for about five weeks now, and strictly speaking it should have been easy to get on the internet and recount a little of how it has been since coming into a familiar runway after a long journey and walking out of Picadilly station towards Canal Street, laden with a backpack on each side and a mule sack of six months' belongings on alternating shoulders.

It should have been easier than the race against time of internet cafes with sleepy connections from occasional vacations from the forest, it should have been a full run-through of everything I hadn't had the chance to say before.

Naivite had me believe that life would take some sort of shape within a short space after arrival, but of course I had been living at a pace different to the rush and expectation of the life I had left, and it would take some time before a type of clarity could be reached....

Some things I did in my last week in Ecuador

Friday: Sowed Sangre de Gallina seeds for reforestation in the daytime, and went to the ecuavolly court in the evening to watch Verena and Antonio make a fire show.

It was Antonios first time with fire, and I think he was crapping himself (I would have been), but he did a really good job. Especially since just before he started he was stung twice in the back by a Devil´s Horse wasp. Not as bad as for Jonas, though, who was stung directly on lip, drew blood, and gave him a boxer´s pout.




Saturday: Antonio took us on mine and the Verenas last hike, along sendero verde to dos bocas and along the river to come back on sendero mono. He tested us on the phenology of the forest, betting beers on right answers. I knew a few patchy bits of information, but never the whole set of scientific name, family name, and common name. I could, however, identify and sort the seeds that we needed to collect along the way for future reforestation projects.


I hung back on my own for a little while at the river, knowing that I would not be seeing this now familiar beauty again, or hearing the rippling waters and the birds in the trees.


We went to La Yecita in the evening, and everyone danced, even the gringo men. We found some coputating scarabs, which distracted us from dancing for a little while.

When we got back to Bilsa at around 4am six of us went down to the rio duche to take a candle lit shower, and as I headed back with kleine Verena I saw an armadillo cross my path right next to the house.

Sunday: Made pancakes with Julieta, did laundry.
Gave an English lesson to Alejandro in La Yecita. Community members were beginning to gather to play and watch football, and some of the women came and were interested in taking part. If only I had started doing this sooner, I thought, or if I had a real knowledge of a teaching technique, I could have come and given casual lessons to whoever in the community wanted to learn. I came back to Bilsa on a real high, for the first time in my life actually wanting to be a teacher, and then set off with the others to head to the waterfall in rio duche and have a shower in bikinis.
In the evening I took a break from playing fiero to go to the outhouse, and when I was washing my hands I heard an awful noise that sounded like a small pig screaming, and some hurried shuffling of earth and leaves. Suddenly the armadillo rushed out from under the house, shortly followed by Baloo, who managed to catch it and was grabbing it with his mouth when I shouted him to stop. We got Baloo away and inspected the poor creature. It had a deep wound in its back that we suspected had come from something other than Baloo, and it didn´t look like it was going to survive. We weren´t going to kill it, on the off chance that it would survive, so Verena and Edwardo took it deeper into the jungle so that at least Baloo wouldn´t be able to bother it. I finally managed to fulfil my promise of sending a picture of a real life armadillo to Stuart, but I am sorry that it had to be this way.


Monday: Machete work and barbed wire. Fixing the perimiters of the reserve. Mixing compost. I went down to take a shower in the river, and just as I was about to step under the stream that pours down from the river above, I saw some movement up in the river and there were various commonbirds, and one motmot sat on a branch waving its bizarre pendanted tail from side to side about 3m in front of me. I stood in the river watching it for about ten minutes until it moved a little out of view, and I was getting cold so I rushed the shower and lifted myself up the steep steps back to the house to get the bird book.

In the evening I played fiero for the last time, and won about a dollar. It would have been more I I hadn´t bet 2 dollars on a fiero of 3, only to find that Julieta had fiero of 7, but that´s the way the game evens things out.

Tuesday: Finished reading Cumanda in the morning. Antonio,when explaining some details of Spanish that I didn´t understand, had also told me the ending of the story. Thanks, I said, now can you tell me what is going to happen in my story? No I can´t, I haven´t read that one, he said.

Planted around 450 seeds of Sangre de Gallina and 100 of Billiar Colombiano in the reforestation platabandas on sendero piscinas, and then took a detour to cavort in the waterfalls with the Verenas. Took some photos and fell over alot. Got bruised, but not as much as Verena Grande, who fell from a height when we were climbing off trail to get down to the pozo, and tore up her bottom and thigh quite impressively. Made ´jungle bikinis´out of palm and acracia leaves and bits of fern, and arrived back at the station two hours late for lunch.

Did some final bits of laundry to clean some clothes to leave behind, showered in the river and then went to sit in the medicinal plant garden for the last time, watching the silouhettes of the cecropia deepen above me into the black of the last night in the jungle.

After dinner there was cake to share around and songs were sung before setting off to La Yecita, where we played pool and joked and danced as usual, except for the that on this night the clouds and the fog cleared for us to see the stars. Antonio and Verena Grande did a fire show.

My last dance was with Antonio, a dance of the sierra with raised knees and him dancing around me and coralling me with my scarf. The last of us headed back to Bilsa at around 4.30am. After everyone else was in bed I spent a few minutes of pensive shuffling at the doorway of the volunteer house, and at one point I almost opened the metal shutter to go out and head to the carpenteria, but eventually decided that it was probably best not to take that risk, and went upstairs instead.

Wednesday: After about two hours of sleep took my bags downstairs to wait for the mule to arrive. Hugged everyone goodbye, and only welled up when it got to Winter and Antonio, at which point I turned and headed up the path with the sack on my back and without looking back.
Rode half the journey from Bilsa to La Ye chatting to Alejandro and glad that the plastic bag I was sitting on might provide a barrier to catching ticks from the horse with no name. Walking the rest of the journey through the mud, chatting to the Verenas about triangles of rejection and affirmation at the Bilsa biological station.
I finally got to see the Subcentro de Salud (Health Centre), and smiled at how fitting this moment of departure was - to meet Andy, the medical volunteer I met at the Lagoon on my first evening before hiking into the jungle, to see the best view of the whole lagoon from the subcentro terrace, and to climb to the top of the unfinished water tower to look back on the hills of Bilsa in the distance.
This is a picture of La Ye, the gateway to Bilsa (a 31/2 hike away). It has electricity and mobile phone signal, and trucks can reach it from the road.

We got on the top of the ranchero with our bags, and laughed and bounced along the unsteady camino from La Ye to the main road, and the arrived in Quininde tired and late and hungry. Got an amuerzo from the regular place and then sat on the curb resting our eyes until it was time to meet Pato, chatting to the man and girl whos family owned the dressmakers there, who brought us iced water and dulces de manabi.

We met Pato and shared cervezas on the patio furniture outside his hostel. He told us about his bus heist, and we told him what to expect in Bilsa. We played a very sleepy game of cuarenta. Actually, I woke up to play my turns while the others chatted, so exhausted I was that I could literally not keep my eyes open for three seconds.
Caught the 1am bus to Quito, and slept instantly and uncomfortably balancing myself against two bags, a hat, a large woman with elbows and a seat that refused to recline.

Thursday: Arrived in Quito at 6am and went straight to bed. Then walked around Quito alone without fear for the first time, and bought the most repulsive gift imaginable for someone who will be only just a little disappointed it isn´t a tsantza.
Met a Luis and went for a chinese, then went back to bed for the afternoon and night, still exhausted.

I am ready and happy and looking forward to coming home.

Now I am planning to pretty much sleep until I arrive in Manchester, because there are too many things that I want to do when I get there for rest to be on the agenda.

Buesnos noches, y hasta muy pronto.xx.

Home

.
With mixed feelings, I will be back in Manchester on September 7th.

I am truly excited to see my friends and family again, and am looking forward to taking a long hot bath with a glass of Cotes du Rhone and the Guardian Weekend magazine. I want to see a play and walk in the great hall of the theatre in the dark. I want to play scrabble and eat a 16" pizza.

Some things, some people, I can always rely on. But still I am very nervous. Aside from the fact that I will be swapping the mist, mud and monkeys for cars and concrete, some other things will have changed for certain. More to the point, I have changed. Just how much I don´t yet know, but some things are already different, and make my stomach flip in anticipation.

The first major difference is that I will not be moving back into my appartment. That epoch is now over. When I first arrive I will be hosted by one of my favourite people in the world, so it´s not that bad, but neither is it long term or secure. I need to find a new place, which leads to another worry.

I have no money. Galapagos wiped me out completely. I need to pay back some money (rather a lot of money, as it happens), and I also need to make some money rather sharpish to be able to live and to be able to get back to Ecuador.

There are three points to consider. One, I have no job. Two, I don´t really want to get a serious career job if I am heading back to the jungle to write a book and make my future happen. Three, I want to get back to the jungle in time to observe the mating season, and that will not be possible on minimum wage.

.

What do I do? Will Ebay cope? Make mine an agua, por favor.

.

Suggestions are welcome.

.

The other concern is physical. My body is now a temple, don´t you know, and I don´t want to desecrate it. Seriously though, except for the skin fungus, scars, and parasites, working in the jungle does wonders for the health.

I will not be surprised if many of my clothes no longer fit. Without consciously making it so, my body has changed. Less for the aesthetics of it all, and more for the way I feel, I don´t want to get slack again. Will walking to town from Chorlton and back every day be sufficient substitute to hiking up to six hours in a day or working with a machete from 8 to 12 and 2 to 4?

Also, I have not smoked one single drag for almost a month. Here, I don´t feel any need to pick up a cigarette, but will I fall back into bad habits in Manchester?

The blog will change too. It will have to document how I cope with this new life. To explain how I find my way back to the forest and how the book is going.

I am looking forward to finding out.

But for now I think all that I need is just to make the most of the beach while I am still here.

Hasta pronto!

Footsteps fading in the moonlit sand

Last night was a full moon, and the clouds above the Montanita beach parted at times to light up the sea like daytime.

We shared a bottle of Castillo del Diablo with glass cups borrowed from the hostal, took self timed photos balancing the camera on Antonio´s flip flops, and chatted round in circles, about silly things and about life, until just before dawn.

It was my last night on the beach in Ecuador, my last evening of vacations before the final stint in the jungle. It could not pass without a hint of sadness.

I don´t want to leave, I said.

You have to get used to the fact that you are going home, he said.

I know, that´s why I ´m thinking about it. And I am happy to go and see my friends and family, but it will be so difficult to come back. I want to be here in December, when the season is different in the jungle and the birds are mating, but the flight is so expensive I don´t know how I can do it.

Why don´t you extend your visa? You could get a job here. There was a volunteer from Germany who did the same thing last year. It´s possible.

Perhaps it is possible, but it would be very difficult. And now I don´t have any money, I wouldn´t be able to live. I could get a job here in Montanita, but I don´t want to live here. I want to live in Bilsa, and I can´t earn money there. I have to go back and work, at least until I have enough money to come back.

Well, that´s life. Now stop moaning and lets dance.

Hasta luego

Sorry, I did warn you that I wouldn´t have time to detail everything before I run off into the trees again.

So here are some edited highlights from the last couple of weeks...

• Eating an Argentinian grill in a Chinese run restaraunt in Loja
• Consumption - coffee, cakes and clothes
• Consumption - Sexo en la Ciudad
• The colonial influence - Ecuador with a European flavour
• The hippest hostal in Cuenca
• Inca ruins and alpaca socks
• Sharing a box of wine on the steps to the river, double dating Cuenca style
• Talking philosophy and phonetics with a fairy
• Classic cinema and sign language
• The best laid plans - communication problems, the social politics of guide searching and tension amongst travel companions
• Trying to break a spell without breaking a heart

And now I have a few things to do here in Quito before leaving for Quininde in the morning. Not very interesting.

So tomorrow morning Felica and I will part ways, for good this time, which might be a bit strange. Then I will head to La Ye from Quininde (hopefully without livestock in the camionetta this time) and look for Winter, who is hanging around with a broken foot unable to work at the moment. He says he is waiting for me there with ´una de ron´ (a bottle of rum). After a night in La Ye, probably staying in the house that Winter is building for himself, Don Armardo says he´ll be there in the morning with a mule for me. For my bags, rather, because I am hiking the 3 1/2 hour muddy road to Bilsa in my faithful rubber boots.

When I get there, after I have said hello and dropped my bags in my room, the first thing I plan to do is to go down to the river for a shower. Then I will wash the city off, wash away the dirt and smoke and dry air, and breathe only the sounds and smells of the forest.

Ciao for now.

Snow holiday

When I first flew into Ecuador it was such a clear morning that I was able to take phorographs of the mountains from the plane window. One of them was Cotopaxi, the third highest active volcanic mountain in the world, at just under 6,000m.

After having lots of practice hiking the muddy trails of Bilsa, a while ago Felicia and I decided that to climb the mountain would be a fitting achievment to seal our time in Ecuador. This became the primary goal of our travels together. Everything else was flexible, but making this climb was a detirmination, and so yesterday was the last opportunity to head to the mountain.

The altitude got to me straight away. We had driven up to the last access point and hiked an hour up to the refuge. My breath was thin and laboured throughout, and I was weak and light headed when we arrived. I put it down to the fact that we had not had chance to get breakfast before meeting our guide at 7am, and any worries seemed to clear that afternoon after we had had some lunch and gone out into the snow for an hour to learn how to walk in crampons.

After dinner we went to bed at 6pm. Felicia had a headache and was given some coca tea by our guide, and I sipped what she didn´t want more out of curiosity of trying the coca than as a precaution. I was relieved that I seemed to have gotten over that strange patch earlier.

But I was confident too soon. Between 7 and 11pm, while the forty or so other people in the room relaxed before the climb, and while I could hear Felicia sleep in the bunk next to me, I fought with a new headache and a weight on my chest that felt like my lungs were crushed to a third of their size. My heart raced like it was about to flutter its last. I tossed and turned in my sleeping bag, trying to find a balance between maintaining some body heat and being able to breathe.

I slept for maybe 20 minutes before it was time to don our gear and eat a little midnight breakfast. I told the guide about my chest pains, and he said that I needed to decide whether I would be able to make it or not. After a few minutes I decided that the headache had retreated enough, and I didn´t want to give up at this point.

So we went out onto the cold midnight mountain. We went slowly, and though I was tired my chest felt alright so I was happy to continue. And so we did, for four hours.

And so it was that I was to be found at 4am this morning, crying weak tears of frustration and exhaustion on a dark and windy mountain, as my guide clipped my harness onto another couple heading back down to the refuge, so that he and Felicia could continue to the summit without me.

I didn´t look back.

Being led by a rope down a mountain, stumbling in the snow like a toddler on reins, I was relieved to see the train of headlamps down the mountain ahead of me, of people who also couldn´t make it throught the cold and wind, and who had turned back even before I did. I had made it to 5,400m before my jelly legs could lift no more, and am happy that I made it that far.

What a fool I was to compare mountain climbing to hiking in the jungle, and to underestimate the effects of altitude on the body*. Jungle hiking has its own challenges, of course, but for me they are overriden by the benefits of being able to watch the wildlife and smell the flora. Lugging myself up the mountain in the dark, only able to see the snow directly in front of me and to smell my own laboured breath inside my balaclava, there were times that I really did wonder why people bothered to put themselves through this, for a hobby? Of course the mountain was beautiful when it could be seen, and when Felicia returned to the refuge later that morning with photos from after the sun had risen, I was so pleased that she at least got to see the true magnificance of the mountain.

But I know that it is not the climate for me. The jungle beckons.

* As a measure of how the mountain messes with your body, one American girl who came down before me was taken to hospital from the refuge because of all the fainting and nose bleeding, and a Swiss woman from our group (who had already climbed Ecuador´s other peaks), came down from the summit without her sight. When we last saw her she could see light and bright colours, but no definition. Hopefully it will be better in the next day or so.

So I feel no shame that I didn´t make it, just really proud that Felicia managed to hoik herself all the way to the top without doing herself an injury.

Tilting at windmills

It happens sometimes that you bump in to the person you were only just thinking about, but how bizarre that I had an encounter with Quixote in Loja?

Perhaps I too am tilting at windmills, and the dream of an idyll from former times is seen as little more than eccentricity. Perhaps my perception of what is real life is different now, and perhaps I prefer it that way.

Of course, I am looking forward to coming home.

I am looking forward to seeing my family and friends and having a long hot bath with a glass of wine and the Guardian magazine. I am looking forward to going to the theatre and having free reign in the kitchen again. My mouth waters for a pint of Guinness and some Marmite on toast (not necessarily at the same time), and I can´t wait to prance about in a selection of pretty clothes. I am looking forward to Radio 4 and Sackville Park, and I am looking forward to my books.

But I will still be aiming at that distant windmill on the horizon.

The flight to Cuenca

The flight took around about an hour. It cost $68.

And for that we travelled over the Andes, down from Quito towards the south of Ecuador.

Between the sun and the clouds and the earth; the mountains sprawling accross the horizon like a rumpled sheet, we could see every town, every pueblito, every casa along the way.

Update: Galapagos photos

I have managed to get my pictures up onto a computer, so if you want to see some pictures from Galapagos, scroll down to Now this is Galapagos.

Disclaimer

As some of you who have continued to read despide prolonged absences and incoherent ramblings may be aware, my itinerary and access to internet are rather unpredictable.

There is a column to the left of this blog that details my itinerary down to the exact date. Scrap it. After Tsuraku all that went to pot. Thank the stars, because that is when it got even more interesting (for me, anyway).

For you, however, it means that I just don´t have the time or facility to explain all that I am doing, so I apologise that between Tsuraku and now (and from now on, I am afraid) the reportage is bitty at best.

I assure you that I am writing constantly, and will be posting outtakes when I am able to.

So, a quick update of my movements before I take off....

I arrived in Quito from San Cristobal the day before yesterday. It took me a while to settle into Galapagos, but I did finally get to enjoy myself and see some of the sights.

As well as macheteing blackberries and being bitten to buggery by carmelitas (both invasive species that have taken over San Crisobal, brought over last century by a lady called Carmela - not hugely popular amongst the conservationists when she died last year) I got my scuba diving licence, snorkled amongst sea lions and penguins, almost stood up on a surf board, and got a tan.

I also found a shop on Santa Cruz that sold clothes that didn´t say ´Galapagos´, ´I love Boobies´ or diamantes on it, and got my hands on my first pretty clothes since march. Sigh.

I spent the night of my birthday wearing a dress and playing pool with some local guys, the only woman and the only non- local in the bar. I knew one of the guys from my scuba course, so it wasn´t as dangerous as it might sound. Although a couple were a bit flirty none of them were at all pushy, which is refreshing I can tell you after a month of being a little bit pestered.

And so to Quito. It may come as a surprise, but this time I have actually enjoyed myself here! As much as I can in a big noisy smelly dangerous city, anyway.

I flew in with Sacha, who was my partner in crime (and complaint) during our time on San Cris, and we met Felicia and Tomo from Bilsa before Sacha left to head towards Peru in the morning.

Felicia randomly bumped into a couple of volunteers who were at Bilsa while I was away. They were at San Cristobal just before I got there, and so they also know the other girl that flew back to the mainland with us. We all went out for dinner last night. A great Jatun Sacha reunion!

After dinner Felicia, Tomo and I met up with Pato (one of our scientist friends from Bilsa) and his cousin Augustin, for some drinks and dancing. Who would have thought that ´Holiday´by Madonna has a good beat for salsa dancing? Pato and I made it work, so it must be true.

We all got nicely merry and then went back to our hostal to play cuarenta in the courtyard until 4am.

What a difference it makes to have friendly faces around in a scary city!

Now I am in the airport waiting for check in time. Felicia and I are doing a little travelling before she heads back to Switzerland and I head back to Bilsa. We have some really exciting plans about what we want to do, but as we all know plans like this can never be set in stone....

Today we are flying into Cuenca and taking a bus to Loja in the south of Ecuador. The flights to Loja were full today, so we will arrive there by bus this evening. In Loja we are planning to go to Vilcabamba, which is a place where some of the oldest people in the world live, and to hike in the Parque Nacional Podocarpus, which is a biodiversity hotspot with much endemism of both plant and animal species.

Then we will get a bus up to Cuenca, Ecuador´s third city and the home of the Monticristi (the ´Panama´hat is a misnomer - they are made in Ecuador). There´s lots to do in Cuenca, but the one main plan is to take a day trip to see the Inca site Incapirca (and to buy a Monticristi, of course).

From Cuenca we head to Riobamba to meet Antonio´s friend the mountain guide, who is going to accompany us up to the top (fingers crossed) of the 6,000m Cotopaxi.

After climbing the mountain we are going to the volcanic spa town Baños for massages etc. After four months in wellies my feet are crying out for a pedicure. Then we head back to Quito to meet Winter on his vacations, perhaps go to a concert with August, and visit some museums and markets.

Phew. It´s going to be a busy ten days.

.........and then I go back into the jungle!

Now this is Galapagos

So my time at the San Cristobal station finished just as it was getting interesting. The music, the conversations, the passion and the understanding all arrived while I was readying to leave.

Asi es la vida.

But now, before I head back to the mainland, I am taking a four day tour of the islands, and I finally get to see why Galapagos is so special.

Yesterday I snorkled amongst miriad fish from the size of my finger nail to the size of me, in greys and blacks and pinks and blues and rainbows. I swam with sea lions amongst the waves crashing against the great craggy rocks around the small volcanic island. I said hello to a penguin guarding its nest in the rocks. I saw friggate birds and blue footed and masked boobies, and just missed the tail of a whale as it passed by the boat. I caught a tan lying on the front of the speedboat for an hour. And that was just the journey to Isabella.

Isabella is beautiful. Yesterday evening we went to look at the giant tortoises before dinner, and then drank cerveza on the beach front. This morning we went horseback riding up to the rim of the volcano, and then hiked along the crackled landscape. The crater of this volcano stretches 11km in diameter, which is the second largest in the world. The effect of the spewn lava is just incredible. Like the moon, some said, or a different planet. It reminded me of Beckett; of a post apocalyptic world where life has ceased to thrive except for a few survivers wandering aimlessly into the bleak horizon.

Then we rode back down the volcano, and got the horses into a gallop. I like to gallop, I have found; to have the wind whip by as you soar along is absolutely exhilerating. Then he broke into something faster than a gallop, and we were flying down the mountain. My right foot came out of my stirrup, and I held on with my leg against his neck, swerving vigorously from side to side on the saddle. I knew I was going to fall, because pulling the reins did nothing to slow him down and I had no hold on him as he careered along. So I saw an approaching area of grass, let my other foot out of its stirrup, and threw myself off to the right.

The horse jumped past me, inches away, as I rolled onto the grass.

Another thing to add to the list of near misses and daredevil stunts.

I am writing this on a computer set up on a table outside a house they have converted into an internet cafe. They actaully brought me coffee, so I rate the service even though I am being eated alive by tiny flies. I have just come back from surfing for the first time, but I don´t have time to describe it because I have to shower before dinner and then head to the beach again for a bit of night swimming.

Life´s tough, eh?

Familia

Last night, during a conversation with an ecuadorian whose opinion on volunteers is very much worth noting, I explained (politely) a little of my disappointment, and noted that the volunteers are much more touristy here, and less interested in the conservation work.

We had been talking about how it was necessary to demonstrate to volunteers the objectives of the conservation work, be it through experiencing the attractions of the locale rather than just seeing brambles all the time, or through explaining the history, politics, economics and science behind the work. This way, we were agreeing, people would be more motivated to continue the often monotanous and physically trying work.

However, my companion noted, this is often very difficult to do, because the volunteers are often here soley for a cheap means to get on Galapagos, and have no interest in hearing about the technicalities of reserve work.

Most of them are not like you, I was told. They are tourists, but you are a member of the family. The family? The Jatun Sacha family. You know how it really is.

Yes, we were both a little less than sober when I was told this. Even so, apart from the fact that it is an enormous compliment, it also illustrates what had been missing earlier and what had made my last week on the San Cristobal station so much more enjoyable than earlier.

It was not that I wanted to connect more with the other volunteers and other gringos, though of course it is nice to get along, but that I want to speak (in Spanish) to the Ecuadorians and the people who have more of a personal attachment to the work and the environment.

This week I got to converse about the reasons we are here, with people who care, and that makes all the difference.

Station to Station (updated)

.
The difference in culture amongst the volunteers between reserves is as marked as the difference in physical location.

In Tsuraku we were few, and we struggled to find a balance between personal space and communication. We suffered from cabin fever in that small house amongst a community that kept to itself, yet although we were stressed and frustrated with each other we also in a sense developed a bond of mutual concern.

The number of volunteers at Bilsa varied from five in my first week to over a dozen (plus a party of twenty or so students for one week).

When the scientists weren´t around the house was a little more sedate. There were less voices bubbling over each other in the evenings, the guitars hung still against the wall, and when we went to La Yecita there were less dancing partners.

But even when we were just volunteers, we were animated and enthused and concerned for the station and each other. We worked like mules, yet always had time to talk and laugh along the way. With few exceptions we wanted to learn, we wanted to help, and we wanted to take part.

The dynamic worked, is the end of what I will say about the Bilsa station. I couldn´t afford the internet time if I continued to write about it, even if I wasn´t saving my notes for the project.

It is now my ungrateful displeasure to write about my current station, while all the time my heart aches to think that I have to wait another month before I can feel the mud of the jungle beneath my booted feet again.
___________________________________________


Galapagos is famous. We have all heard of how Darwin found in the species variation of the islands the inspriration and examples to demonstrate his studies on evolution, and we imagine a wild and inhospitable terrain, rich with strange creatures and wild island noises. I suppose that when Darwin first arrived on San Cristobal it may have been so, but when I arrived I was surprised to find myself in a highly developed port filled with restaraunts, gift shops and internet cafes.

This is the smartest, wealthiest, most gringo friendly place I have seen since arriving in Ecuador. In fact, it barely feels like Ecuador. Many of the locals speak English to you, even when they know you speak Spanish, because it is second nature to them to speak English to gringos. The music in the bars is English or American (or Bob Marley) on most nights, and even the pool table is governed by American rules.

The horizon is sprinkled by American, European or Japanese owned yaghts that carry tourists from island to island without the hassle of having to interact with locals or put money into the local economy. Meanwhile the tourists (and volunteers) who do stay at port are astounded by how cheap the prices are. They don´t realise or care that the price of a meal on the sea front is often 5 times more expensive than a better meal on the mainland, because they have no interest in Ecuador proper.

This is tourist land. And this is reflected in the volunteer reserve. Firstly, it is significantly more popular and populated by volunteers than other Jatun Sacha stations. Many of these volunteers are motivated by the appeal of GALAPAGOS rather than an invested interest in ecology in general, which means that they may only stay for a week or so and not be overly interested in working. Few of the volunteers have any great interest in Ecuador proper, because they have come directly to Galapagos and will go home after they have done their own island tours. The majority are around 20- 21 years old, and mainly interested in meeting people of the same age and opposite sex.

For these, and various other reasons, I do not find myself on the same wavelength as most of the other volunteers. Obviously there are exceptions, and I am certainly not lonely, but on the most part they have no interest in me and I have no inclination to make myself socially available. They are a group of nice young people who are happy to be on the famous Galapagos, and I am a slightly jaded, travel worn woman who would rather be back in the jungle. I don´t want to criticise, only to explain that I can´t help but compare the difference.

Obviously, because there are so many young volunteers to manage, the working of the reserve has to be governed rather tightly. This means that the work is apportioned systematically, rather than according to inclination and/or experience, and that meal and social times are strictly regimented. It is like a rather expensive boot camp for young tourists. The work itself is hard, as it is on the other stations, but lacks the motivating sense of purpose and passion. Finally, there is no real research taking place, the environment around the station is largely uninspiring, and no one has time or inclination to discuss the ecology of the area in any depth.

In short, I feel as though at the station I work very hard, and get very little personal in return.

I am sure that if this had been my first station I would have loved the difference of station living; the spartan lifestyle would have been refreshing and I would not have known that there could be more to it. But I have suppose that now I have seen how it is elsewhere, I feel the difference between the dirty reality of the mainland and the golden egg of Galapagos, and I have experienced a genuine passion for conservation and a reserve that makes it work, that makes your work count.

I have been volunteering for almost four months now, and right now I do not feel the urge to throw myself into the volunteer work here as I have previously. It just doesn´t sit right with me. The reserve is the wealthiest of all under Jatun Sacha´s control, and my money is already in the bank. They have an overabundance of volunteers, and I don´t feel at all inclined to break my back on mundane chores and panic that I will be reprimanded for arriving minutes late for lunch.

And so I have decided to take every opportunity to escape the station.

This weekend I went scuba diving, and stayed at port until wednesday, which means I have one work day and one ´hike´day before another weekend at port. Then I have another full week of volunteering. I will work as hard as I ever do, which is pretty hard now that my strength and machete skills are honed. When I work, regardless of whether my heart is in it or not, I prefer to work hard. So they should have no reason to complain about me, even if after that week I am buggering off on a four day tour to see the islands, and flying back to Quito directly rather than returning to the station as I was originally supposed to. Ya me voy, para Bilsa trabajar. I am heading back to work at Bilsa, where I belong.

Galapagos, schmalapagos.

The greatest compliment

Carrying my third heavy sack of soil up the steep slippery steps from accross the river to the scientists´ house for the new reforestation nursery beds, Domingo raised his eybrows as he passed me on the way back down:



"¡Un mujer incansable! Eres ecuatoriana."

(An untirable woman. You´re ecuadorian.)



Two or three sacks later, whilst the other girls were throwing down their third or fourth in exhaustion, I sat on the pile of palm biel timbre that we had carried up before and freshly squeezed lemon juice was passed around. I drank it down with warm muscles and a happy heart.

Back in action

Hola, remember me?

Sorry it has been so long with so little info, but as you know I have been stuck in the mud (literally) and unable to update.

However, now I am back, but unfortunately I am afraid that I will not be writing extensively on here about Bilsa, because I don´t want to confuse myself with my new writing project (more on that later). You´ll get a few teasers, that´s all.

Anyway, although I have actually been in Quito (and therefore with internet access) for a day and a half, I just literally haven´t had chance to blog. Much as I would prefer to sit and type about a wide variety of things for hours on end, there have been too many errands to run to dedicate the time. Things will improve when I get to Galapogas, I promise.

First teaser...

Tuesday night became a second send off in La Yecita, and I eventually rolled into my bunk bed at around 2.30am. Fortunately I wasn´t overly drunk, as I was up again at 5.30am to begin the 3 1/2 hour hike along the muddy camino to La Ye. I did get stuck over the knee in the glue-like mud for a little while, and was beginning to hope that someone would pass to give me a hand, but I eventually managed to pull myself out and the chuchaki (hangover - oh yes, I have learnt all the most important Spanish words) didn´t really make an appearance until I got bit by an angry pig in the camioneta.

More on that another time perhaps.

And so, after 1 1/2 hours sharing the back of a pick-up with 7 other humans, a pig, an oil drum and a box of chicks, and a 5 hour bus ride to Quito, plus a day full of errands and paperwork, I am off to get a little sleep before I have to get up at 6am to head to San Cristobal.

Buenas noches.xx.

Holiday snaps

To compensate for being useless at catching fishes, I decided to prove my worth by preparing the ceviche. It was the first time I made it, but it was so yummy and easy to make, that I will definately do it again. You will need:

• Seafood. In this case fish (just caught, obv), but clams or squid or prawns will do just as well.
• The juice of lots of lemons and one orange
• A tomato, chopped finely
• A large onion, finely chopped
• Salt, chilli if desired
• Half an hour for the juices to cook the fish

Listo!

Beware boarding night busses with Frenchmen carrying moonshine.

In Puerto Lopez I finally got to see some Boobies!

In Montanita, biding time until the next coctail.

Atacames by night

There is a coctail called ´Atacames by NIght´, which you can drink under the straw-thatched bars that stretch along the beach pumping salsa, merengue, and europop out onto the pacific.

Three things I did in Atacames by night:

• Drank coctails and listened to Winter recounting there series of painful and embarrasing punishments he received during his military service.
• Felt the warm waves tumble against me, and fought the urge to keep going further into the pitch black expanse of the Pacific.
• Stood helpless as Winter and Nicholas grappled with muggers on the street outside our hostal, and thanked the stars that the attackers were inexperienced kids with only a blunt handleless blade and pieces of broken road to throw, and that the guys only suffered superficial scratches.

We left Atacames the next day.

Incommunicado

Apologies for the lack of updates of late, but there are no modems in paradise.

Right now I am on vacation on the beach for a week before heading back to a final week at Bilsa, and there really just wouldn´t be sufficient time for me to put down what I want to say about Bilsa while I am here. I will do my best to provide a retrospective when I have more regular internet access in Quito and on Galapagos. But then if you still want to know more about the Bilsa reserve, you will have to wait for the book to come out (no, seriously).

What I can say now, though, is that if I long for Bilsa this much after a few days on a beach holiday with friends and not a care in the world, I really wonder how I will cope when I have to really leave for a long time.

In Bilsa I find myself looking after the vegetable patch after a morning working in the forest, or sat on the steps of the medicinal plant garden, writing and dozing and watching the birds flock over the trees, and I suddenly sadden at the realisation that this is the life I wanted, and that I will be gone before even the radishes are harvested.

Jungle style: part II

.
Machetes can come in handy in a variety of situations.

They can be used to clear a trail in the jungle, chop wood for fenceposts or kindling, cauterise leaky wellies, slice vegetables, and pull up weeds.

And if you accessorise them with an impractical dress on a party night, they are also very good for pretending to be a kick ass kung fu assassin.

If you like that kind of thing...


Something tells me I´m just not hard faced enough to be convincing!

Quito is not my favourite place

I am in Quito for a few days before moving on to the next station tomorrow morning.

Have had lots of admin to sort out, including trying to access the pin number for my bank card so that I can continue here for the next four and a half months, and I haven´t really had access to the internet to update the blog. Sorry.

Will try harder tonight, because after that I will be going on a 5 hour bus journey, then a 3 hour truck ride, then meeting a man with a mule to guide me on the 5 1/2 hour hike into to the next reserve. I will be incommunicado for a while after that , as you can imagine.

Moonshine at the bull ring

I may have to eat my words a little.

As soon as we left the internet shop yesterday (the one where I poured my frustration into the blog below), the mood between the other volunteer and I seemed to change. All of the things I had complained about seemed to stop, and we actually managed to converse in words of multiple syllables.

I suppose I was a bit harsh in my complaints, because he certainly isn´t a bad person and wasn´t intentionally trying to offend me. Perhaps he was frustrated and resentful with the situation, and not me, and just needed to speak to his family and girlfriend on Sykpe to feel more sociable. Whatever the resaon for the tension, it got better.

I considered deleting yesterday´s blog, because I don´t want to write anything insulting or hurtful to people. But I will leave it, because it is an example of my yo-yo-ing emotions and heightened sensitivity at the moment. The close quarters are one thing to make us edgy, and the philosophical and personal issues that the situation raises another, but when things start going off-plan in a technical sense, the feeling of helplessness and solitude can blow up out of all proportion.

This week I have had my phone stolen and discovered that my bank card doesn´t work. Two annoying, technical chains linking me to the commercial, media-obsessed western world have been cut. I never realised how reassuring these chains can be. But I will survive without them, I am sure.
_______________________________________________

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, last night in Riobamba.

We decided to get a bottle of wine and find somewhere to sit and people watch, because despite the fiesta practically everywhere in Riobamba is closed on Sundays.

Eventually we found a spot on some steps, next to a group of people selling artisania and playing a hotchpotch of instruments from bongos and traditional pipes to a plastic mini saxophone.

Drinking Crystal (like moonshine, the chemicals can make you go blind if you drink too much) on the steps of the bull ring, a pool of bulls blood on the road in front of us. Sat between a texan traveller and her Ecuadorian boyfriend, being taught to juggle by the Columbian guy who gave me the bracelet, and making plans to meet up and hang out on the coast in a few weeks maybe. Reassuring the police woman that I do have a passport back at the hostal, and do have a visa (hm?), and winding our way back to the hostal at around midnight, chatting and ready to sleep.

It was an alright night.

Dependency

Right now I am stranded in a town called Riobamba. I came here with one of the other volunteers because there is a fiesta celebrating a battle against the Spanish, and I really wanted to see the fiesta.

As it turns out, the fiesta only really gets going on Monday, so there isn´t really much going on right now. Juist as well, I suppose, as we by the time we arrived here the bank was already closed for changing traveller´s cheques, and my bank card doesn´t seem to be working in the ATMs.

There is a possibility that I have forgotten my pin number. How can it be that I can remember my best friends phone number from when I was eight, and the customer service number for my bank, but not the PIN that I used practically every day in Manchester?

I could kick myself, because now I am wondering how I am going to finance the next four and a half months. I have traveller´s cheques, but the recommended about of money to bring per month was massively underestimated, and I was relying on being able to withdraw some cash to make up for the shortfall (the traveller´s cheques will run out by June or July, if the past six weeks is anything to go by).

In the meantime I am completely reliant on the other volunteer, which is agonising to my spirit. He had no other option but to lend me $20 last night. It hasn´t been recognised that I had wanted to get my money sorted out earlier yesterday, when we were in Puyo, but that he had wanted to go directly to Riobamba, and now he clearly resents having had to lend me some cash.

Last night he said ´Because I am in charge, I will decide where we eat.´ I said, ´What do you mean ´because you are in charge´?´ and he replied ´Because it is my money.´ I made it clear to him that I was going to pay him back every cent (I didn´t mention the fact that I made no such demands when I lent him $20 one day when he had forgotten to bring his wallet out), and he said that he was joking.

I suppose it might have been funny, except for the fact that he walks down the road tree paces ahead of me and has been overruling any suggestions that I dare to make. This morning, after I had tried and failed again to use the ATM, I followed him around town while he found himself a snack. Í didn´t have a cent to my name. I couln´t go back to the hostal because, of course, he holds the key because he paid for the room (actually, I paid my half of the room from last night´s $20, but that´s his money too, right?). Back at the hostal he gave me another $20, and made sure I knew how much I now owe him.

I am not ungrateful. Of course, I would be destitute without being able to borrow this money from him. I would have no place to sleep, and no way of getting home. I really appreciate having just a small amount of cash to be able to use the internet and feel connected to people that I care about. However, I would not have been put in this position if I had come on my own. I would have made sure that I have my money sorted out before coming. I wish I had had the strength to press for that more when he said that he didn´t want to hang around while I changed money when I could get it just as easy in Riobamba. So I blame myself for being in this situation.

But the thing that really pisses me off is the spirit in which the money has been lent. I don´t get on too well with this volunteer anyway (don´t ask how we ended up coming away together, that´s another story), and such arrogance, and the expectation of subservience, is riling me beyond gratitude. If this was Manchester, or even if I just had some means of getting back on my own, I would make my thoughts clear. But as it is, I am completely dependent on this 21 year old boy´s continued generosity for the next day at least, and I must keep my mouth shut if I know what´s good for me.

I don´t value money very highly. I would rather not have to deal with it a lot of the time. But the value of financial independence is so vast that the weight of losing it is crushing.

The majority of the women in Tsuraku are completly dependent on their men, who can come and go as they please, and the women are left behind in ignorance of what they are getting up to. Unless they bring them back a case of venerial disease, of course. And how can they ask, how can they argue, when it is the man who provides, and the man who makes all the decsions?

There is one woman that I know of who holds the purse strings; the woman who runs the tienda. She has said that if she ever gets news of her man playing around, or if he ever dares to beat her, she will kick him out, and he knows it. They seem to have a good relationship.

How great it is to have that power. That right.

Tsuraku: Back story etc

Trying to get the measure of Tsuraku and the role of Jatun Sacha (and therein myself) here necessitates gathering some understanding of the series of socio-historical events that provide the context to the way the land and community has developed into this situation.

To save from inaccuracies in my interpretation of things, I have compiled a few extracts (geeky, moi?) from Jívaro [Shuar]: People of the sacred waterfalls, by Michael J. Harner (Berkley, Los Angeles, London; University of California Press, 1972, 1984):

“Only one tribe of American Indians is known to ever have successfully revolted against the entire of Spain, and to have thwarted all subsequent attempts by the Spaniards to conquer them.” (1)

“The Shuar also became [in the early 20th century] not just a warlike group, but as an individualistic people intensely jealous of their freedom and unwilling to be subservient to authority.” (1)

“The Shuar … long have had a practical understanding of the need to unite against a common external enemy in war. In the twentieth century, however, the gradually evolving threat did not fit the Shuar model of justification for war. Rather, missionaries and colonists trickled down from the Ecuadorian Andes and essentially infiltrated the Shuar population in the western or frontier region, gradually taking over lands formerly occupied by the Shuar.” (vii)

The Shuar eventually came to trade with the colonial settlers, clearing land for pasture for them in exchange for cloth and machetes. Then “cattle raising proved successful, and soon more colonists arrived. As their numbers increased and they were augmented by military and police units, their fear of the Shuar diminished, and they began seizing the Indians´garden clearings for pastures.” (32)

“The ´civilized´concept of killing people to defend land was alien to Shuar tradition, and they lacked and immediate cultural strategy to deal with the worsening situation.” (vii)

“[Around 1950] missionaries persuaded the government of Ecuador to set aside certain lands in the Upano Valley as church administered reservations for use by missionized Shuar.” (6)

"Finally, in the heart of the Río Upano Valley frontier area around Sucúa, where there was the greatest density of both Shuar and white colonists, as well as the catalyst of an activist Salesian priest, Juan Shutka, the protection of territory became a formerly recognised goal for Shuar survival in the early 1960´s. This recognition shortly let to the foundation of the Federation there in 1964, at this time named the Federacion Provincial de Centros Shuaros de Morana-Santiago.” (vii)

The Federation was funded by European religious organisations and other sources. “The funds supported not only the administrative activities of th Federation, but also the very important program to help the Shuar purchase cattle by extending credit. The clearing of forest and the raising of cattle have [in the 1980´s] become the primary economic activities of the Shuar. The success of their cattle industry has not only given them new self-confidence and ethnic pride, but also protects their claims to land since the creation of pastures prevents the government from appropriating it.” (10)

“Originally the Federation helped individual nuclear families acquire legal title to land, but surveying so many small tracts was difficult, and there was the danger that individuals would later sell their lands to the colonists from the highlands. Now the focus of Federation efforts is to obtain title to land by centros, with the families resident in a centro being allocated plots of land for their use, but not for their individual ownership.” (x)

“Meanwhile, the Shuar struggle to save their lands as white (mestizo) colonists continue to immigrate from the adjacent Ecuadorian highlands in ever increasing numbers. To make matters more difficult, often this colonization is sponsored by the Ecuadorian government [through resettlement programs]” (xii)

"Missionaries, with the backing of law enforcement agencies, were putting Shuar children in boarding schools and enculturing them to the new, alien way of life. this direct, unremitted contact was tending to acculturate the frontier Shuar to the national Ecuadorian way of life and the direction of the trend was towards eventual assimilation."
_______________________________________________

The road from puyo to Macas runs through the middle of Tsuraku (Pitirishka in Quichua). It is about 1 1/2 hours bus ride south of Puyo and north of Macas. The busses run regularly (about one every 45 minutes in either direction), and the driver honks his horn to let people know he is coming. the busses cost about $1 an hour, and let vendors on at the busier stops to sell apples, bananas, ice creams frozen in plastic bags, newspapers and sweets.

From the hand drawn map on the wall of the reserve house I count about 100 buildings, including outhouses, a school and college (named Collegio Tsansta, after a traditional Shuar practice worth googling), health clinic and basketball court. The buildings are made from either wood or breeze blocks, with tin or thatched roofs. There are a couple of examples of traditional Shuar buildings, but most people live in more ´modern´constructions.

Tsuraku was established in the 1960´s when a man called Moncayo settled here with his four wives. The community now consists of about 300 people, the majority of which are direct descendents of the original family and carry the Moncayo name. One of the original wives still lives. She looks to be in her seventies or eighties, and she wears a bright pink t-shirt and bright orange skirt, and outfit that makes me smile each time I see her.

The community is very close, both physically and socially, as footsteps and conversations can be heard from house to house. There are three shops of varying sizes, and sometimes we buy a beer and sit outside the shop to play cards. The Shuar tend to stay indoors in the evening, and so we tend to have the most contact with people in the daytime.

Jatun Sacha arrved in Tsuraku four years ago, and occupies both a privileged and precarious position. As Tsuraku is comminity-owned land, Jatun Sacha rents a house by agreement of the community. Anything that Jatun Sacha does here must be by agreement, which is I think is good considering the way do-gooders have seized control of the Shaur´s destinies in the past, but also means that things can take a long time, and that each project must prove its worth before the people embrace it and decide to collaborate.

One of the major aspects of Jatun Sacha´s work in Tsuraku is to encourage sustainable forestation practices. Cutting the forests for pasture or manufacturing is a rewarding prospect in the short term, but primary forests trees are 500 years old and so this is a severe threat to forest susinability. Jatun Sacha´s desired goal is to demonstrate and educate about sustainable practices. This is not easy, because a reforestation project for mahogany trees, for example, will not reap any results for a number of decades, and so the aim is to encourage people to appreciate the benefit their taking part will have on future generations; for their children and grandchildren.

An aspect of the reforestation project at Tsuraku is the establishment of viveros, or tree nurseries, to propagate enough mahogany plants so that in future years these trees can be sold as an alternative to cutting primary forest. Jatun Sacha has its own vivero, and would like to encourage people to establish them on their own lands. As these are long-sighted projects, and community members cannot be forced to recognise the benefits of having one, it is reassuring when a family does decide to put their land to this use.

Over the past weeks we have created a vivero behind the big tienda (the shop). We macheted clear an area about 500m sq, plotted out a number of beds, cut the trees to make the borders and fence posts, dug the soil and weeded it, sorted the seeds and planted them. Just over a month ago it was an overgrown wasteland, and now it is a working piece of land with fresh green seedlings peeping above the soil.

In thirty years time the little boy who lives in the tienda might be cutting these trees.

It´s funny. I´ve found it really dificult to describe the details of what I have actually been doing here. There have been quite a few times when I have felt really disheartened that we aren´t really doing very much, and many times that has been exactly the case as work can often be cancelled due to heavy rains or suchlike. There have been moments where I have wondered whether we are having any good impact on the environment or community by being here, as the work is so piecemeal and the effects are obscure.

But just now, thinking about the little boy in the tienda being a grown man and possibly cutting a tree that we planted, I feel quite positive about being here. I certainly don´t think that we can be having a negative impact. The project is young like the saplings, but something grand may come of it yet.


I will be leaving Tsuraku next week.

Coming of blog-age

I have been visited by google searchers!

So there.

Accessorizing

. If Dame Viviane made wellies (does she? I want some), she would make them like mine, I am sure.

The ingenuity brought about through practicality lends itself a particular style. My socks are too short for my boots, and so walking and working in humidity for hours causes chafing and an unsightly rash if I don´t have trousers tucked inside. And so my ´pirate´turn downs provide a simple and chic solution.

So far I have yet to find an answer to the question of the mid-calf tan line.

A pocket knife is a girl´s best friend. So far mine has been used for (amongst other things):

• chopping vegetables in the rainforest, as an alternative to the customary machete


• freeing a fallen horse from its load in the jungle


• tweezing splinters


• making a ling shot to collect leaf specimens


• jungle manicures (apparently in Spanish there is a special word for the dirt under one´s nails)


• piñata production

.....and tonight, I will attempt to give myself a haircut with it.

Community

In a culture so socially and structurally different to the realm of contemporary western experience as that of developing indiginous communities like that of the Shuar in Tsuraku, outsiders are naturally drawn together.

Being able to share tips of places to go to do laundry in the town, or a cafe that sells coffee made from ground beans, to hear of experiences that are at the same time both cautionary tales and amusing anecdotes, to talk about visas and leishmaniasis and other technicalities, and to try to unravel the puzzle of sustainable rainforest management and community development with people who are also confused, and exhausted, and awestruck, is a great tonic in a situation that can be very isolating.

There were three of us volunteers at Tsuraku until the welcome arrival of three more on Friday. We were beginning to develop cabin fever from living and working in such close quarters with no one else to talk to and nowhere to go for some time alone. The Shuar are very familyand home-oriented, and so even if the language barrier disappeared there would be little likelihood of them socialising much with the foreigners in the evenings. The volunteer house is too small to spread out, and so there is no option but to live on top of one another. By Friday some conversations had reduced to grunts, and the irritability level was high. It was not unremittingly unpleasant; there were lots of interesting conversations and amuzing moments, but even the most tolerant of people will find themself tested by having to spend almost every waking moment with two strangers from different backgrounds and different personality types. As soon as the three Americans arrived we all perked up. Sentences were formed, there was no silence at mealtime, and the permeating fug lifted.

There is another small community 25 minutes walk to the north of Tsuraku which also has a volunteer project, and currently has four volunteers; all English girls. This weekend I and five other girls have come to a town called Baños, which is located in the valley of the volcano Tungurahua (the one that errupted again earlier this year). We shared a dorm, boiled and froze ourselves by turns in the thermal baths, went on a three hour hike up the mountain to get a good view of the town, went dancing in a nightclub, and had a massage with hot stones amongst other things. I wouldn´t have managed to do even a portion of that, and certainly wouldn´t have enjoyed it as much, if I hadn´t the company of the other girls.

I am just about getting used to the fact that I am the oldest, and that some of my experiences or thoughts might not be the same as the younger ones. I have dated someone with children not much younger than two of these girls, which makes me feel slightly odd, but then I suppose that sort of thing is only going to happen more often from now on.

I just wish I knew what happened to that wisdom that is supposed to come with age.

Synaptic meltdown.

Sometimes I think that perhaps my brain has actually gone numb.

I blink after staring at a pile of rocks for half an hour and realise that I have no idea what I have been thinking about. A swarm of half thoughts flitter through my mind, and then are lost.

I am conscious that there is so much that I have to write about, so much that I am missing out that would be of interest to people. I know that each time someone emails me and asks whether I am happy, I skirt around the question. But each tiny detail is like a pebble on a mountain. To describe the shape and colour of the pebble is one thing, but without the mountain there is no sense to it.

I have been getting lost in the plate tectonics of things, and now I am trying to drag myself to the surface and lay out all my pebbles and twigs and bits of bones in a nice neat pattern on the ground.

It may take some time for me to be able to make a clear picture of the shape of things.

Gringo legs - the best dinner in town - to go, or to eat in?

The pattern of the red spotten swollen mass that is my legs changes daily, but what doesn´t change is that my ankles are no more. The intense throbbing itch comes and goes in waves; the result of presenting myself as fresh meat to the unconquerable bugs of the Amazonian rainforest. The larger (sand fly) bites each have a bruised radius of 2-4cm, and scratching them is blissful, if momentary release.

However, I have been warned that in this humid climate scratched bites have a tendency to develop into open sores, which can then develop into more serious infections. So my will power is being tested, as just the short satisfying moment when the nail digs into the itch is such a temptation that I catch myself scratching unconsciously, in my sleep even.

And then there is that one strange bite that looks different from the rest. That may, or may not, be the temporary home of a fly larvae while it grows.

Well, I always did like to play the hostess.

Uwihint community

These (rubber) boots were made for walking





Hiking to and from the Uwihint community is possibly one of the most physically challenging things I have done to date. At a steady pace, it took 3 1/2 hours to travel 7km up and down craggy and slippery trails, through the undergrowth and across rivers in the dense midday humidity. At times I felt as though I could not go on, as when we climbed up steep hills thick with wet clay my head went dizzy and my hands and arms swelled with pressure, but my legs moved on as if disconnected from my body, pulling out of the ground and finding the next foothold.


When we got to the top of each climb and could walk straigh or downhil for a while, my breath would return, until the next climb.

______________________________________________


















I am sat on a bark ledge upstairs of the Shuar house we are sleeping in for the weekend. Immediately in front of me is a small hill of plantain trees leading down to a small rocky river on the left and the Uwihint school house on the right. Behind that, and on the horizon all around us, is primary rainforest.

(The picture above is the view described above, and the second picture is the view from the river - if you zoom in dead centre you will be able to see the house we stayed in)

To the left of the tin-roofed school house Carlos the horse is grazing, a little respite after carrying bags of rice and sleeping mats throught the steep rainforest where he slipped and fell heavily more than once due to the tough terrain and exhaustion. There is a fire lñit in the community space, a tin roof supported by tree trunks, and a couple of boys kick a football around in the late afternoon light.

Very suddenly, as I write this, the air changes and thunder approaches fast from the east. The trees start to bend and a strong wind moves closer, winding around us on all sides. I climb down the stepladder to the ground and stand with Ramon, the president and founder of the Uwihint settlement, who points and follows the path of the wind in the forest aound us with his finger. It draws in, and pieces of thatch from the house are pulled up and dark spots of leaves and thatch float in the air above us like a cluster of strange shaped black butterflies.

____________________________________________________

We eat a dinner of plantain, rice and peas under the tin roof of the community space. The small cooking fire provides some light, and also a couple of the candles that we brought with us.

After dinner people gather around the fire, and two women bring their small children to the shaman to be healed. The woman sits next tot he shaman by the fire, her child wrapped in her arms. The man pulls a couple of embers from the fire and crushes them out quickly between his palms, and then rubs the ash first on the baby´s head, and then down his back. Afterwards, he ties some leaves tot he top of one of the trunks that support the roof.

A little later everyone gathers in the school building, and we carry the infant chairs we are sitting on with us. Ramon speaks first, welcoming us three volunteers and the two Peace Corps workers who will be conducting a seminar on ecotourism on teh next day. The speaches are long and repetitive and the community, sitting on the floor at the edges of the school room, chatters over them. The four older men of the community take it in turns to welcome us and talk about their desire to encourage visitors to the community, the need to develop ecotourism in the community to provide an alternative to cutting the forest, what their community has to offer by means of traditional Shuar culture, the need to preserve their culture and the importance of protecting the rainforests. The we are given a demonstration of what the community has to offer to ecotourists, in the form of a performance of Shuar dancing. Jorge plays the pipes which four young men and girls in traditional costume dance for us.

The next night (Saturday) aftrer another dinner of plantain, rice, and peas, some boys come in from the forest carrying a watusi that they have caught. Watusi is a large rodent, not dissimilar to rat except for its size. The women immediately get to it, first synging the fur and scraping it off, and then carving it into smaller peices (head, spine, and all), and popping it into a pan of water for soup.

Looks appetizing, doesn´t it?

And the poor dog that caught the watusi, exchausted and covered in grime from the hole it ratted it out of, didn´t get any of it.

Some details

You have seen the picture of the volunteer house. On the right is the window to the room I am staying in. There are two bunk beds. I am staying on the top bunk of the bed closest to the window, and Brita (from New Jersey) is on the bottom bunk of the other bed. There is a line between the two beds to hang our dirty and wet clothes on (clothes are always dirty and wet).

The front door opens to the dining area, and to the left is the kitchen. There is electricity, although it goes off after there has been a big storm. Directly oppostite the front door on the other side is the back door, which opens onto a cobbled dirt path to the toilet and shower. The shower is a large bucket bin with a smaller tub for rinsing. The water comes from the river up in the forest, and has to be boiled before drinking.

At night the crickets chip, the frogs court each other and the dogs come out to bark. The moths are large and sometimes there are bats in the air, like the night in the picture below. The cockrels begin to crow at 4am, and soon after the reggaeton music starts to play (which is the one benefit of losing the power after a storm).


There are three of us volunteers. Me, Brita, and Uly from Salzwedel. We all agree that the food is boring and not very nutritious. White rice, beans, pasta, potatoes, sometimes soup but very rarely fresh vegetables. Today we have come to Puyo, the nearest town (an hour and a half bus ride away) to use the internet, have a hot shower and sleep on a real mattress, and (which I am looking forward to the most) eat in a restaraunt. Tonight I am going to try ceviche, an Ecuadorian delicacy which is basically raw seafood marinaded in citrus juices. We have been recommended a place that does excellent ceviche by a girl we met from the Peace Corps. If my stomach can cope with watusi (I´ll explain that later), it can cope with anything!

I am still getting my head around the work that we are doing, so I will write about that another time I think.

Tsuraku y Casa Jatun Sacha

.
This is the Casa Jatun Sacha on the right. The boy holding the rifle has just walked out of shot on the left.

The three small children of Natale, the guy resposible for us two volunteers here at Tsuraku (amongst many other things), play in front of the Casa with toy pistols. The little girl sits on a rockholding the amunition pellets in a plastic bag, and the small boys come to her for refils.

This is the pond in the back of the house. I tried to take pictures of the different coloured dragonflies, but they were too fast.

This is the view from the nursery I helped to paint yesterday. A little to the right is the new house that is under construction (temporarily delayed due to lack of funding). Yesterday afternoon I used a machete for the first time to clear the pampas from the grounds. The ground was damp, but I didn´t realise how damp until I fell thigh deep into a small rio that ran under the pampas.

Men at work

.

I am holding a large cooking pot full of yellow paint, passing it between the two men when their rollers run dry.

It occurs to me that as I am taller than the Shuar man, Miguel, perhaps I would be able to reach the high points he leaves unpainted, but never mind.

The difference between the way Miguel and Ulli (the German volunteer) work, is markable. The Shuar start a task, but don´t really think about the logisitcs of it. Miguel´s painting is all over the place, and when he can´t see how to do a tricky bit, he doesn´t bother, and starts something new. Ulli is meticulous and efficient. He takes a little longer, perhaps, but his work is neat. It frustrates Ulli that the Shuar are disorganised, but he accepts that the education levels here are incredibly low.

Another aspect of this though (I think) is part of the post-nomadic culture. The Shuar only began to transition (out of necessity) from being a nomadic people in the 1960´s, and I think that, to them, painting to the edges of a wall is not really a matter of priority. The important stuff always gets done.

A couple of hours later the nursery is fully painted both inside and out, and looks fantastic, regardless of wobbly edges. And it wasn´t Ulli or I that got the job done.

________________________________________________

As I began to write this in my notebook, crouched on the foundation timbers of Casa Jatun Sacha, a black headed parrot (Loro Coroninegro) landed on me and nestled in the curve of my neck. It nibbled the corner of my mouth, and then stuck its tongue down my ear. I am glad that I had my camera in my pocket. That wouldn´t have happened if I had been sat inside writing efficiently and ergonomically at a desk, would it?